Arts benefactors rank among the top conservative donors pouring funding into the political circuit ahead of the U.S. mid-term elections.

Ken Griffin, Larry Ellison and Stephen A. Schwarzman are each among the top 10 political donors backing Republican fundraising ahead of Tuesday’s election, according to recently released data by OpenSecrets, which tracks political funding. Together, the three have contributed $135 million to conservative-leaning groups.

Campaign spending for the 2022 midterm is expected to be the most expensive on record surpassing an estimate $9.3 billion, up around 30% from its 2018 high watermark, according to Bloomberg. Abortion rights, economic strain and immigration are among the topics shaping the political debate around next week’s elections.

In addition to their influence in the political realm, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Citadel’s Ken Griffin and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, the latter two who have each appeared on ARTnews list of Top 200 collectors, each have major footprints as public figures in the arts.

Last year, Griffin made headlines when he outbid a 17,000-person DAO group of crypto enthusiasts to win a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution for $43 million at auction. The acquisition, which Griffin lent to the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Arkansas this year, added to his already formidable collection, which includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paul Cézanne, Jackson Pollock and Jasper Johns. Since 2015, he’s donated more than $260 million to museums and art spaces in the U.S., including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where a gallery is named for him.

A new agreement with Greece and billionaire businessman Leonard N. Stern should have been an easy win for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, already under increased scrutiny for the several cases of looted antiquities identified by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office this year alone. But the agreement is already under major criticism from numerous experts and Greek politicians.

This week, the museum announced the signing of the agreement, known as a memorandum of understanding, between the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport, the private Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens (MCA) and the Met that would bring 161 Cycladic artifacts from Stern’s personal collection to the New York museum for a 25-year display period starting in January 2024.

The three institutions will “exchange expertise in the study and conservation of Cycladic works and share findings with the scholarly community through both an international symposium and an online database, among other initiatives,” according to the press release.

The agreement means any display of the Stern collection will acknowledge that “the Greek State is the sole owner of the Collection.” However, Athens has admitted that it cannot prove that the works—which date from 5300 to 2200 BCE—had been illegally excavated and exported, according to the Associated Press. After becoming highly prized by private collectors and museums, Cycladic artworks prompted a wave of illegal excavations and many forgeries.

The deal, ratified by the Greek parliament in September, means the Mediterranean country is eventually getting back the Stern collection without a messy fight in court. But some Greek lawmakers, and many archaeologists, have argued the government should have pursued a legal effort for the collection’s immediate return. They also expressed concern the agreement with the Met would help conceal the ongoing issue of antiquities with murky origins.

The Italian art fair Artissima is back once more at Turin’s Oval Lingotto, the indoor arena built for the 2006 Winter Olympics. The only fair in Italy with such a strong focus on contemporary art, it’s now its 29th edition, with a new director, Luigi Fassi. It features 174 Italian and international galleries, 42 of which are participating in the fair for the first time.

Fassi, who studied philosophy, chose the “transformative experience” concept coined by American professor L. A. Paul as a general theme for the fair. “You cannot foresee the effect an experience may have on you until you have experienced it,” Fassi said in an interview, explaining that concept. “Art is a way to explore the unknown.”

Now, the question is, how much will his experience as the new head of Artissima change him?

Local art patron Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, who will see 60 pieces of her collection exhibited at Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi in March 2023, started acquiring art 30 years ago, one year before Artissima was created. “From the beginning,” she recalled in an interview, “it was clear to me that this fair could put Turin, which has always been a modern city, on the map.”

She sees the fair as an opportunity to support emerging artists. Asked early in the fair’s run about what she purchased, she said nothing yet. But she had already paid a visit to the booth of Paris’s mor charpentier, which sold 10 works by Rossella Biscotti, 2 works by Daniel Otero Torres, 2 editions of a photographic print by Teresa Margolles, and 2 sculptures by Charwei Tsai on Day 1 of Artissima. She’d also been interested in Marinella Senatore’s neon works at Mazzoleni’s booth.

The British Museum will address aging infrastructure in its Greek and Assyrian galleries as part of its Rosetta Project, a vast plan to revamp its display and modernize its building, the Art Newspaper reported Friday.  

The BM has not addressed, however, when the renovation of the galleries will begin, the estimated cost of the project, and the fate of the Parthenon Marbles during construction. It has been reported that the museum board of trustees, led by George Osborne, is attempting to raise £1 billion (roughly the same in USD). to finance the Rosetta Project which, if attained, will make this the costliest museum renovation in British history.

The Greek and Assyrian galleries, which includes the Parthenon Gallery and part of the ancient Egyptian collection, is in the oldest block of the museum. Concerns have been raised over the condition of the Parthenon Marbles, a prized set, after images were broadcasted in 2018 on Greek television of water dripping in the Parthenon Gallery.

In August, heavy rainfall in London led to water leaking into the British Museum’s Greek galleries, raising concerns over the safety of the sculpted relief panels and pedimental sculptures taken from the Parthenon in Athens by Lord Elgin in 1801. 

This June, Artnet News reported that 15 fans had been placed in the galleries to improve the poor ventilation of the block. 

Lushly evocative, mural-scale, and hand-tufted, Alexandra Kehayoglou’s wall-hung wool carpets depict the vegetation and landscapes of specific sites to call attention to local environmental issues with global implications. In recent works, she renders the locations of controversial proposed dam projects in her native Argentina that could put the terrain in peril. In another installation, she represents the endangered lands of indigenous Patagonia tribes. More personal in theme and contemplative in tone, Kehayoglou’s tapestry Shelter for a memory II (2015) was a highlight of “Prizing Eccentric Talents II,” an exhibition of mostly young Greek artists, recently on view at PET Projects in Athens, organized by artist Angelo Plessas and curator George Bekirakis. The piece hung partly on the wall from a height of some seven feet and extended several more feet across the gallery floor. 

Of Greek heritage, Kehayoglou established a studio in the Paraná wetlands in Argentina during the pandemic and has since moved to Athens; Shelter for a memory II depicts the garden of her childhood home in Buenos Aires. Green clusters of foliage on the wall are interrupted toward the center by a tan passage suggesting a footpath. Richly nuanced details in the section on the floor include patches of wool strands several inches tall indicating grasses, moss, and shrubs. These sculptural forms contrast with the more illusionistic pictorial feel and flatweave look of the wall-hung portion, made with shorter strands of wool.

The work is not intended to convey a sense of urgency to protect a place, unlike her aforementioned projects. It suggests instead an urge to preserve the image of a much more intimately familiar landscape—a garden that still exists but differs from the fanciful childhood memory the artist imparts with this piece. Kehayoglou’s process is slow and arduous, and the work’s scale nears life-size; viewers are in fact invited to walk or sit on the floor sections. The artist creates here a simulacrum of nature not unlike the Tappeto-Natura by Arte Povera artist Piero Gilardi. While both artists achieve a level of verisimilitude, in Shelter for a memory II, Kehayoglou presents a more opulent view: This is her Eden.

An oil sketch that has languished in obscurity at a Dutch museum for more than a century is now believed to be a true Rembrandt.

The Bredius museum in the Hague, which has owned the work for over 100 years, previously believed the sketch to be the work of one of Rembrandt’s followers. On Thursday, it revealed that experts have attributed it to the Dutch master himself, according the Guardian.

The Raising of the Cross was executed in the 1640s and was brought to the museum by Abraham Bredius, the museum’s original curator. Bredius was confident that the picture was a true Rembrandt, but for years the sketch was shrugged off as a copy by experts who cited the work’s lack of refinement and precision. 

“I looked at this work again and again. At the brush strokes. They are brilliant,” Jeroen Giltaij, former chief curator of old paintings at Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen museum, told Agence France-Presse. “Just a few broad brush strokes” had him convinced the picture was the work of the famous Dutchman. 

Giltaij made the “discovery” while working on his Big Book of Rembrandt Paintings, which covers all 684 works known to have been made by the painter. Johanneke Verhave, an art restorer based in Rotterdam, confirmed Giltaij’s theory after performing infrared reflectography and X-ray scans on the work.

Anna Weyant’s much-anticipated show “Baby, It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over” opened at Gagosian’s Upper East Side location Thursday night. There was a long line to get into the elevator and more awaiting at the viewing rooms.

Though security guards at art openings and museums tend to dress in inconspicuous costumes and stand silently at the edges, at Gagosian last night they donned impeccable, colorful suits, and were more akin to bouncers. They patrolled the hard-to-guard openings to the show’s two viewing rooms and urged people into tidy lines, as some sneaked in behind their backs with chins raised. All the money in the world, and they’re dodging bouncers. It’s art world funny, like watching people in gowns and tuxedos grab greedily at canapés and champagne flutes at the galas.

Upstairs hung seven new paintings by Weyant, 27, while downstairs featured drawings and studies. But, everywhere: Hermès. Once inside the viewing room, there were many a rich, middle-aged lady snapping pictures on their iPhones, saying, “I want that one.” Good luck. Threaded through the throng of wannabe collectors, were cooler, younger people in weird, awesome outfits. But, as Weyant walked through the crowd (actually, she didn’t walk, per se, as she was in turns accosted and freed by congratulations at every step), she seemed a world apart from the edgy or artsy.

With her blonde hair held up with a black clip, Weyant wore a silk navy blazer with a black bra underneath, a sequined, silver miniskirt, and gold, bedazzled platform heels. Her hypnotic eyes and firm, bony handshake undercut her breathy voice. “I feel good,” she told ARTnews of the show. “I feel relieved.”

Mingling in the crowd at different points throughout the night, celebrities, artists and art collectors: Marc Jacobs (he had his engagement party at Gagosian’s house in St. Barths in 2010), Stanley Whitney, Glenn Furhmann, Aby Rosen, Bill and Maria Bell. Also in attendance, her muses: Venus Williams and Eileen Kelly, both of whom were subjects of Weyant’s paintings.

Doha, a city of roughly 3 million, eagerly awaits the world. Later this month, the capital of Qatar will host the FIFA World Cup, and around 1,000 flights are expected to land in the days prior to its opening.

In Doha, anticipation accompanies ambition: a slate of government-funded projects is transforming the desertscape into a destination capable of dazzling the jet-setting class. The city’s cultural district already includes the newly renovated Museum of Islamic Art, a vast blue-chip public art park, and the National Museum of Qatar. Qatar Creates, a year-round “cultural movement” managed by the state-body Qatar Museums, is busy organizing accompanying programming.

Forthcoming institutions include the Art Mill Museum (AMM), set to open in a converted flour mill which, as of writing, is still operational, and Lusail, a dedicated museum of so-called Orientalist art.

Lusail, which is due to break ground in 2030 on Al Maha Island, a major entertainment destination in Doha, will offer “insight into the movement of ideas and perspectives to reveal complex layers of perception, power and politics, which continue to frame how different people around the world understand each other today,” according to its press materials. 

The team behind Lusail, including director Dr. Xavier Dectot, has organized a teaser exhibition called “Tales of a Connected World.” It includes 247 objects, assembled by Qatar Museums, spanning paintings, drawings, sculpture, and photography, most of which are hung in a dense 19th-century Salon style.  

The U.S. edition of German dealer Johann König’s memoir, which was to be released next week, is currently on hold, its publisher confirmed Friday.

Titled Blind Gallerist and written with Daniel Schreiber, the book was originally released in German in 2019. It has also appeared in an English-language edition that was released in the U.K. that same year.

A representative for Sternberg Press, the book’s publisher in the U.S., wrote in an email to ARTnews that the pause in the book’s release had come after the publication of accusations of sexual harassment against König.

“In light of the allegations against Johann König we have decided to temporarily halt the shipping and promotion of Blind Gallerist,” the spokesperson said.

A representative for König Galerie, the Berlin-based gallery that König founded in 2002, did not respond to a request for comment.

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