From Banksy’s True Identity to Jeff Koons’s Mass Layoffs: The Best and Worst of the Art World This Week

See what you missed.

Revellers watch the sunrise as they celebrate the pagan festival of Summer Solstice at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, southern England on June 21, 2017. Photo: CHRIS J RATCLIFFE/AFP/Getty Images.

BEST

Will the real van Gogh please stand up? A proposed alternative to the artist’s mythic story.

An interview with the scientist behind the new, super blue, coming soon to your Crayola box.

Arthur Brand is on a crusade to recover the lost masterpieces of the Stewart Gardner Museum.

At the Imp-Mod sale at Sotheby’s London, Kandinsky’s record was broken—twice.

There’s a parrot living in the Guggenheim this month, and a Felix Gonzales-Torres work is making its rounds across the city.

Did a loose-lipped British DJ just drop the mic on Banksy’s true identity?

It’s officially summer—check out the stunning pictures from the summer solstice, and a roundup of the best public artworks for the dog days ahead.

 

Hercules and his ball. Photo by Jena Friedman.

Hercules and his ball. Photo by Jena Friedman.

WORST

The Antarctic Biennial got some icy responses when artists’ work got the shaft.

Our national critic did not like documenta 14. Here’s why.

A trove of Nazi artifacts was found in a secret room housed in suburban Buenos Aires.

A tone deaf end to the grand tour of art fairs this summer in Hydra.

Jeff Koons is having quite the week: artnet News reported on the layoffs that slashed his studio staff by nearly half. And we dispatched intrepid humorist Jena Friedman to Koons’s show in LA; here’s what she thought.

 

The Centro Botín in Santander. Photo Enrico Cano, courtesy Centro Botín.

The Centro Botín in Santander. Photo Enrico Cano, courtesy Centro Botín.

CH-CH-CHANGES 

Sotheby’s Europe announced the appointment of Jan Prasens as Managing Director.

Berlin’s Silberkuppe Gallery announced it is closing this summer.

The Renzo Piano-designed Centro Botín has finally opened its doors; here’s a sneak peek.

Dame Julia Peyton-Jones, former Director of the Serpentine Gallery, is crossing over to the commercial world, joining Galerie Thaddeus Ropac as Senior Global Director.


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