Paint Drippings is excerpted from The Back Room, our lively recap funneling only the week’s must-know art industry intel into a nimble read you’ll actually enjoy. Artnet News Pro members get exclusive access—subscribe now to receive this in your inbox every Friday.

Art Fairs

– Art Athina returns this year from September 19 to 23 with more than 70 participants at the historical Zappeion Mansion. (Press release)

Auction Houses

– Sotheby’s has opened its new 24,000-square-foot retail and exhibition spaces at the heart of Hong Kong’s central business district in a bid to tap the region’s luxury retail market, despite a recent downturn in China’s spending power. Hundreds of objects from artworks to dinosaur fossils are available for instant purchase, with prices ranging from HK$5,000 to HK$50 million ($640 to $6.4 million). (Artnet News)

– From a stellar Old Master still life at Christie’s Paris to a dynamic mix of modern and contemporary art at Sotheby’s London, here are the top-selling lots for June, as compiled by the Artnet Price Database. (Artnet News)

Galleries

– Many galleries in Paris’s Saint Germain des Près neighborhood, a major art hub, were unexpectedly forced to close last week due to security measures put in place for the Olympic Games’s opening ceremony. (Artnews)

– Gathering now represents Soojin Kang, Tamar Mason has joined Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, Sam Moyer is now represented by Blum in collaboration with Sean Kelly, and Venus Over Manhattan has added Claude Lawrence to its roster. (Press releases)

The Rodin Museum in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, May 15, 2024. The Rodin Museum is a museum ensuring since 1919 the conservation and dissemination of the work of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). Photo: Riccardo Milani / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP via Getty Images.

Institutions and Organizations

– The Paris-based Musée Rodin will open its first international branch in Shanghai this September, a move coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between France and China. It was initially planned to open Shenzhen. (Artnet News)

– Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the Venice Biennale’s controversial new president, announced a proposal for a new Qatar pavilion in the Giardini, noting that it was the result of a new deal between the city of Venice and the Qatar Museums. (Artnet News)

– Tate Modern became the site of a protest against its biggest donor Len Blavatnik, as the anti-Netanyahu Israeli protest group WeDemocracy accused him of undermining the freedom of the press. (Artnet News)

– Historical documents have revealed that the British Museum acquired many Chinese antiquities with the full cooperation of Chinese officials in the last century. Last year’s revelations of thefts of 1,500 museum items sparked renewed international repatriation requests in Chinese media, which claimed the collections had been looted or stolen by Britain. (The Guardian)

– The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art has announced that it is one of six recipients of the National Museum of Korea’s Overseas Korean Galleries Support Program. The award of $1.4 million—the largest grant yet awarded—supports the National Museum of Asian Art’s Korea program for four years. (Press release)

– The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) announced the appointment of Jorge Rivas as the museum’s inaugural Emily Rauh Pulitzer Deputy Director and Chief Curator. Rivas comes to SLAM from the Denver Art Museum; he will begin his new role in St. Louis in October. (Press release)

– MASS MoCA has appointed Evan Garza as curator. (Press release)

Tech and Legal News

– Galerie Thomas, the Munich-based blue-chip firm founded 60 years ago, filed for bankruptcy in a court in that German city on July 16. The news comes as a shock, given the gallery’s decades-long record of presenting major exhibitions as well as regularly participating in prestigious international art fairs like TEFAF and Art Basel. (Artnet News)

– The U.S. Justice Department has reached an agreement with Jasmine Loo Ai Swan, the former general counsel of Malaysia’s sovereign investment development fund 1MDB, to recover a drawing by Pablo Picasso. The work was acquired by Loo—the former right-hand woman of Malaysian businessman Jho Low, who is believed to be the mastermind of the 1MDB ring—for $1.3 million at Christie’s New York in May 2014. (Artnet News)

– The eighth edition of the ongoing Pandora Operation saw customs and law enforcement from 25 countries make 85 arrests and recover over 6,400items from being trafficked. This number is likely to rise, as 113 criminal and 137 administrative cases are not yet resolved. (Artnet News)