From the Truth About Basquiat’s Myths to a Plan to Remake the Auction World: The Best and Worst of the Art World This Week

Plus, how museums in Mexico are dealing with the massive earthquake, and our guide to the revolving door of gallery-swapping artists.

Jean-Michel Basquiat. © Edo Bertoglio. Courtesy of Maripol. Artwork: © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.

BEST

  • Basquiat is booming—for real. Artnet News spoke to the curator of the new exhibition at London’s Barbican Center, which explores the cinema, music, and some other intriguing influences on the artist’s paintings.
  • TripAdvisor has released its list of the top museums in the world, with some surprising names at the top.
  • More than 200 artists came to the defense of documenta’s curatorial team to push back against the explosive charges leveled against the exhibition’s management in the German press.
  • The Hammer Museum’s recently opened exhibition “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985” got a rave review from our own Ben Davis. It’s radical.
  • Our editor Andrew Goldstein had a candid conversation with Phillips’s CEO Edward Dolman about the crafty ways the auction house is giving its bigger rivals a run for their money.
  • The Guggenheim has garnered support from more than 100 art institutions across the country to take a stand against President Trump’s so-called Muslim ban.

A museum doppelgänger shared by Bored Panda.

WORST

  • Following a massive earthquake on Tuesday, cultural institutions and archaeology sites in Mexico City and Puebla surveyed the damage.
  • A group of artists participating in “Deutschland 8,” the massive exhibition of German art in Beijing, have dispatched a letter of protest against one of the show’s sponsors (because they’re an arms dealer).
  • We found that a mere 25 artists represent a staggering share of all postwar and contemporary art auction sales. That’s crazy.
  • The hotly anticipated Guggenheim show “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World” is attracting criticism from animal-rights groups.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES


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