In October 2025, Frieze announced it would launch Frieze Abu Dhabi; Art Basel was already preparing its debut edition in Qatar—two moves signaling how “Soft power meets hard currency” had become the new art-market equation. My piece traced how that geography of power has shifted over the years. “It’s easy to forget that New York itself was once the upstart,” François Curiel recalled, evoking the 1970s shift that dethroned Paris as the auction capital. More recently, as I wrote: “Powerful new art hubs have taken hold as the economic might of Asia, the rise of post-Brexit Paris and soft power moves in the Gulf have undone the longtime dominance of New York and London, with consequences across the value chain.”
