The Global Director of Art Basel says he expects this year's fair to give an "immediate snapshot" of the state of the art market.

Vincenzo de Bellis compared the fair, which opened its Unlimited section to VIPs today, to events like the Venice Biennale which he said looked at art with "longer timelines" and "historical perspective".

He told the Art Basel website: "Art fairs, on the other hand, deliver a more immediate snapshot. They function as agile, high-frequency stages where new ideas surface, new artists break through, and the market reacts in real time."

Many in the art world will be hoping that snapshot is a more positive one than was provided by recent auction weeks in London and New York which told a story of falling sales marked by some high profile flops such as the $70 million Alberto Giacometti which failed to find a buyer at Sotheby's.

Among the artists pulling in the crowds already at Basel are Steve McQueen's abstract show at the Schaulager and the paintings, drawings and sculptures of Vija Celmins at Fondation Beyeler.

Maike Cruse, the Art Basel veteran who now directs the Swiss edition, has introduced a new section called Premiere for collectors focusing on the newest of new artists’ works.

And a word of advice for any of our readers in Basel unsure of where to go - just follow the purple bags. The tote bags were handed out to VIPs at Liste this morning and can be spotted in all the best places already.

Tributes have been paid to philanthropist and art collector Leonard Lauder who has died aged 92.

The businessman, who took over the family cosmetics empire founded by and named after his mother Estée, was a prominent supporter of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

His collection of Cubist art, valued at around $1 billion and including work by Juan Gris and Fernand Leger, was pledged to the Met more than 20 years ago and he also set up a research center for modern art at the museum.

Former Met director and CEO Thomas Campbell paid tribute on Instagram, praising Lauder's "generosity and... extraordinary vision".

Lauder, who was a trustee at the Whitney for more than three decades, spent $31.8 million buying the Gris still life The Musician's Table which he also gave to the Met.

His service to the Whitney was recognized when the museum's Renzo Piano-designed building in the Meatpacking District was named after him.

The isolating power of fame is the inspiration behind a new collaboration between Ryan Gander and former French soccer player Eric Cantona.

The pair have teamed up for a show at the Manchester International Festival, Privileges of Hindsight, which will feature a spotlight randomly picking out and following an audience member as they make their way through the exhibition recreating what organizers describe as "the isolating glare of celebrity".

It will be soundtracked by a song written by Cantona and every 100th visitor will receive an inscribed ticket from the Frenchman's last Premier League game for Manchester United in 1997.

The festival, which runs from July 4 to August 25 and is curated by a team including Serpentine Gallery artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist, has paired 11 artists with footballers including Manchester United and England women's star Ella Toone with artistic collective Keiken.

They will invite visitors to step up to a podium and put on a large mask inspired by Toone’s spirit animal, the Shetland pony, which will allow them to listen to her discussing her life on and off the pitch.

Musician Brian Eno and Anne Imhof are among the panel responsible for commissioning French artist Christelle Oyiri's new work at London's Tate Modern which goes on show tomorrow.

The installation, called In a perpetual remix where is my own song?, features large bronze sculptures of a woman's body mounted on top of speakers which act as plinths.

A moving spotlight picks out the figures with an accompanying soundtrack and video art playing on the walls.

Oyiri, who started out as a DJ, has shown her work in institutions from the Pompidou Center in Paris to the Haus der Kunst in Munich.

1 - Thaddaeus Ropac's new Milan gallery opens on September 20 with an exhibition of works by Georg Baselitz and Lucio Fontana. It also announced its second exhibition would be "a landmark pairing of two major female artists" which will open in November.

2 - The University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art has been given a $2.45 million grant to support its provenance research work. Last year, the museum handed back a sacred painting to a Korean order of Buddhist monks after discovering it had been stolen from their temple in 1989.

3 - Sculptor Joel Shapiro has died aged 83. Shapiro, whose work has graced the rooftop of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and outside the United States Holocaust Museum, was represented for decades by Pace Gallery which announced his death at the weekend.