Our weekly news roundup is an extension of Paint Drippings, which drops first in 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

– Dozens of seemingly fake social media accounts have been targeting major art platforms with comments criticizing Paris events and exhibitions, seemingly as a campaign to boost Azerbaijan’s appeal as a cultural attraction ahead of the COP29 climate summit. The comments began in October around Art Basel Paris, calling the city dirty and contrasting it to Baku, a “gem.” (Artnet News)

Auction Houses

– New York’s marquee fall auctions kick off next week. Christie’s 20th-century evening sale is estimated to fetch between $283 million–$402 million, while its 21st century evening sale carries an estimate between $78 million–$113 million. Rival Sotheby’s has posted a $108.4 million–$159 million estimate for its “The Now” and contemporary art evening auction, and a $102.3 million–$150 million estimate for its modern evening auction; a standalone sale of works from the estate of beauty mogul Sydell Miller could bring in $170 million–$205 million. Meanwhile, Phillips’s modern and contemporary art evening is estimated to fetch $62.4 million–$92.3 million. (Artnet News)

– Pieces by Jeff Koons, Keith Haring, and rising star Yu Nishimura are headed to the auction block next week. We found out who’s selling them. (Artnet News)

Jeff Koons, Woman in Tub (1988). Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

– Sotheby’s first marquee evening sale in its new Hong Kong headquarters fetched HK$409.5 million ($52.6 million). That is around 26 percent lower than in 2023, when two separate contemporary and modern evening sales brought in HK$554 million ($71.2 million). Of 35 lots on offer, seven were withdrawn in advance. Another five went unsold, yielding a sell-through rate of 65 percent. (Artnet News)

– Speaking of Sotheby’s, the auction house has agreed to pay $6.25 million to the state of New York and implement several reforms to resolve a tax fraud lawsuit filed by Attorney General Letitia James. The lawsuit accused the auction house of assisting clients in evading sales taxes on millions of dollars worth of art purchases. (Artnet News)

Galleries

– Alison Jacques now represents the estate of Bona de Mandiargues, Petzel has picked up the collaborative duo Zorawar Sidhu and Rob Swainston, and Haley Mellin has joined Micki Meng’s roster. (Press releases)

– The Shanghai suburb of Hangzhou has become a hot spot of artist-run galleries as Western dealers set up pop-up shops in the city. Artnet China’s editor, Cathy Fan, looks at how this year’s Shanghai Art Week reveals a city in flux. (Artnet News)

Installation view of Paula Cooper Gallery’s Shanghai pop-up exhibition, “Resonance.”

– After two years on the job, Hong Kong rainmaker Elaine Kwok has officially left her position as managing partner at Hauser and Wirth. (ARTnews)

Museums and Institutions

– A world-class collection of Chinese ceramics worth £1 billion ($1.27 billion) has been donated to the British Museum by the Sir Percival David Foundation. Together, the 1,700 rare treasures constitute the most valuable gift to a museum in U.K. history. (Artnet News)

– The board of trustees of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has appointed art historian and curator Miren Arzalluz as the new director general of the museum. She will be assuming full responsibility in April of 2025. (Press release)

Miren Arzalluz. Photo: Joel Saget /AFP via Getty Images.

– The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco has announced plans to close for a full calendar year, as the organization “stabilizes its finances and refocuses its operating model.” Additionally, the museum plans for staff reductions over all departments during the closure. (San Francisco Chronicle) 

– The Toledo Museum of Art is planning to reinstall its galleries with help from Michael Maltzan Architecture, Studio Zewde and Once-Future Office as the design partners. (Press release)

Tech and Legal News

– Smith and Partner, a London-based art investment firm facing liquidation in a British bankruptcy court, has been accused of a scheme that allegedly defrauded $11 million from more than a thousand investors. Liquidators are seeking some $17 million in compensation. (Artnet News)

– A London high court has ruled in favor of a major Icelandic fishing corporation in its lawsuit brought against artist Oddur Fridriksson, known as Odee, who created a conceptual artwork based on the company’s website. (Artnet News)

The conceptual artist known as Odee. Photo courtesy the artist.

– Parisian prosecutors have requested that Yves Bouvier and his business partner Olivier Thomas stand trial for allegedly stealing dozens of Pablo Picasso paintings from Catherine Hutin, daughter of Jacqueline Picasso. The missing works had been stored in a facility owned by Bouvier, and Hutin became alarmed when she learned that two had been sold by Bouvier to his client Dmitri Rybolovlev, back in 2013. (The Art Newspaper)

– Some 1,440 looted artifacts collectively worth an estimated $10 million have been returned to India by the United States amid investigations into the alleged antiquities trafficker Subhash Kapoor and convicted trafficker Nancy Wiener. (Artnet News)

RIP

– British artist Frank Auerbach, a leading figure among the School of London painters, has died, aged 93. (Artnet News)

– Walter Dahn, co-founder of the German Mülheimer Freiheit group, has died at age 70. (Press release)