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Art Market Eye

A flood of art? The market issues around museum deaccessioning

A flurry of museum pieces is heading to auction, but will there be enough buyers for them?

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Sackler family

Nan Goldin: We must stop the Sacklers’ imminent Justice Department immunity deal

The family behind Purdue Pharma is poised to buy their way out of liability once again

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Closures

'Another yawning gap': radical London Print Studio closes its doors

Art world pays tribute to vital public space that served community organisations as well as artists including Lucian Freud, Billy Childish and Shezad Dawood

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coronavirus

Exhibitions need a perfect storm to succeed—but shows opening during Covid-19 are getting a disappointing drizzle

With no group student visits, no art-world private view, and limits on public access, the buzz of new exhibitions has potentially been short-circuited

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Deaccessioning

Baltimore Museum of Art curators respond to deaccessioning criticism

Equity and diversity make history fairer, more accurate, and more meaningful in the present, they say

Asma Naeem and

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Heritage

Confronting the allure, and the dangers, of 'fake heritage'

Monetary gain is one reason people create counterfeit heritage—but political power, personal fame or the imposition of beliefs are equally compelling motivations

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 US politics

Why vote? To protect those who cannot

The proverbial arc of history will not bend toward justice without our help

Sue Coe for

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Diary of an art historian

I finally went to see some art—and caught Covid-19

A trip to the National Gallery was eerie and alien—although a newly restored Van Dyck painting briefly shook off my anxiety

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Deaccessioning

‘Uniquely egregious’: The disturbing precedent of the Baltimore Museum of Art’s deaccessioning plan

Sale of three valuable paintings by Warhol, Still and Marden points to a thirst for a $65m windfall, with no curatorial rationale

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Museums & Heritage

Visionary leaders, big business and the digital boom: 30 years that changed museums

On The Art Newspaper’s anniversary, Donatien Grau reflects on the radical expansion of museums' financial, political and cultural influence

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Art market

Bubbles, sheikhs and the freeport frenzy: Georgina Adam reflects on 30 years of art market reporting

Our art market editor-at-large looks back on three decades of booming sales and soaring prices, from Middle Eastern emergence to the evolution of auction houses

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 US politics

For the arts, there’s only one choice in this election

The Biden-Harris campaign has pledged funding and support for arts and culture as a key policy issue

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Museums & Heritage

The only way is ethics: US museums should not neglect provenance research in the funding crisis

Ethical institutional practices such as staff equity and due diligence are essential investments, "not merely a luxury for flush times"

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Deaccessioning

Done right, selling museum pieces can work—but probably not with Michelangelos

UK museums may deaccession collection objects with curatorial justification and transparency, but it cannot be treated as a quick financial fix

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Politics

Philip Guston drew Richard Nixon's face as a hairy scrotum and phallus—what would he make of President Trump?

The physiognomy of deviousness, greed, ruthless opportunism, risible self-importance and gobsmacking albeit garden variety stupidity provides artists of Guston’s bent and calibre with a virtually bottomless well of imagery

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Art market

Gatherings are taboo in the Covid-19 world, so where does that leave experiential art?

New venture Superblue aims to attract younger audiences by selling tickets for immersive events, but its model is at odds with a socially distanced society

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Labour

Art unions need to agitate beyond worker contracts

The only way to change the exploitative culture and entrenched racism of art institutions is collectively, from the bottom up

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Venice

How to save Venice: a five-point plan by a leading citizen

Polls show that Venetians are about to re-elect a populist mayor who promises to bring back all the tourists—but none of the other eight candidates has presented a realistic alternative

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Banksy

Banksy’s activism is his greatest work

Funding a refugee rescue boat is just the latest in a long history of politically motivated acts

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China

'We cannot build a truly globalised art world without China'

Artistic exchange has been vital to the mutual understanding between China and the West, says Karen Smith, the director of OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal, Xi’an, China

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Funding

'Be commercially minded or lose future funding': UK government's threat puts museums in peril

In a letter leaked to The Art Newspaper, the culture minister Oliver Dowden tells directors they must raise their own funds during the pandemic—but how?

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Cultural heritage

Why we should be concerned about President Erdogan turning museums into mosques

Hagia Sophia and the Chora Church will remain “open to all”, Turkish government promises—but restricted access may not be the primary worry

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Artists

Remembering the beautiful melancholy of Matthew Wong

The astronomical increase in the value of works by the Canadian artist, who died by suicide last year, is driven by morose opportunism

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Diary of an art historian

National Trust restructuring plans are ‘one of the most damaging assaults on art historical expertise ever seen in the UK’

Job cuts and planned repurposing of country houses will lead to a corporatisation of the nation's heritage sites

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coronavirus

Business can and should help the arts through this crisis

The pandemic has laid bare the betrayal of the cultural sector, but corporations and individuals can alleviate the hardship

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Museums & Heritage

'Museums need to press the reset button and become more radical'

Directors and curators should consider this challenging moment as an opportunity diversify the stories they tell and the staff that tell them

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Monuments

The problem with Marc Quinn's Black Lives Matter sculpture

Racism runs far deeper than representation, says the artist Thomas J. Price

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Diary of an art historian

'When the politics change, so must the statues'

History can teach us a lot about how to—and how not to—deal with problematic historic monuments

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Photography

Photographs are the monuments of our online visual culture

But which ones will ascend to a more permanent station in today’s social imagination?

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Museums & Heritage

'If a person of African descent wants a career in the arts—well, good luck'

Only by looking backwards can we start to tackle inequality in the arts sector, says Gus Casely-Hayford, the director of V&A East

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Art market

Can the art market be an ally in the fight for racial equality?

The industry remains subtly discriminatory and must abandon some obsolete ways if it is to truly change for the better

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Art market

We need to talk about guarantees. And art loans

Dealers who finance deals by taking out loans against art may well find themselves in difficulty because of the Covid-19 pandemic

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Art market

No rest for the frazzled for many in the art world

As galleries and auction houses slowly awaken from lockdown (some of them, at least), this summer will be one of work, not rest

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Racial injustice

If we want more artists like Khadija Saye, we need to give young BAME people the help they need

Would-be artists from ethnic minorities have it harder than most—which is why a new programme will continue Saye’s inspiring work, says the artist Nicola Green

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Museums & Heritage

US needs monuments celebrating African American history, not Confederate statues

Telling America’s overlooked stories is fundamental to building a true national identity, says preservationist Brent Leggs

Podcast

Art and social media: do museums need memes?

Plus, artist Rita Keegan on her postponed show and Julia Peyton-Jones on Leonardo. Produced in association with Christie's

Hosted by and . Produced by and David Clack

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Museums & Heritage

Institutions need to follow artists’ lead to make a material impact on the world

Museums can learn a lot from artists like Mark Bradford, Shan Wallace and Rick Lowe about how to more effectively engage with their communities

and

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Art market

What’s the ideal post-pandemic art market? One that's no longer a Disneyland for the rich

Capitalism has gobbled up the art world over the past decade—it is high time for a reset

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coronavirus

Oxford Economics report: an emergency fund for the UK creative sector 'needs to come soon'

It is time for a Creative New Deal amid the coronavirus crisis, says Caroline Norbury the chief executive officer of the Creative Industries Federation

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Funding

Museums will need ethical funders all the more after the coronavirus crisis

As institutions reopen their doors to a world that has changed significantly, public scrutiny of private money is not going away

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Art market

Who are the art market's virtual winners?

As digital fatigue sets in, a little editing goes a long way with online viewing rooms—and sometimes a humble PDF with a few human touches makes a welcome break

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Diary of an art historian

Museums are about to reopen—but should they?

Social distancing measures mean a lot of money will be spent on a small number of visitors, institutions should be focusing on their online presence instead

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Museums

Eight ways museums could make the most of the coronavirus crisis

Failure to seize this opportunity to make changes would be a graver error than any breach of etiquette

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colonialism

Edward Colston monument: 'UK must face the truth of what helped it become a mighty power'

Once it is fished out of the water in Bristol, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston should go in a museum. But what kind of a museum?, asks writer Bonnie Greer

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Protest

Dread Scott: America God Damn

The multidisciplinary artist and social justice activist reflects on the recent protests in response to the killing of George Floyd and the history of racialised police violence in the US—and how change may finally be underway

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Black Lives Matter

The Art Newspaper's statement on the Black Lives Matter movement

We will redouble our efforts to shine a light on prejudice, injustice, tokenism and hypocrisy, to call for real diversity in the workforce, including our own team of writers and staff

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Art market

What sort of art will we want after the pandemic ends?

Performance out, domestically-sized painting in

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Exhibitions

Must London always win? National Gallery of Scotland cancels Titian show for all the wrong reasons

By bowing out of the Renaissance blockbuster tour, the Edinburgh museum has not only let down the Scottish public but shown its priorities are misplaced

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racism

The US has a big racism problem and the art world is not helping

A looted Kaws sculpture and museums' silence reveal a predatory not progressive industry as protests flare following the killing of George Floyd

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Museums & Heritage

After Covid-19, museums need to plan ‘must see’ exhibitions instead of blockbusters

The Brooklyn Museum’s director of exhibitions explains how institutions can rethink their offerings going forward

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coronavirus

Why I made a mountain of fortune cookies in my little London flat during lockdown—all in the name of art

Biscuit sculptures have sprung up worldwide as part of a global initiative to celebrate the late artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres

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Museums & Heritage

Our mission is to be Miami’s art museum—that’s why we spent $145,000 to buy works from local galleries

Franklin Sirmans, the director of the Perez Art Museum Miami, explains the impetus behind the Collectors Council’s largest group acquisition ever

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Sustainability

Art museums should use their endowments to help battle climate change

In April, Harvard University announced plans to realign its $40bn endowment to reflect “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050—other US institutions can do the same

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Deaccessioning

Why the Association of Art Museum Directors’s move on deaccessioning matters so much

Decision to relax rules on selling art exposes chinks in a fortress

Mark S. Gold and Stefanie S. Jandl

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Personal stories of coronavirus

After years of sanctions and political upheaval, the pandemic is a new hurdle for the fragile Iranian art scene

Pejman Foundation in Tehran opened a museum at the start of this year only for it to close soon after as coronavirus struck

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Art market

Auctions are like dating: you can do it online, but sparks only fly in the flesh

The coronavirus lockdown is boosting lower level virtual sales, but only a major live auction will kick-start the top end of the art market and revalidate prices

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coronavirus

Britain's young artists had a hard time before the pandemic. What will happen to them now?

Inequality is rife in British society, not least in the arts, where decades of ‘class-cleansing’ policies have made it harder than ever to be an artist and designer

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Art law

Selling art online? Here are the legal pitfalls to avoid

Lawyer Petra Warrington on how to protect your business if you are holding online auctions, exhibiting and selling works on Instagram, or entering into sale contracts by email

Petra Warrington

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Diary of an art historian

'Being an art historian now is easier and more productive than it’s ever been'

Publishers and libraries are extending their online access to help art historians put their period of enforced seclusion to good use

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coronavirus

When this is all over we must reimagine the infrastructure of the arts

Our enforced isolation during the coronavirus crisis gives us time to think about the role of culture in the public realm

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Biennials & festivals

Why we cancelled the 2020 FotoFocus Biennial and dispersed its $800,000 budget as arts grants

As the coronavirus pandemic raised concerns about their 10th anniversary event plans, the leaders of the Cincinnati festival explain why they decided to support the local arts community instead

Mary Ellen Goeke and Kevin Moore

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Art Market Eye

Auctions: what will change, post-Covid-19?

In the era of social distancing, auctioneers may have to conduct sales to an empty room

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Michael Craig Martin

'Politicians have failed us': Michael Craig-Martin's thoughts from isolation

The great plagues and wars of the past were followed by dramatic changes in the arts—the same will happen again, says the conceptual artist

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New Deal

UK artists deserve a New Deal

Instead of commissioning creatives to respond to the current crisis as if this were a war, the country should pump millions into community art projects

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Museums

Greetings from a museum leaving lockdown: lessons from Beijing's UCCA Center for Contemporary Art

Philip Tinari, the director and CEO of the Chinese museum, shares what the institution has learned during closure and its future plans

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Museums

Museums must adopt new models to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic

Institutions need visionary leaders to find ways to adapt to a dramatically altered culture

Susan Lubowsky Talbott

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Art market

‘I’ve always been wary of big business’: Paula Cooper on weathering adversity and building better social systems

The veteran New York dealer shares her concerns about the current coronavirus crisis—and what the art world needs to stay focused on

Paula Cooper

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Museums & Heritage

Notes from the lockdown: Making a situated museum in Queens

The director of the Queens Museum reflects on how the coronavirus pandemic may change how communities use public spaces, and how museums can help rebuild these communal experiences

Sally Tallant

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A message from

A message from... Yayoi Kusama: 'Let us joyfully sing this song of a splendid future'

Japan's beloved artist has penned a poem of hope for the world

Yayoi Kusama

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Personal stories of coronavirus

'We are all Surrealists now': how life with Leonora Carrington prepared me for coronavirus lockdown

Joanna Moorhead, the biographer and relative of the rediscovered Surrealist woman artist, talks about learning to adventure creatively from the confines of home

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Religious art

Pope Francis, his crucifix and the Virgin Mary: miraculous or merely traditional?

Art history removes the numinous from art. At the Vatican’s Covid-19 blessing we saw it invoked again

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Art crime

Don't let your guard down: three things you can do now to protect your art during the pandemic

With sparse personnel and visitors, some criminals will try to see if the “closed” sign actually means “open”, say K2 Intelligence FIN's art crime experts

and

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coronavirus

Mourning a ‘golden' exhibition season curtailed by coronavirus

Major shows by male artists dominated the London museum landscape before the crisis, now women and non-binary artists are missing their turn

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Economics

Don’t forget to support our artists, the chroniclers of such crisis

Suzy Delvalle, the president of Creative Capital, urges us all to help artists hurt by the coronavirus pandemic

Suzy Delvalle

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coronavirus

Will coronavirus-related cancellations spell the end of ‘fairtigue’?

When the merry-go-round restarts, it will be in a changed landscape. While fairs have been postponed and others cancelled, there may be benefits

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Philanthropy

Please send help: a letter to the Getty Trust

Our Los Angeles correspondent Jori Finkel asks the world's richest cultural organisation to support the city's struggling arts community during the coronavirus pandemic

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Museums & Heritage

Tristram Hunt: 'When the lights come back on, our museums will need support'

What coronavirus is really forcing us to address is the societal function and justification for public culture in the 21st century, says the Victoria and Albert Museum's director

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Economics

US artists need a federal bailout now

Congress needs to protect this country’s creative workforce

Janet Hicks and Theodore Feder

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coronavirus

The BBC fights back with 'Culture in Quarantine' against the UK government’s plan to destroy it

A leading Italian art critic says that it is dictators and populists who fear culture and that the BBC’s creativity will be vital to coronavirus Britain, now and in the aftermath

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coronavirus

Letter from Spain: Arco exhibition centre is now a coronavirus hospital

The 'panorama is desolate' for the country's culture sector, says Manuel Fernández-Braso, president of the association of Madrid art galleries

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coronavirus

'The real ideological war has just begun and Covid-19 is only the starting point': Ai Weiwei on China's response to the outbreak

The Chinese artist and activist reflects on how authoritarian political systems have been able to tackle the crisis more effectively

Ai Weiwei

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coronavirus

Letter from the editor

During the coronavirus crisis, we will continue to bring you breaking news, analysis and helpful resources from the art world

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coronavirus

A message from...Shirin Neshat: 'We will get through this'

The US-Iranian artist shares a hopeful image from her garden in Upstate New York

SHIRIN NESHAT

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coronavirus

Letter from Italy: the churches—open, but without services—are the only place to see art

The Art Newspaper's founder-editor Anna Somers Cocks on the impact of Covid-19 on Turin, where she is in lockdown

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coronavirus

With the coronavirus shutdown, smaller heritage sites such as the Mary Rose face a fight for survival

The charity that runs the historic battleship needs help from the government and the public, says its chief executive Helen Bonser-Wilton

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coronavirus

A message from...David Hockney: 'Do remember they can’t cancel the spring'

UK’s leading artist, David Hockney, sends a message of hope

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Law

The US Supreme Court’s silence on Nazi art theft fails Holocaust survivors

Last week’s decision to reject an appeal over the ownership of Picasso’s The Actor was a missed opportunity to clarify the limitations of the 2016 HEAR Act

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Sponsorship

Museum top brass are losing the oil money plot

Decision by London's British Museum and Science Museum to continue accepting sponsorship from fossil fuel companies risks alienating the public they serve

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Letters

Letters to the editor | Did Duchamp really steal Elsa’s urinal?

Debate rages on our Letters pages over whether Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was responsible for the famous urinal that is attributed to Duchamp

Readers of

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Tefaf Maastricht 2020

Patrick van Maris is leaving Tefaf after five years: but has he left the fair in too much flux?

In an increasingly competitive, mixed-category art fair environment, the president of the Dutch fair group made everyone apply each year

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Art Market Eye

Death of a wannabe 'mega' gallery—was the closure of Blain Southern an outlier or the canary in the mine?

Gallery's demise could be symptomatic of the growing polarisation of the art market

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Sudan

It is time to support Sudan’s artists in their fight for democracy

Freedom of expression was at the forefront of the fight to overthrow Omar al Bashir, now the political cartoonist Khalid Albaih asks the US to keep an eye on its own dictatorial leaders

Comment
China

Where is the West? Art world should be supporting China during coronavirus crisis

Our beleaguered art colleagues need our help and we must not turn our backs on Chinese art institutions, says Philip Dodd, head of Made in China

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BTS Connect

Why I'm working with the South Korean boyband BTS on an art project

The curator of the global public art collaboration Connect, BTS suggests that new definitions of art are required to democratise it

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Education

‘Art history is a global discipline’

The head of Yale’s art history department explains the university’s decision to change its introductory survey course

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Art market

Condo’s grassroots collaborative spirit is infectious

The London gallery sharing initiative feels like a significant step in a healthier direction

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Controversies

Don't be angry that Tate's 'Head of Coffee' gets £39,500—be mad that salaries in both hospitality and the arts aren't higher

The London museum's job advert has upset the art world but these industries should not be pitted against one another, says barista Celeste Wong

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Brexit

Brexit: what's next for the UK art market?

Leaving the EU will make business with its member states more difficult but is likely to offer opportunities further afield

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Leonardo da Vinci

Doubly lost: why the Salvator Mundi's failure to show up at the Louvre is to be greatly regretted

Insurance measures allowed the Leonardo painting to be included in the Louvre’s blockbuster if the loan was confirmed by 1 January. Now that date has passed, Martin Kemp laments its disappearance

Martin Kemp

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Art market

Millennials—monsters, or saviours of the art market?

What do young collectors want, what do they buy, and, as they become richer, will they add rocket fuel to the art market—or blow it up entirely?

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