Best:
Art bromance is in the air in London; Damien Hirst showed off his collection of his pal Jeff Koons‘ work at the Brit’s personal Newport Street Gallery, and took the opportunity to defend money’s place in art.
Much loved comedian and actor Steve Martin has been collecting art since for almost 50 years. See what’s in his collection.
Collectors enjoyed Photo London, which opened in the British capital and showed off the hottest trends in contemporary photography.
Some great news from Moscow, where long-lost Renaissance sculptures, looted from Germany in the aftermath of World War II, have turned up.
The legendary collection from the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art goes on display for the first time in Berlin in December. It includes top-quality works by Claude Monet, Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Donald Judd, Andy Warhol, René Magritte, Duane Hanson, Chuck Close, and others.
Helly Nahmad in front of a Picasso painting. Courtesy of Helly Nahmad Gallery.
Worst:
Newly released documents show that Sotheby’s contacted Helly Nahmad over a Nazi-looted Modigliani, he maintains he does not own.
Having failed to spend it because of mismanagement, the European Union withdrew $57.6 million in cultural funding from Italy.
The names of art world A-listers Dominique Lévy, Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, and Louise Blouin turned up in the Panama Papers. The trio were shown to own offshore holding companies.
Art assault. A man was accosted and brutally beaten by a group of thugs outside of Munich’s Haus der Kunst, after leaving the museum on Monday. Elsewhere, extreme Russian dissident artist Pyotr Pavlensky was beaten up by prison guards ahead of a vandalism trial, and a New York arts charity director was targeted in an acid attack after uncovering an embezzlement scheme.
Artists Ai Weiwei and William Kentridge have accused European leaders of greed and selfishness over their treatment of refugees and migrants.