First Day Sales at Frieze New York 2025 Includes $3 M. Koons Sculpture

After days of concurrently damp and drizzly climate, Frieze New York opened its doorways to a heat, brilliant, and energetic morning on Wednesday. In comparison with final 12 months’s spring artwork week, this 12 months’s is very jam-packed, with Frieze and TEFAF’s US version opening 24 hours aside, versus every week aside. And so, the gross sales flooring was animated all through the VIP day.

On high of the bevy of gala’s, there are a large number of gallery reveals, museum exhibitions, and artwork gala’s opening or already on view this week. In a market the place collectors are selecting to take issues extra slowly relating to spending their time—and their cash—than in earlier years, that’s seemingly a great factor.

However there’s extra within the air than speak in regards to the market. The aisles buzzed with conversations of the monetary and political state of the world.

“This week will set the tone for the way the worldwide market will behave within the coming months,” London-based adviser Arianne Piper informed ARTnews. “The unlucky fact is that the political state of affairs has disrupted that. It’s not a lot the present financial state of affairs however the concern of the financial penalties of that state of affairs.” That mentioned, Piper added that the individuals who made it out to the Frieze on Wednesday are shopping for. “It’s not in regards to the cash. It’s in regards to the bandwidth.”

Notably, Gagosian had a solo presentation of three sculptures by Jeff Koons, the artist’s first collaboration since departing the mega-gallery’s roster in 2021. This trio “Hulk” works—Hulk (Organ), Hulk (Tubas), and Hulk (Dragon and Turtle)—got here from the Koons’s private assortment and have been put in in entrance of a customized vinyl backdrop, derived from his 2007 portray Triple Hulk Elvis III.

“The honest is off to an amazing begin and the response to our sales space has been phenomenal,” Gagosian senior director Millicent Wilner mentioned in an announcement, which famous that Hulk (Tubas) had already offered. When ARTnews requested in regards to the value of every of the three mixed-media works, the gallery declined to remark, however well-places sources inform ARTnews that Hulk (Tubas) offered for $3 million.

Thaddaeus Ropac, which at the moment has areas in three European cities and Seoul, reported a robust begin at Frieze New York, with a slower however extra deliberate pace of gross sales regardless of robust attendance. “Individuals are taking their time and being actually thought of,” he mentioned, including that the gallery stays “cautiously optimistic” about general outcomes.

Early gross sales embrace Liza Lou’s Zeugma (2024) for $225,000; Joan Snyder’s mixed-media Float (2015) for $210,000; David Salle’s Bow Tie (2024) for $130,000 to a US-based collector; a Martha Jungwirth portray for €85,000; and a Robert Longo drawing for $65,000. Two small works by Megan Rooney offered for £18,000 every, with a bigger portray, priced at £75,000, at the moment on maintain. Georg Baselitz’s Motto: sexuelle Niete sagt Heidegger sagt Celan can also be on reserve for €1 million.

Tempo Gallery saved issues sharp at Frieze New York with a two-artist presentation pairing Adam Pendleton and Lynda Benglis. Pendleton curated the sales space himself, which options 4 “Black Dada” work from 2024 and two “Motion” work from 2025. For her half, Benglis has six bronze sculptures, accomplished between 2021 and 2024, that play off Pendleton’s canvases, showcasing their totally different approaches to abstraction. All six of Adam Pendleton’s work discovered consumers inside the first couple of hours of the honest for between $165,000 and $425,000, whereas a number of works by Lynda Benglis offered for between $275,000 and $300,000.

New York seller Andrew Kreps described the primary day of the honest as going “rather well” with nice power for Jes Fan’s 2023 sculpture Cross Part (Proper Leg Muscle II) promoting for $26,000; Harold Stevenson’s 1967 portray Untitled (Hand signal language) going for $70,000; and Haldi Falapishi’s Skilled Painter in a Dream (2025) for $25,000. 

The gallery additionally offered 4 editions of Roe Ethridge’s UV-cured pigment print, Ranunculus in Copper Pot at Hermes, 24 rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré Rooftop (2023), for $16,000 every, and Ernie Barnes’s 1995 Examine II for The Dream Unfolds was additionally on maintain. Curiosity, Kreps mentioned, was “throughout the board,” primarily from collectors in New York and Miami. 

When ARTnews requested if he was involved about gross sales at Frieze throughout what many think about a cooling curiosity in modern artwork, Kreps replied that it helped that his costs have been within the low-to-mid vary. “Immediately, I felt there could be lots of enthusiasm, and I believe individuals are eager to get on the market and take into consideration artwork,” he informed ARTnews.

For its sales space, Casey Kaplan Gallery had a solo presentation of glass and stainless-steel sculptures by Hannah Levy, with a number of works, priced between $45,000 and $80,000, promoting to US-based collectors through the first day. 

“It’s been good power,” senior director Emily Epelbaum-Bush informed ARTnews, noting new collectors and curators dropping by the sales space. “We’ve seen individuals we haven’t seen in a while. We’re actually excited in regards to the starting of the honest.”

Goodman Gallery, which has places in Johannesburg and Cape City, in addition to New York and London, had a gaggle show highlighting artists who’ve had necessary worldwide spotlights over the previous 12 months. A big-scale portray by Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, contemporary from her solo exhibition final 12 months on the Barbican in London, offered for $90,000 to “a seminal New York assortment,” the gallery mentioned. Moreover, a piece by Carrie Mae Weems, from her 2021 sequence “Portray the City,” offered for $100,000 to a Dutch collector. Each works have been offered with the promise that they’d be donated to establishments sooner or later, in accordance with the gallery. Their presentation additionally contains works by William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat, and Ravelle Pillay, alongside new items by Yinka Shonibare and Kapwani Kiwanga. 

“Clearly, you recognize, it’s an intriguing time to be in america—if not the world,” mentioned Anthony Dawson, director of the gallery’s Cape City location. “It’s great to see that individuals are nonetheless so dedicated to the manufacturing of latest artwork.”

Karma additionally reported a profitable first day at Frieze New York, led by the $350,000 sale of Owl for Emil (1958), a modestly sized portray by Gertrude Abercrombie, who’s at the moment the topic of a significant retrospective on the Carnegie Museum of Artwork in Pittsburgh. Different noteworthy gross sales embrace Richard Mayhew’s Mountain Mindscape (1969) for $350,000, Manoucher Yektai’s Blue Desk (1960) for $275,000, and Reggie Burrows Hodges’s Referees: To The Home (2021) for $175,000. 

Tina Kim, who dropped at the honest a variety of works from the ladies artists of their program, offered works by Lee ShinJa, Ghada Amer, Pacita Abad, and Suki Seokyeong Kang for between $80,000 and $200,000.

It’s not shocking that there was a substantial amount of curiosity in the way forward for Frieze, which as of final week has a brand new proprietor (if solely tangentially). Earlier this month, Endeavor Group Holdings sold Frieze, together with its journal and world portfolio of gala’s, to its Ari Emmanuel, Endeavor’s former CEO, and a consortium of buyers for a reported $200 million. That sale was the spark of hypothesis amongst greater than a handful of VIP day attendees, although few have been keen to take a position or give Frieze’s new house owners recommendation. 

“There’s a possibility right here, to essentially enhance the income stream and give you a brand new, revolutionary enterprise mannequin,” writer and artwork market observer Magnus Resch informed ARTnews. “The straightforward enterprise mannequin of actual property arbitrage isn’t working anymore. You’ll be able to’t simply open new places.”

For Resch, the way forward for artwork gala’s would contain variable pricing fashions for the galleries that take part and an expanded providing: watches and collectibles, one thing Resch admits would possibly alienate present patrons. He added, “Frieze has an opportunity to develop into the main participant within the artwork world. They simply need to cease dwelling up to now.”