Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule May 15, 2026 visibility 15 link 24 artists, 2 galleries

Megadealer Larry Gagosian Is the Subject of Unauthorized Documentary In the Works from Director Barry Avrich

Director Barry Avrich is producing an unauthorized documentary titled "Shadow Man: Inside The Secret World of Larry Gagosian" about the legendary art dealer. The film, confirmed by Avrich via email, promises to feature interviews with former employees and artists sharing insider stories about Gagosian's rise from selling posters on LA streets to running a global gallery empire with 18 locations. Avrich previously directed art-world documentaries including "Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art" about the Knoedler & Co. forgery scandal and "Blurred Lines: Inside the Art World."

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article news schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 10 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

hunter biden art

The article discusses the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden's art career, focusing on his upcoming exhibition at Georges Bergès Gallery in October. Despite limited public exposure to his work, Bergès is pricing Biden's drawings at $75,000 and paintings at $500,000, placing him in the top tier of emerging artists. The White House issued ethics guidelines requiring buyer identities to remain secret from both Biden and the administration, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest. The author questions the wisdom of selling the art given Biden's public struggles with addiction and his family's political prominence.

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article news schedule Jul 16, 2025 visibility 13 link 5 artists

mick taylor guitar stolen met museum donation

A donation of 500 guitars to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May 2025, announced via a profile in The New Yorker, has become embroiled in controversy. Mick Taylor, former guitarist for the Rolling Stones, claims through his manager that one of the donated guitars—a Les Paul stolen from the band's French villa in 1971—is his property. The Met initially declined to comment, but later told The New York Times that Taylor played the guitar but never owned it, asserting a well-documented ownership history. The guitars were donated by collector Dirk Ziff, and the museum plans to open a permanent American guitar gallery in 2027.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 20, 2026 visibility 18 link 6 artists

philip leider artforum founding editor dead

Philip Leider, the founding editor of Artforum, died at his home in Berkeley, California, on January 11 at age 96. Leider helped transform Artforum into a leading source for rigorous art criticism after becoming its editor in 1962, but he left the publication in 1971 and largely disengaged from the mainstream art world, later teaching at the University of California, Irvine and the Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts in Israel.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 26, 2026 visibility 25 link 22 artists, 6 galleries

Renowned gallerist Marian Goodman has died, aged 97

Marian Goodman, the renowned contemporary art dealer, died on 22 January at the age of 97. Her eponymous gallery confirmed she passed peacefully of natural causes. Over a 60-year career, Goodman built a reputation for representing challenging, conceptually ambitious artists, including Gerhard Richter, Nan Goldin, Anselm Kiefer, Julie Mehretu, William Kentridge, and Nairy Baghramian. She opened her first gallery in New York in 1977 and later expanded to Paris and London, before closing the London space in 2020. In her final decade, the gallery saw high-profile departures but also added new artists and opened a Los Angeles location in 2023 and a new Tribeca space in 2024. A succession plan was announced in 2021, and the gallery is now led by partners Emily-Jane Kirwan, Rose Lord, Leslie Nolen, and Junette Teng.

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trending_up market schedule Aug 26, 2025 visibility 11 link 2 artists

sothebys fee structure trump tariffs

A New Yorker profile of Sotheby's and its billionaire owner Patrick Drahi reveals the chaotic aftermath of the auction house's failed 2024 fee restructuring. The plan, announced in February 2024 and enacted that May, standardized seller's commissions and buyer's premiums but backfired, driving away business and causing profits to plummet. By December, Sotheby's reversed course. The article quotes former and current employees who compare Drahi's management style to Donald Trump's tariff disputes, and recounts a tense June 2024 meeting where contemporary art chairman Grégoire Billault told Drahi he was losing business, only to be told by Drahi that everyone is replaceable.

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article culture schedule Jun 30, 2025 visibility 15 link 1 artist

curtis yarvin venice biennale

Far-right political blogger Curtis Yarvin has floated a proposal to take over the U.S. pavilion at the Venice Biennale with an "art ho"–themed exhibition centered on Titian's painting *The Rape of Europa* (1559–62). Yarvin discussed the idea in a New Yorker profile and promoted it in a YouTube video, which includes AI-generated imagery and a fake press release. He also reportedly rented a flat near Art Basel in Switzerland to host a party announcing the proposal. The article dismisses the initiative as a troll and a bid for MAGA cultural credibility, noting its lack of real momentum or institutional backing.

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