Rare ‘Ocean Dream’ Diamond Sells for Record $17.3 Million at Christie’s

A rare 5.5-carat blue-green diamond known as the 'Ocean Dream' sold for $17.3 million at Christie’s Geneva jewelry sale, setting a record for a fancy vivid blue-green diamond at auction. The sale far exceeded its presale estimate of $9 million to $13 million after a 20-minute bidding battle. In other auction news, Sotheby’s New York sold over $433 million worth of art in its contemporary art sales, including 11 pieces from the Robert Mnuchin collection. Meanwhile, London’s Wellcome Collection agreed to return around 2,000 sacred Jain manuscripts to the Jain religious community under a new restitution framework, acknowledging they were acquired unethically. Several art fairs were announced, including Zero 10 curated by Trevor Paglen at Art Basel in Switzerland, CAN Art Fair Ibiza’s fifth edition, and Art-o-rama’s 20th edition in Marseille. Notable gallery news includes the bankruptcy and closure of French gallery Air de Paris after 36 years, and Carine Karam becoming director of Opera Gallery’s New York outpost. Hong Kong’s M+ and Paris’s Centre Pompidou announced a multi-year strategic alliance, and New York’s Frick Collection entered a three-year partnership with Louis Vuitton.

Maurizio Cattelan Opens Up About Sin, Silence, and Stealing: ‘I’m Guilty Too’

Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan directed the Renaissance Society’s annual benefit gala, titled "The Silent Party!", held at the Chicago Athletic Club during the week of Expo Chicago. The event subverted traditional gala expectations by requiring guests to remain silent for two hours, communicating only via handwritten notes while navigating a labyrinth of performances. The evening featured contributions from artists including Jacob Ryan Renolds, Davide Balula, and Isabelle Frances McGuire, culminating in a dinner that raised approximately $600,000 for the non-profit institution.

Outgoing MCA Chicago Director Madeleine Grynsztejn Offers the Consummate Insider’s Guide to the Windy City

100 Masterpieces to See at the Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago has released a curated guide to 100 essential masterpieces within its massive one-million-square-foot campus. The selection spans global art history, ranging from ancient Egyptian mummies and Greek statues to iconic American sculptures like Edward Kemeys’s bronze lions and Narcissa Niblack Thorne’s intricate miniature rooms. The list is designed to help visitors navigate the museum's vast collection by grouping works by their physical location within the galleries.

art industry news october 9 2019

Sotheby’s Hong Kong concluded its fall auction series with a robust $426 million total, headlined by a record-breaking $25 million sale for Yoshitomo Nara. Amidst this market momentum, Nara’s upcoming LACMA retrospective was announced to travel to Shanghai’s Yuz Museum. Meanwhile, the New York art scene is bracing for major institutional milestones, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 150th-anniversary plans and the imminent public opening of MoMA’s $450 million expansion.

roberts projects esmaa mohamoud cristin tierney debbi kenote

The art world saw significant roster changes and leadership appointments this week, including Roberts Projects announcing representation of Esmaa Mohamoud and Cristin Tierney adding Debbi Kenote. Notable institutional moves include Charles Chemin being named Artistic Director of the Watermill Center and Julia Siemon stepping into a newly created Deputy Director role at the Bard Graduate Center. Additionally, the mid-season auction market showed unexpected strength, highlighted by Jeff Koons’s 'Winter Bears' selling for $7.6 million at Christie’s.

new trustees at seattle art museum industry moves

This week's art industry moves include François Ghebaly now representing Paris-based painter Xie Lei, a finalist for the 2025 Prix Marcel Duchamp, whose work is on view at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris. Gray gallery in Chicago and New York has taken on pioneering abstractionist Candida Alvarez, with a solo exhibition planned for Fall 2027, while she continues to be represented by Monique Meloche Gallery. The Seattle Art Museum elected five new trustees: Joanna Beitel, Martha Draves, Margaret Morris, Jordon Voss, and returning former trustee Lyn Grinstein. The Khadhok—Tibetan Artists' Collective won the 2025 Rubin Museum Himalayan Art Prize, a $30,000 unrestricted award. Additionally, Canadian collector François Odermatt paid $19 million for Peter Doig's 1994 painting *Ski Jacket* at Christie's London, far exceeding its presale estimate.

duct taped banana maurizio cattelan comedian eaten again

A visitor at France's Pompidou-Metz ate a banana from Maurizio Cattelan's conceptual artwork "Comedian" (2019), which consists of a banana duct-taped to a wall. Security staff intervened calmly, and the work was reinstalled within minutes, as the fruit is regularly replaced per the artist's instructions. The incident occurred during the exhibition "The Endless Sunday," celebrating the museum's 15th anniversary, which features 30 works by Cattelan alongside over 400 others from the Musée National d'Art Moderne.

art basel qatar wael shawky artistic director

Art Basel has appointed artist Wael Shawky as the artistic director of its upcoming fair in Doha, Qatar, scheduled to open in February. This marks a departure from the company's usual practice of selecting directors from the commercial art world. Shawky, who represented Egypt at the Venice Biennale and has had solo exhibitions at Tate Modern and MoMA PS1, will curate around 50 single-artist presentations across two venues, M7 and the Doha Design District, with equal pricing for exhibitors initially. A selection committee including dealers from international and regional galleries will assist in choosing participants.

Yinka Shonibare Joins Mennour, a Fake Fake Monet, and More: Industry Moves for May 20, 2026

The article reports on several key moves in the art world as of May 20, 2026. Tina Kim Gallery will represent the estate of Singaporean British sculptor and printmaker Kim Lim, with a debut at Art Basel in June and a solo show in 2027. Yinka Shonibare has joined Paris gallery Mennour, which will host his first solo exhibition in October. Pace Gallery now represents the Brâncuși estate, planning a London exhibition this fall. Clarissa Morales has been named the first Chief Operating Officer of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, moving from the Carnegie Museum of Art. Additionally, Jackson Pollock's Number 7A, 1948 sold for $181.2 million at Christie's, setting a new artist record. A viral social media post featuring a fake Monet painting created by AI sparked debate online.

The Wild Nine-Month Journey that Led to Nathaniel Mary Quinn Designing the Rolling Stones’ New Album Cover

Nathaniel Mary Quinn was commissioned to create the cover art for the Rolling Stones' new album *Foreign Tongues*, due July 10, after a three-way call with Mick Jagger and producer Andrew Watt. Over nine months, Quinn developed a composite portrait merging the faces of Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood, and also redesigned the band's iconic tongue-and-lips logo. The process involved regular conversations with Jagger and Richards, a private rehearsal session, and a lunch at the Baccarat Hotel, culminating in the band choosing Quinn's original composite over a second option featuring a vintage sports car.

Hampshire College, Whose Alumni List Includes Many Well-Known Artists, to Close After 51 Years

Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, has announced it will officially close following the fall 2026 semester, ending 51 years of operation. The decision follows a period of significant financial instability, including a reported $20 million debt and a failure to meet enrollment targets. The college has established agreements with regional institutions, such as Smith College and Bennington College, to allow current students to complete their degrees elsewhere.

Paint Drippings: Art Industry News February 23

paint drippings art industry news feb 23

This week’s art industry roundup highlights major shifts across the global market, including Art Basel’s announcement of 290 galleries for its flagship Swiss fair and Sotheby’s adjustment of its buyer’s premium rates. Significant personnel moves include Devyani Saltzman’s abrupt departure from the Barbican, which sparked an open letter from over 170 cultural figures, and Anne-Claire Legendre becoming the first woman to lead Paris’s Arab World Institute.

bonhams new hq opens lubaina himi wins pamm prize

Auction house Bonhams has opened a new 42,000-square-foot flagship headquarters in New York's Steinway Hall, launching a month of exhibitions and sales. The Philadelphia Museum of Art appointed Katherine Anne Paul as its new curator of Indian and Himalayan Art, while the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) awarded its Fund for Black Art Acquisition Prize to Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid, acquiring her painting "Horn Seller." Several galleries announced new artist representations, including Bortolami with Nathlie Provosty and Deborah Schamoni with Mariann Metsis, and auction house Freeman's appointed two senior executives.

artnotnet facebook marketplace art la scene

Artnet News is searching for a permanent writer for its Wet Paint gossip column, with guest writers like Janelle Zara filling in temporarily. The column focuses on speculating about the identity of the anonymous Instagram account @artnotnet, which posts humorous, all-caps commentary on art world headlines, and notes the rise of art sales on platforms like Facebook Marketplace.

a reporters tour art basel miami beach nightlife

ARTnews reporter Daniel Cassady recounts his experience navigating the nightlife and social events surrounding Art Basel Miami Beach 2024. The article details his week from Monday to Wednesday, including parties at Untitled Art's venue at The Moore, a dinner at Joe's Stone Crab hosted by dealer Rob Dimin, Gagosian's party at Mr. Chow, and late-night gatherings at Casa Tua and Mac's Club Deuce. He spotlights art-world figures such as dealer Lindsey Jarvis, collector Beth DeWoody, and artist Lucy de Kooning Villeneuve, while noting the chaotic, phone-thieving atmosphere of the Deuce.

zohran mamdani names arts culture transition committee

jay gorney modern art archives launch

The New York Gallery History Project, a partnership between Independent and Contemporary Art Library, has launched the digital archives of Jay Gorney Modern Art, a seminal New York gallery that operated from 1985 to 1998. The archive includes documentation of landmark exhibitions such as Lari Pittman's first New York solo show, Nan Goldin's first prints of "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" (1985), and shows by Catherine Opie, Barbara Bloom, and others. The project also collects material from other closed galleries like Foxy Production, Off Vendome, and Paradise Garage to preserve art history that might otherwise be lost.

cai guo qiang centre pompidou activists respond

Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang staged a fireworks performance titled *Le Dernier Carnival (The Last Carnival)* outside the Centre Pompidou in Paris on October 22, during Paris Art Week, to mark the museum's five-year closure for renovations. The show, created in collaboration with White Cube gallery, used pyrotechnics, paint, and a custom-built AI model. Activists from Students for a Free Tibet France protested the event, condemning Cai for a previous pyrotechnic stunt in Tibet that sparked environmental concerns and led to the dismissal of four Chinese officials.

louvre heist security experts prevent art theft

On Sunday at around 9:30 a.m., robbers broke into the Louvre's Apollo Gallery using a cherry picker and an angle grinder, stealing nine pieces of jewelry worth an estimated $102 million in less than eight minutes. ARTnews consulted security experts who noted that the theft exploited systemic vulnerabilities, pointing to a pattern of recent museum heists including the Natural History Museum in Paris, the Drents Museum in the Netherlands, and the Dresden crown jewels theft in Germany. The Louvre had previously faced staff walkouts over inadequate security staffing, and director Laurence des Cars has requested a police station be installed at the museum.

david adjaye museums open without starchitect

René Magritte's surrealist masterpiece *La Magie Noire*, unseen on the market for nearly a century, will be auctioned at Sotheby's Paris later this month with an estimate over $8 million. The painting was originally purchased by the family of WWII resistance heroine Suzanne Spaak, who supported Magritte during a financially difficult period. Separately, three major museums designed by star architect David Adjaye—the Princeton University Art Museum, the Museum of West African Art in Benin City, and the Studio Museum in Harlem—are set to open this fall, but institutions are downplaying Adjaye's involvement following sexual misconduct allegations he denied in 2023. Other news includes Pace Gallery closing its Hong Kong space, Colnaghi opening in Riyadh, and the death of ARTnews owner Milton Esterow.

sally mann black men photographs art work memoir

Photographer Sally Mann reveals in her new memoir *Art Work* that she now has reservations about her series “Men,” which features Black men photographed between 2004 and 2018. She writes that she removed 14 of those images from her 2018 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art after the 2017 Whitney Biennial controversy over Dana Schutz’s painting of Emmett Till’s open casket, which made Mann reconsider the ethics of a white artist representing Black subjects. Mann describes the series as “problematic” and acknowledges that historically marginalized people should tell their own stories. She currently has 150 unshown works from the series, which will not appear in a planned 2027 survey.

rashid johnson painting howard lutnick tequila video

United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posted a video on social media showing off a new tequila bottle, but the backdrop featured a painting from Rashid Johnson's "Anxious Red" series. The artwork, confirmed by Hauser & Wirth as an authentic Johnson piece purchased on the secondary market, sparked criticism online due to the irony of Lutnick—a Trump appointee whose administration has cut public health funding—owning a work born from pandemic-era anxiety. The series originally supported the WHO's Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund through a 2020 charity auction, the same organization Trump withdrew the U.S. from on his first day in office.

andrew cuomo zohran mamdani mayoral campaign donations

Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo relaunched his New York mayoral campaign as a third-party candidate on July 14, after losing the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani by 12 points on June 24. A recent ARTnews data analysis reveals that prominent art world figures have donated to both campaigns, with Cuomo receiving contributions from Christie's executives, Phillips and Sotheby's staff, Gagosian directors, art dealers, and museum leaders, while Mamdani drew support from foundation directors, museum curators, gallery directors, and numerous artists. The pro-Cuomo super PAC Fix the City received $5 million from billionaire Michael Bloomberg and $250,000 from Top 200 collector Daniel Loeb, while the pro-Mamdani super PAC raised about $1.4 million.

the pioneer works gala 2025

The Pioneer Works Village Fete, held on May 6 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, raised $1.4 million for the nonprofit arts institution. The event featured speeches by Austin Hearst (filmmaker and grandson of the media baron, whose wife Gabriela Hearst was lead sponsor) and founder Dustin Yellin, who also celebrated his 50th birthday. Attendees included Claire Danes, Darren Aronofsky, Fred Wilson, Maggie Rogers, and Moses Sumney, with a performance by David Byrne. The benefit auction included works by Derrick Adams and Nate Lewis, and party favors were provided by Gotham, a cannabis company.

hauser and wirth new york museum mega gallery shows

This spring in New York, major museum surveys at MoMA, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art feature artists all represented by the mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth: Jack Whitten, Amy Sherald, Rashid Johnson, and Lorna Simpson. The article notes that this concentration has been dubbed "Hauser spring" by some observers, and questions the increasingly blurred line between commercial galleries and museums, especially as Hauser & Wirth has provided financial support for at least three of the four shows.

Anna Zemánková Estate Joins Gladstone Gallery, Sándra Vasquez de la Horra Joins Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and More: Industry Moves for April 29, 2026

The article reports a series of industry moves in the art world as of April 29, 2026. Key developments include Gladstone Gallery taking on the estate of Anna Zemánková, Sándra Vasquez de la Horra joining Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Elijah Wheat Showroom opening a new location in Beacon, New York, and Mariane Ibrahim now representing Leasho Johnson. Additionally, Denniston Hill launches its 2026 residency season with 30 artists, the Minneapolis Institute of Art receives restoration funding from TEFAF, Charlie White is appointed dean of the Sam Fox School, and Jesús Hilario-Reyes and Tichacoco are named inaugural recipients of the Clemente Center’s Van Lier Fellowship. The article also notes a whistleblower claim of $3 million missing from the Palm Springs Art Museum’s investment account, and a New York Times essay by Robin Givhan on Derrick Adams.

LA’s The Box Gallery to Close After 19 Years

The Box, a prominent Los Angeles gallery, announced it will close after 19 years, with its final exhibition—a two-venue collaboration with Parker Gallery for late California artist Wally Hedrick—ending April 4. The closure will be marked by a fashion show for Johanna Went on June 6. Founder Mara McCarthy cited a combination of factors, including changing economics around support for her father Paul McCarthy's work and the loss of her family's homes in the January 2025 Eaton fire, as making continued operation impossible.

meg webster comme des garcons dia perfume

Artist Meg Webster has collaborated with the Dia Art Foundation and Japanese fashion house Comme des Garçons to release her first signature perfume. The fragrance, inspired by Webster’s sensory earthworks made of soil and salt, features woodsy and petrichor notes housed in a silver tetrahedral box that mirrors her sculptural vocabulary. To celebrate the launch, a 2017 sculpture by Webster will be installed at the Comme des Garçons boutique in Chelsea, Manhattan.

golestan palace tehran damaged us israel bombing

The Golestan Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Tehran, has sustained damage following US-Israeli airstrikes targeting the Iranian capital. According to Iran’s cultural heritage minister, Reza Salehi-Amiri, the Qajar-era complex suffered damage to its historic windows, doors, and mirrors due to blast shockwaves and debris. The escalation of the regional conflict has further impacted cultural hubs across the Middle East, with debris falling near Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island and major institutions in Qatar and the UAE temporarily closing their doors.