BEST
Leonardo DiCaprio continues his support for charity while amassing a top-notch art collection; he snapped up a $125,000 Ed Ruscha at a benefit auction for the J/P Haitian Relief Organization.
Also in collecting-related news, Richard Prince wants to disavow a work of his that he sold to Ivanka Trump before her father announced his presidential run; he told the New York Times he’s even returning his portion of the sales price.
German tech billionaire Hasso Plattner is just about ready to cut the ribbon on the Museum Barberini, in Potsdam.
Conceptual artist Luis Camnitzer created a petition calling for Trump’s border wall to take the form of a Christo fence—in orange, of course.
WORST
artnet News contributor Kenny Schachter informs us that he lost artworks in a fire in his home. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
If you love modern and contemporary art but hate the cramped spaces where it’s displayed at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, you’ll be sad that an overhaul of those galleries will have to wait.
Felt works by German artist Joseph Beuys were eaten by moths in a German museum.
Republican congressmen are intent not only on repealing Obamacare but also on censoring high-school artists’ controversial works.
…BOTH?
In what’s a “best” development for the Wildensteins but possibly a “worst” for the French taxpayer, a judge cleared the art-dealing family of tax evasion charges.
After many combined years running art galleries, Lower East Side dealers Zach Feuer and Joel Mesler are moving on from their joint enterprise, Feuer/Mesler, to other pursuits, which is a “worst”; but director/partner Lauren Marinaro will open her own new gallery in the same place, most certainly a “best.”