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.
Happy Thursday! Here’s a round-up of who’s moving and shaking in the art trade this week.
- Saâdane Afif Joins Esther Schipper: Afif, who is currently having a show at the Hamburger Bahnhof, will continue to work with Mehdi Chouakri, a Berlin-based gallery that recently announced plans to temporarily pause its exhibition program
- Baltimore Museum of Art Names Rhea L. Combs and Ellen McBreen as Recipients of Curatorial Fellowships: Combs will take the role of Senior Fellow in Contemporary and Global Art, an independent two-year fellowship at the museum. McBreen will serve as the second Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies Fellow.
- Travesía Cuatro Takes on Virginia Chihota: The New York–based artist represented Zimbabwe at the 2013 Venice Biennale and was awarded the Prix Canson the same year. The artist will be jointly represented by Tiwani Contemporary.
- Nova Now Represents Ilê Sartuzi: Sartuzi was one of the founders of arte_passagem, an independent space that operated in São Paulo between 2018 and 2022.
- Joe Hill Named Director and Chief Executive of Yorkshire Sculpture Park: He will take the reins in April as the sculpture park gears up for its 50th anniversary next year. Hill is currently director and CEO of Towner Eastbourne, a position he has held for eight years.
- Min-Jia Joins Roster of Podium: The Berlin-based artist, known for their “sensual yet humorous” work, had their first solo exhibitionwith the gallery last year.
- Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Names Recipients of Lightning Fund Artist Grants, Jacki Apple Award: Nine Los Angeles–based artists received a $6,000 grant, and one collective got a $7,500 grant for the creation and completion of a project through the Lightning Fund. One mid-career artist was awarded a $10,000 grant through the Jacki Apple Award.
The Big Number: $970 M.
That’s Bonhams’s 2025 global sales total, one of the strongest results in the auction house’s recent history. Based on the house’s figures, that total was driven as much by geographic spread as category diversification. It sold to buyers from 133 countries, with operations in 24 markets worldwide. Sales were made in over 65 categories with the year’s top lot going to a 2020 Bugatti Divo that sold for $9 million
Read This.
Susan Tallman’s essay on repatriation in the New York Review of Books is one of the smartest, calmest takes on the subject you’ll read—and that’s precisely why it’s so persuasive. Using Bénédicte Savoy’s Who Owns Beauty? and Dan Hicks’s Every Monument Will Fall as her anchors, Tallman moves past the usual shouting match (“give it all back” vs. “universal museums forever”) and instead asks a harder question: what does fairness actually look like, once history, power, and human attachment are factored in? Her most compelling point may be her least sentimental one: returning art isn’t only about justice. It’s also about humility, curiosity, and self-interest—making room for other histories to be told, elsewhere, by other people.
