[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Jean-Michel-Basquiat-Museum-Security-Broadway-Meltdown-2.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
MAY MARQUEE MASS<\/strong>. The spring auction season is an upon us, and ARTnews<\/em> has done some sleuthing into who\u2019s selling what. For one, there\u2019s Jean-Michel Basquiat<\/strong>\u2019s monumental panting Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)<\/em>, from 1983, set for Sotheby\u2019s contemporary art sale on May 14, estimated at $45 million. According to sources, the consignor is Joahn Sayegh-Belchatowski<\/strong>. And if you\u2019re wondering who\u2019s behind the mystery collection dubbed \u201cA Matter of Seeing: Property from a Distinguished Collection\u201d in a Christie\u2019s postwar and contemporary art day sale, that would be none other than Ronald Lauder<\/strong>. Meanwhile, in other auction news, ARTnews<\/em> reports that L\u00e9vy Gorvy Dayan<\/strong> 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. \u201cThere\u2019s no urgency,\u201d Brett Gorvy<\/strong> said. Lastly, as the Art Newspaper<\/em> reported last week, British billionaire Joe Lewis<\/strong> is returning to Sotheby\u2019s in June to sell another $200 million in art from his collection, following a $48 million sale in March.<\/p>\n ORTIZ OUSTED FROM MAMBO<\/strong>. Martha Ortiz<\/strong> has left the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogot\u00e1 <\/strong>following accusations that she harassed staff and created a toxic workplace environment, reports the Art Newspaper<\/em>. Her departure comes following the unexpected dismissal of the Colombian museum\u2019s artistic director, Eugenio Viola<\/strong>, 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\u2019s February departure, after seven years as chief curator and artistic director, he stated that his exit \u201cfollowed my decision to raise concerns with the board in September 2025 regarding the progressive deterioration of working conditions.\u201d An open letter by art workers followed, asking for explanations regarding his firing.<\/p>\n \n\tDigest:<\/p>\n \n\tArtist Derrick Adams<\/strong> will install a monumental portrait of Koyo Kouoh<\/strong> near the Arsenale in Venice. Kouoh, the artistic director of the 2026 Venice Biennale, died a year ago, at 58. [ARTnews]<\/p>\n \n\tThe cartoonist Nicole Holland<\/strong>er, who wrote and illustrated the \u201cSylvia\u201d comic strip about an acerbic feminist, has died at 86. [The New York Times]<\/p>\n \n\tOn Friday, adventurous art lovers were offered free entry to the Fondation Beyeler<\/strong>\u2019s blockbuster Paul C\u00e9zanne <\/strong>exhibition in Basel, Switzerland, if they showed up in their swimming suits, courtesy of\u2014you guessed it\u2014the artist Maurizio Cattelan<\/strong>, who conceived of the idea. [France 24 and AFP]<\/p>\n Gagosian<\/strong> gallery in London is going to create Air Package on a Ceiling<\/em>, a previously unrealized installation that Christo<\/strong> designed in 1968. It\u2019s been described as a kind of internally lit \u201ccloud.\u201d [The Guardian]<\/p>\n \n\tKicker:<\/p>\n AMARO VITA<\/em><\/strong>. When it comes to arts and culture, the right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni<\/strong> appears to have taken a page from President Trump\u2019s book on political interference. The outcome, familiar to Americans, is far from la<\/em>dolce vita. <\/em>The Financial Times<\/em> has an update on Italy\u2019s \u201cculture wars,\u201d which have been plaguing the country as the Venice Biennale<\/strong> readies for pre-openings this week. Since her election in 2022, Meloni has tried to reshape the country\u2019s arts and cultural institutions by appointing a host of new, politically conservative leaders. The Italian government is in \u201ca fight to appoint their own people\u2014to show that they have good right-wing intellectuals or artists,\u201d explained professor Andrea Mammone<\/strong>. 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<\/strong> lashed out at the Venice Biennale director Pietrangelo Buttafuoco<\/strong>, saying the latter had \u201cfallen victim to a pacifist fantasy,\u201d by including the Russian pavilion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/may-marquee-auctions-sellers-mambo-director-morning-links-1234783772\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Jean-Michel-Basquiat-Museum-Security-Broadway-Meltdown-2.jpg?w=1024″] MAY MARQUEE MASS. The spring auction season is an upon us, and ARTnews has done some sleuthing into who\u2019s selling what. For one, there\u2019s Jean-Michel Basquiat\u2019s monumental panting Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown), from 1983, set for Sotheby\u2019s contemporary art sale on May 14, estimated at $45 million. According to sources, the consignor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1916744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1916744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1916744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1916744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1916744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}