BEST
Artist Carolee Schneemann takes home the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, adding to the renown she gained for early performances focused on sensual pleasure and the female body.
Have you always wondered the exact number of animals who have died in the process of creating Damien Hirst’s art? We counted—it’s a lot.
The seemingly never-ending case of forgeries by New York gallery Knoedler & Co. is one step closer to resolution as former Ultimate Fighting Championship co-owner Frank Fertitta settled his complaint against an art historian who attested to the authenticity of a supposed Mark Rothko canvas.
House Republicans are breaking ranks with Trump as they advocate for continued funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Get ready for Kanye West’s latest incursion into the fashion world, with a jewelry line inspired by 14th-century Florentine art.
Karan Vafadari, an Iranian-American national and his wife Afarin Niasari. Courtesy Center for Human Rights in Iran
WORST
The New York Times lost a veteran arts reporter, Randy Kennedy; his loss is Hauser & Wirth’s gain, as he heads to the mega-gallery to become director of special projects. He talked to artnet News about the reasons for the move.
Also in staff changes, Eran Neuman has bailed out of his job as the director of Jerusalem’s Israel Museum after just two months on the job. He’s headed back to running an architecture school in Tel Aviv.
artnet News’s own Hili Perlson headed to Athens to take in that city’s part of the quinquennial Documenta exhibition, where she found that “more often than not, the curatorial team’s carefully scripted decisions were, in fact, deliberately meant to cause confusion.”
This week in legal strife, the Warhol Foundation has made a legal complaint against photographer Lynn Goldsmith over her use of the artist’s image of Prince. Goldsmith, for her part, told artnet News that she thought the parties were close to a resolution and that it was the foundation that infringed upon her rights.
Iranian art dealers Karan Vafadari and Afarin Nayssari, owners of Tehran’s Aun Gallery, will go to trial next week on government charges that their home was “a center for immorality and prostitution” where alcohol (forbidden for Iranian Muslims) was served.
The FBI warns buyers that there could be “hundreds more” forgeries on the market by Eric Spoutz. Now in jail, the Michigan art dealer was sentenced to three years for selling fakes and donating them to museums.