[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-948031856.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
The Headlines<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ll NEVER LET GO?<\/strong>\u00a0Jack, from the 1997 film\u00a0Titanic,\u00a0<\/em>famously heard those words from his beloved Rose before he sank into the icy ocean. But now, the company that owns salvage rights to the\u00a0Titanic<\/strong>\u00a0shipwreck wants to let go of\u2014or, rather, auction\u2014nearly 100 artifacts recovered in 1987. The sale has now sparked new legal controversy, reports the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>. At the heart of the issue is that the\u00a0R.M.S. Titanic<\/strong>, a private company, aims to sell artifacts that were found thanks to a joint 1987 expedition with the French government. The French government, however, lent its support to the expedition and later gave the US company title to the artifacts under the condition that whatever was recovered would not be sold. Meanwhile, the R.M.S. Titanic tried to keep its auction plans confidential, but a judge shot down their efforts and demanded that details about the sale be made public. Also leading opposition to the sale is the US\u00a0National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/strong>, which has argued the auction violates a previous legal ruling requiring the collection to remain intact. A lawyer for R.M.S. Titanic, however, told the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0his client believes that \u201cthe law of the case permit[s] the sale of these artifacts.\u201d<\/p>\n SET FIRE TO THE FOUNTAIN<\/strong>. The heated\u00a0controversy\u00a0around the removal of San Francisco\u2019s\u00a0Vaillancourt Fountain<\/strong>\u00a0took a turn on Wednesday when flames erupted as workers tried to dismantle it, reports the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>. Photographs show a small flame erupting on part of the interactive, Brutalist sculpture by Canadian artist\u00a0Armand Vaillancourt<\/strong>. The fire was quickly contained, and no injuries were reported.\u00a0Coma Te<\/strong>, director of communications for the\u00a0SF Arts Commission<\/strong>, said \u201cno major damage\u201d was done to the art piece, which is being moved to storage. Rubber tubing inside one of the fountain\u2019s hollow concrete appendages may have ignited while using a torch to take the structure apart, according to workers. The process was expected to produce sparks, and fire extinguishers had been brought to the site as a precaution. \u201cEssentially, the tubes are acting like a chimney,\u201d Te said, adding that crews are reviewing how to prevent any future fires as they proceed with the heavy-lift phase of the sculpture\u2019s removal.<\/p>\n The Digest<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBeat Generation assemblage artist\u00a0George Herms<\/strong>\u00a0died on April 24th in Irvine, California, at age 90. [The New York Times<\/strong>]<\/p>\n \n\tFrench Senators are preparing to definitively adopt a historic bill that will facilitate the\u00a0restitution of artworks<\/strong>\u00a0looted during the colonial period. [Le Figaro and AFP<\/strong>]<\/p>\n \n\tLucky visitors to Vienna\u2019s\u00a0Burgtheater<\/strong>\u00a0have the chance of a lifetime to climb 60-foot-high scaffolding, where they\u2019ll be given a rare close-up of\u00a0Gustav Klimt<\/strong>\u2019s 10 oil paintings on the building\u2019s ceiling while they are being renovated. [The Associated Press<\/strong>]<\/p>\n \n\tA traveling European exhibition organized by Britain\u2019s\u00a0National Holocaust Museum<\/strong>\u00a0about the history of antisemitism, titled \u201cThe Vicious Circle,\u201d has been rejected by major institutions in the UK. [The Times of London<\/strong>]<\/p>\n The Kicker<\/strong><\/p>\n BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.\u00a0<\/strong>Ahead of\u00a0Frieze New York\u00a0<\/strong>next week, the\u00a0Financial Times<\/em>\u00a0has taken stock of artists who are finding belated career success in their 80s. There\u2019s\u00a0Virginia<\/strong>\u00a0Jaramillo<\/strong>, 87, who was given an early shot of inspiration during a high school art class trip to Charles and Ray Eames\u2019s workshop in Venice, California. She\u2019ll be showing 10 new abstract works in a solo show presentation by\u00a0Hales Gallery<\/strong>. Her first solo museum exhibit only took place in 2020, at the\u00a0Menil Collection<\/strong>\u00a0in Houston. There\u2019s also the Spanish multidisciplinary artist\u00a0Antoni Miralda<\/strong>, 83, showing with\u00a0Galerie Champ Lacombe<\/strong>. Miralda began making edible sculptures, because \u201cI worked with the materials I could find in my neighborhood in a pastry shop\u201d in Paris, as he tells the\u00a0FT<\/em>. He later opened El Internacional Tapas Bar and Restaurant with chef\u00a0Montse Guill\u00e9n<\/strong>\u00a0in Manhattan, running it from 1984 to 1986. Other artists getting later-life, overdue attention include sculptor and former \u201ccombat artist\u201d for the Marines,\u00a0Akinsanya Kamon<\/strong>, at\u00a0Marc Selwyn Fine Art<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Ortuzar<\/strong>; as well as Indigenous Peruvian artist\u00a0Sara Flores<\/strong>, exhibiting with\u00a0White Cube<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/titanic-auction-legal-dispute-fountain-fire-morning-links-1234784443\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-948031856.jpg?w=1024″] The Headlines I\u2019ll NEVER LET GO?\u00a0Jack, from the 1997 film\u00a0Titanic,\u00a0famously heard those words from his beloved Rose before he sank into the icy ocean. But now, the company that owns salvage rights to the\u00a0Titanic\u00a0shipwreck wants to let go of\u2014or, rather, auction\u2014nearly 100 artifacts recovered in 1987. The sale has now sparked new […]<\/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-1923440","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\/1923440","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=1923440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1923440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1923440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1923440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1923440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}