А young Libyan artist Nour Jaouda’s solo Statements presentation titled “The shadow of every tree” (2024) was sold in its entirety to a single private collection. With work also included in this year’s Venice Biennale exhibition, this sale cements Jaouda’s status as one to watch.

Other top-sales include Arshile Gorky’s Untitled (Gray Drawing (Pastoral) (1946–47) sold for $16 million; Georgia O’Keeffe’s Sky with Moon (1966) sold for $13.5 million; Alexander Calder’s Snowflake Tree (1960) sold for $12 million; and Philip Guston’s Orders (1978) sold for $10 million.

As Iwan Wirth, the co-founder of Hauser & Wirth gallery remarked after the show that “in spite of the ‘doom porn’ currently circulating in the art press and along gossip grapevines, we are very confident in the art market’s resilience and the first day of Art Basel has confirmed our perspective.”

As reported by Arun Kakar, Art Market Editor at Artsy, several dealers reported stronger sales from this year’s edition of the fair compared to 2023, and many struck a resilient note against the backdrop of the tricky current art market. Many dealers, however, reported that sales were more uneven beneath the raft of blue-chip sales figures, noting that the more cautious moment for the art market at large is not over.