Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.
With one week before Art Basel Qatar, there was plenty of news this week. Here’s a round-up of who’s moving and shaking in the art trade:
- Esther Schipper Now Represents Tuan Andrew Nguyen: The Berlin gallery has added the Ho Chi Minh City–based artist to its roster, in collaboration with James Cohan. Nguyen will debut with a solo show at Esther Schipper in September 2026.
- Bass Museum of Art Appoints Jasa McKenzie as Associate Curator: McKenzie, a curator whose practice is driven by questions of identity, most recently led creative programming for the Great Northern Festival in Minneapolis.
- Emalin Takes on Jonathan Okoronkwo: The Ghanaian artist, known for work drawing on the industrial scrapyards of Kumasi, joins the gallery’s roster following his 2025 solo exhibition at the gallery.
- Jack Shainman Adds Donyel Ivy-Royal to Roster: The Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist will have his first solo exhibition with the gallery at its Chelsea location in November.
- Victoria Miro and Olney Gleason to Jointly Represent Emil Sands: The London-born, New York–based artist will open a solo exhibition with Miro in Venice next month, followed by a show at Olney Gleason in 2027.
Big Number: $84.1 M.
That is the record-breaking total, with fees, for William I. Koch’s Western art collection, which sold at Christie’s last week. The figure is more than triple the previous record for a single-owner Western art collection. Perhaps even more impressive, the sale set five new artist records. Frederic Remington’s record was reset twice in the sale, first at $11.8 million for An Argument with the Town Marshal, then at $13.3 million for Coming to the Call.
Read This.
The art world is still processing the loss of Marian Goodman, a dealer who, without exaggeration, shaped much of contemporary art discourse. In the New York Times, art reporter Will Heinrich spoke with more than half a dozen of the most important artists Goodman worked with, as well as Christophe Cherix, director of the Museum of Modern Art, to understand why she was so deeply beloved. A refrain that runs through these remembrances is Goodman’s rare ability to make artists feel seen—both as people and for what they were trying to accomplish in their work. Another recurring theme is her steely insistence on fair compensation, illustrated by Julie Mehretu’s account of Goodman’s negotiations with SFMOMA over the artist’s atrium commission. What emerges is a portrait of a dealer as a fierce protector of artists, and—when necessary—a trusted voice willing to push them further.
