A gallery betting on an emerging sculptor whose secondary market has not yet formed. A Colombian artist whose works appeared at five auction houses in a single week without a single unsold lot. A London exhibition that reviews and reinterprets one of the twentieth century's most consequential painters. And the most talked-about pavilion at the Venice Biennale, where two-hour queues formed outside a flooded room.
FAIR FOCUS: Kathleen Ryan at Gagosian, TEFAF New York
Gagosian dedicated its entire TEFAF New York booth to new sculptures by Kathleen Ryan, presenting the latest additions to her Bad Fruit series. Gagosian has been building Ryan's market with notable conviction since announcing its global representation of the artist in November 2024. The pace of activity since then has been striking: flagship placement at the London gallery, a major survey of her work at the Kistefos Museum in Norway, and now a solo TEFAF booth presentation. Artsignal’s records include a 2019 work sold at Christie's in May 2025 for $163,800 with fees, within its $120,000 to $180,000 estimate, but no other works by the artist have entered the major global salerooms. Her secondary market data is thin, but Gagosian is making a sustained, public argument for where this artist belongs. TEFAF was a visible expression of that conviction.
AUCTION HIGHLIGHT: Olga de Amaral at Bonhams New York
Olga de Amaral's Imagen perdida 35 (2005) sold at the Bonham’s inaugural evening sale at its new New York flagship for $787,900 aggregate, more than double the pre-sale low estimate. But that result was only one moment in a remarkable week for the Colombian artist. Artsignal tracked eight de Amaral lots across five houses in May. Between Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips, Bonhams, and Freeman's, her works generated $5.3 million with fees. Phillips led by value at 48% of the total, anchored by Umbra E (2015), which sold for $1,677,000 against a $600,000 to $800,000 estimate. Of the eight lots offered, half sold above their high estimates and half within estimate. Not a single work failed to find a buyer. The breadth of house representation and the uniformity of the sell-through confirm a deep market for the 93-year-old artist.
Olga de Amaral, Imagen perdida 35, 2005. Image courtesy of Bonhams.
GALLERY SPOTLIGHT: Francis Picabia at Hauser & Wirth London
On May 21, Hauser & Wirth opened its Savile Row space with "Expanding Horizons," a career-spanning survey of Francis Picabia organized in collaboration with the Comité Picabia. The show covers five decades of work, from his early Impressionist landscapes to his Dada period, Transparency paintings, wartime figurative art, and the textured abstractions of his final years. It is the most comprehensive presentation of Picabia's work in London in two decades. Days before the opening, Picabia works went under the hammer at Sotheby's and Phillips New York. All but one work sold above pre-sale high estimates, totaling $1.78 million aggregate against pre-sale expectations of $830,000 to $1,200,000.
"Expanding Horizons" at Hauser & Wirth runs through August 1.
EXHIBITION FOCUS: Florentina Holzinger at the Austrian Pavilion, Venice Biennale
Choreographer and performance artist Florentina Holzinger represents Austria at the 61st Venice Biennale with Seaworld Venice, a bold interdisciplinary commission on view through November 22, 2026. The pavilion's flooded interior features performers suspended from rigging, a jet ski circling through the water as a nod to tourism-fueled ecological catastrophe, and a weathervane that functions simultaneously as symbol of hope and a warning system. Since opening, it has generated two-hour queues and a steady stream of images circulating online despite repeated requests not to photograph the installation performance. Whether one reads Seaworld Venice as body-horror provocation or a genuinely felt response to ecological precarity — it is the work at this Biennale that has most successfully made the pavilion format feel urgent rather than ceremonial.
Florentina Holzinger, SEAWORLD VENICE, 2026. Installation view, Austrian Pavilion, 61st Biennale di Venezia. Photo: © Nicole Marianna Wytyczak. Courtesy of the Austrian Pavilion.
The art world moves quickly, and so do we. Artsignal's teams in New York, London, and Hong Kong will continue tracking the market across fairs, auctions, and exhibitions as the season progresses. Next month, our attention turns to Art Basel Switzerland and the major London auctions.