Art Basel’s Vincenzo De Bellis on Awards, Exclusives and Market Optimism

News / Fairs and Auctions Art Basel Launches New Initiative to Combat Pre-Fair Sales Imogen Lees

Paula Cooper Gallery has today been named the winner of the inaugural Art Basel Gallery Legacy Award, becoming the first gallery to be honoured through the fair’s recently established series of industry prizes, and marking the second fresh initiative to launch at this week’s Switzerland edition.

In April, the fair announced Basel Exclusive, an attempt to tackle the growing issue of galleries selling works to collectors before doors open by requesting they reserve selected pieces for this week’s in-person preview days. At the end of 2025, the V-VIP Avant Première was added to the programme at Art Basel Paris, just months after the 33 winners of the first edition of the Art Basel Awards were announced in Miami.

Asked about this expanding roster of new projects, De Bellis told Ocula that while not all change is good, the fair must continue to adapt to the unique needs of each of its now five locations, including the 2026 programme addition, Art Basel Qatar.

“Of course we want to evolve and we want to respond to what the status of the world and art world is,” he said. “My predecessors used to say that each fair is a reflection on the market and of the market, and that means that you have to be constantly monitoring what’s going on and acting and reacting.”

Celebrating commitment

In a statement announcing Paula Cooper Gallery’s win, Art Basel acknowledged that despite being its “core constituency”, galleries were omitted from the first edition of its awards last year, which celebrated artists, curators, institutions and patrons. The Gallery Legacy Award, presented to a gallery that has demonstrated sustained commitment to its artists, community and collectors while displaying market influence, ethical practice and intergenerational stewardship, is intended to fill this gap.

“All of these things make what a gallery is,” De Bellis said. “A gallery is mainly a place where you sell and buy art, but we all know that it’s more than that, especially for the galleries that are in the primary market, because they do nurture the artist in so many ways.”

Paula Cooper Gallery, which has taken part in Art Basel fairs since 1999, was selected by a jury of nine collectors and patrons. De Bellis said the group was impressed by Cooper’s dedication to artists, and ability to continue centring them amid expansion. 

“The word legacy, and the example of what a gallery can be, played a very important role,” he explained. “If you ask many people from the industry, they would rate [Cooper] as a giant for the way she has dealt with everything around her gallery.”

The gallery receives no cash prize as part of the award, with Art Basel instead contributing $50,000 USD towards the participation of an emerging generation gallery at next year’s fair. Paula Cooper Gallery has selected New York City’s Chapter NY to receive the funds.

De Bellis told Ocula that, while he acknowledges supporting just one young gallery is a largely symbolic move, he hopes it will highlight the important role these spaces play within the wider ecosystem, and will set an example for others.

“We hope that people are going to start seeing the fair, and therefore also the galleries, not only as places where the market happens, but also as spaces with responsibilities towards the newer generation of artists, and therefore collectors, and therefore the whole industry,” he said.

“There’s no future of the art world without the gallery world or without a new generation of galleries.”

Prioritising quality

The week’s second newly introduced initiative for the fair, Basel Exclusive, was also developed with the future of galleries in mind, and with their direct participation. While Art Basel did not have a say in the works held back by participating galleries from digital preview documents and online viewing rooms, it did request that galleries prioritise quality in their selections.

“It’s very, very personal,” De Bellis said of the process of selecting exclusive works for the programme. “I was surprised by some choices, in all the cases in a very positive way, because it helped me to understand more of what the DNA of each gallery is.”

As of 3pm on Tuesday, Hauser & Wirth had parted with 35 works, including the Art Basel Exclusive The Courtyard (1946) by Philip Guston, for an undisclosed sum. Later the same day, Almine Rech sold a Pablo Picasso reserved for the initiative for between $6 million and $6.5 million USD—the gallerist told Ocula that collector’s responses to the scheme had been positive.

São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro-based Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel brought six exclusive works by Brazilian artists, including Marina Rheingantz’s Pé do Ouvido (2026) and Antonio Tarsis’ Untitled (The colour side of the flames) (2025). Both works had sold by the end of Tuesday, for $80,000 USD and $32,000 USD respectively. 

Alexandre Gabriel, senior partner at Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, told Ocula: “Many collectors have told us they miss the excitement of encountering works for the first time on the fair floor, as was the case before preview PDFs became the norm.

“There is a sense of nostalgia for what the fair experience used to be and it’s wonderful to see that spirit being brought back.”

Asked about his own hopes for the outcome of the scheme—and sales more broadly, which have so far been buoyant—by the end of the fair, De Bellis said: “Well, the dream scenario, if you allow me a joke, is that each and every one of these works gets sold and goes to the best collections possible.”

On a serious note, he told Ocula that recent auction results have underlined a growing confidence seen in fair and gallery sales in recent months. “So, yes, I’m optimistic,” he said. “But we’re always vigilant and trying to improve wherever we need to improve.”