Billionaire Museums, Basel Buys, and Brexit Blues

Welcome to The Daily Art Download—your daily update on all of the art world news you need to know… I'm your host Percival Doodlewatt.
It is Sunday, June twenty-second, two thousand twenty-six. Let’s dive in.

Australia’s most stubbornly original museum is getting bigger. The Art Newspaper reports that Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art—Mona—opens a major new wing this weekend called Phrontisterion, the largest construction project in the museum’s 15-year history. Founder David Walsh, the multi-millionaire professional gambler behind the privately owned museum, says one early motive was to “actively re-educate people about how to use a museum.” The expansion is estimated at Aone hundred dollarsm and takes display space from eight thousand four hundred forty square metres to roughly twelve thousand six hundred forty. The wing includes a redeveloped library space showing work by Ben Jakober, and it houses Julian Charrière’s permanent installation Breathe, involving oxygen once trapped in iron ore formed 2.4 billion years ago during the Great Oxidation Event.

The Art Newspaper also looks back at Brexit’s impact on the UK art market, ten years after the 23 June 2016 vote to leave the European Union. The story notes how the debate has been complicated by other shocks—Covid-19, wars, recessions, and US tariffs under President Donald Trump—but the trade still points to day-to-day friction. Paul Hewitt of the Society of London Art Dealers says the impact is “amplified,” and lawyer Amanda Gray at Mischon de Reya lists the burdens dealers now navigate: import and export controls, temporary import, ATA carnets, and import VAT. Arts Economics data cited in the piece shows UK imports of art and antiques fell from three dollarsbn in 2019 to two dollarsbn in 2020. The UK still holds 18% of global trade value, down from 21% in 2016.

Over at Artnet News, there’s a piece dated 22 June 2026 titled “What Sold at Art Basel.” It’s presented as a “Price Database” feature and a roundup focused on the fair’s sales activity. The article is framed around tracking what dealers placed and what the market absorbed at Art Basel, offering a snapshot of buying at the fair. Beyond that central premise—what sold, and the pricing lens implied by Artnet’s market tools—the item is positioned as a quick, commerce-forward read tied to the Basel week calendar. It’s the kind of report collectors and observers scan to gauge momentum: what moved, what didn’t, and how the fair’s transactions read as signals about confidence at the top end of the market.

Back in the United States, ARTnews reports that Daniel “Danny” Simmons—artist, activist, philanthropist, and community leader—has died at 72, according to an announcement by his family, with no location, date, or cause given, as reported by the New York Times. Born in Hollis, Queens in 1953, Simmons was the older brother of Russell Simmons and Joseph Simmons, known as Rev. Run. In 1995 the brothers co-founded Rush Arts and the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, supporting exhibitions, events, art education, scholarships, and grants for disadvantaged artists of color. Simmons also founded Corridor Gallery in his Brooklyn loft and moved to Philadelphia in 2015, where he founded another Rush Arts. In a 2017 Griot interview, he said simply: “Art saves lives.”