The Best and Worst of the Art World This Week in One Minute

Featuring Marco Rubio and a very serious monkey selfie controversy.

Gallerist Gavin Brown in 2012. Photo: Patrick McMullan.

BEST
1. If New York and London are bringing you down, take a chance on one of these cities to live and to work as an artist.

2. Big-name art dealers: they’re just like us! Michele Maccarone, Gavin Brown, and even Larry Gagosian suffered setbacks before hitting the big time.

3. Overwhelmed by the onslaught of fall gallery shows? Allow David Ebony to be your guide.

4. Could this painting—initially valued at no more than $800—be an authentic Rembrandt? Experts think so.

5. In other Rembrandt-related news: The Dutch government pledged $90 million to help the Rijksmuseum acquire two ultra-pricey portraits.

A monkey selfie. Photo: David Slater.

A monkey selfie.
Photo: David Slater.

WORST
1. “You want me to pretend it didn’t happen?” “It happened.” Anish Kapoor told artnet News in an interview on the ongoing controversy surrounding the vandalism of his sculpture Dirty Corner. “France has narrow-minded bigots but we’ll win.”

2. Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio reportedly held an ill-advised fundraiser on the eve of Yom Kippur at the home of art collector Harlan Crow, who owns paintings by Adolf Hitler.

3. The Koch family donated $10.5 million to the Wichita Center for the Arts, putting the museum in the line of fire for criticism faced by several other institutions that have accepted Koch money.

4. A workers’ strike forced the Musée d’Orsay to postpone the opening of the hotly anticipated exhibition “Splendor and Misery: Images of Prostitution 1850-1910.”

5. PETA filed a lawsuit against a photographer for distributing a selfie taken by a monkey on his camera.

 


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