BEST
Hiscox/ArtTactic report a relative uptick in online art sales, with Christie’s and Sotheby’s leading the pack.
Purrfectly on trend, the Smithsonian unveils a new exhibition, “Before Internet Cats.” In other internet meme news, a new building in the Netherlands is festooned with emojis.
Hidden treasure? A London couple got a very happy surprise when they learned that two paintings they bought decades ago for a song could fetch millions. Across the pond, a chipped vase sold at auction by a DC-based family sold for 2,000 times its estimate.
The Brooklyn Museum’s new show, “We Wanted A Revolution” is nothing short of a revelation.
Wu Guanzhong’s painting of a water village in the Jiangnan region. Courtesy Duke’s Auctioneers, Dorchester.
CH-CH-CH-CHANGES
The Met is considering changing its “suggested” admission fee to “required”—but only for out-of-town visitors, who make up 63% of the museum’s attendance.
Lauren Cornell is leaving the New Museum to direct the graduate program at Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies.
Art in America Editor-in-Chief Lindsay Pollock has stepped down from the helm at the magazine after six years.
Image via Twitter @Freedom_Paper.
WORST
Red Bull’s CEO may be a marketing genius whose company frequently hosts and promotes cultural endeavors, but his newest venture is being compared to the ultra-right-wing website Breitbart.
In the market for a museum—but want to do it fast and (relatively) cheap? Real estate developer and art collector Robbie Antonio and his team of Pritzker Prize-winning architects are building a new line of prefab art centers.
Paintings by Renoir and Rembrandt were stolen by two men posing as legitimate buyers in Italy after the thieves said they were “going to make coffee” during price negotiations—and never came back.
Talk about pier pressure! Staff at the Tate museum are not pleased about requests to contribute to outgoing director Nicholas Serota’s going-away gift.
Vito Acconci has died at age 77. The artist was a controversial figure in the body-art movement.