MAY MARQUEE MASS. The spring auction season is an upon us, and ARTnews has done some sleuthing into who’s selling what. For one, there’s Jean-Michel Basquiat’s monumental panting Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown), from 1983, set for Sotheby’s contemporary art sale on May 14, estimated at $45 million. According to sources, the consignor is Joahn Sayegh-Belchatowski. And if you’re wondering who’s behind the mystery collection dubbed “A Matter of Seeing: Property from a Distinguished Collection” in a Christie’s postwar and contemporary art day sale, that would be none other than Ronald Lauder. Meanwhile, in other auction news, ARTnews reports that Lévy Gorvy Dayan is betting on a new auction-gallery hybrid selling model, in the hopes of bringing new energy to a slower-paced primary market, where deals stretch out over time. “There’s no urgency,” Brett Gorvy said. Lastly, as the Art Newspaper reported last week, British billionaire Joe Lewis is returning to Sotheby’s in June to sell another $200 million in art from his collection, following a $48 million sale in March.
ORTIZ OUSTED FROM MAMBO. Martha Ortiz has left the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá following accusations that she harassed staff and created a toxic workplace environment, reports the Art Newspaper. Her departure comes following the unexpected dismissal of the Colombian museum’s artistic director, Eugenio Viola, in February. In a statement, the museum said Ortiz was retiring, and that the board was on the hunt for new leadership. She became the director of the museum in 2024 with no experience in the field, having worked previously in journalism and media. At the time of Viola’s February departure, after seven years as chief curator and artistic director, he stated that his exit “followed my decision to raise concerns with the board in September 2025 regarding the progressive deterioration of working conditions.” An open letter by art workers followed, asking for explanations regarding his firing.
Digest:
Artist Derrick Adams will install a monumental portrait of Koyo Kouoh near the Arsenale in Venice. Kouoh, the artistic director of the 2026 Venice Biennale, died a year ago, at 58. [ARTnews]
The cartoonist Nicole Hollander, who wrote and illustrated the “Sylvia” comic strip about an acerbic feminist, has died at 86. [The New York Times]
On Friday, adventurous art lovers were offered free entry to the Fondation Beyeler’s blockbuster Paul Cézanne exhibition in Basel, Switzerland, if they showed up in their swimming suits, courtesy of—you guessed it—the artist Maurizio Cattelan, who conceived of the idea. [France 24 and AFP]
Gagosian gallery in London is going to create Air Package on a Ceiling, a previously unrealized installation that Christo designed in 1968. It’s been described as a kind of internally lit “cloud.” [The Guardian]
Kicker:
AMARO VITA. When it comes to arts and culture, the right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni appears to have taken a page from President Trump’s book on political interference. The outcome, familiar to Americans, is far from la dolce vita. The Financial Times has an update on Italy’s “culture wars,” which have been plaguing the country as the Venice Biennale readies for pre-openings this week. Since her election in 2022, Meloni has tried to reshape the country’s arts and cultural institutions by appointing a host of new, politically conservative leaders. The Italian government is in “a fight to appoint their own people—to show that they have good right-wing intellectuals or artists,” explained professor Andrea Mammone. Yet these political appointees have often had little, or no expertise in the given fields they were meant to lead, resulting in all kinds of turmoil. Just yesterday, Italian culture minister Alessandro Giuli lashed out at the Venice Biennale director Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, saying the latter had “fallen victim to a pacifist fantasy,” by including the Russian pavilion.
