BEST

• Jay-Z is a Koons fanboy, commissioning our favorite hot air-filled artist, Jeff Koons, to create a massive balloon dog sculpture for the backdrop of his 4:44 concert tour.
• It was, indeed, a total eclipse of the art: Matthew Day Jackson brought the likes of Paul McCarthy and Liz Magic Laser to Jackson Hole for a group show celebrating the event, and artists lit up social media with celestial-themed posts.
• Who should be the next director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Here is a list of 11 women who could fit the bill.
• Want to make it big in the art world? Top artists reveal their secrets to success.
• Silicon Valley is an untapped market that art dealers want to break into, but following the recent Seattle Art Fair, artnet News’s Eileen Kinsella found that the mythical tech-industry collector has yet to be conquered.
• Summer is almost over, but here are 30 travel-worthy art exhibits to get excited about this fall.

Courtesy of IFAR.

WORST

• Following negative press, documenta 14 cancelled its ill-timed “Auschwitz on the Beach” performance.
• artnet News asked 12 scholars and art historians to comment on the national debate about what should be done with Confederate monuments. Meanwhile, in New York, the Museum of the City of New York threw its support behind the removal of a controversial sculpture depicting a doctor who experimented on female slaves.
• Scammers are targeting naive collectors with fake Jackson Pollock paintings.
• This picture was worth a thousand-year-old coffin: a family damaged an 800-year-old sarcophagus while attempting to snap a cheeky picture of their child inside.

Leah Dickerman (photo: Martin Seck) and Rob Baker (photo: Martin Sekera). Images courtesy of MoMA.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES 

• Sotheby’s brings Latin American art into the mainstream fold; the formerly separate department will be included in the contemporary art sales moving forward.
• MoMA is ramping up its content production outside of the gallery, with some important new appointments.
• Stefan Simchowitz, the controversial art-flipping dealer, is making his debut on the big screen with a bit role in Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming movie, Mother!, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem.