Trustees Under Fire, Art Money in Shadows

A governance storm is still swirling at the Art Gallery of Ontario after an open letter called for trustee Judy Schulich to step down. The Art Newspaper reports that Schulich instigated the AGO committee push to nix the acquisition of Nan Goldin’s moving-image work *Stendhal Syndrome* (2024), a joint purchase the AGO had planned with the Vancouver Art Gallery and Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center. The AGO pulled out in mid-2025 after its Modern and contemporary curatorial working committee voted 11-to-9 against it. The letter—organised by Jewish groups including Jews Say No To Genocide, Independent Jewish Voices Toronto, and United Jewish Peoples Order Canada—had 540 signatures as of 1 February, including Goldin’s. AGO director and CEO Stephan Jost says the committee will be split into separate 20th- and 21st-century committees later in 2026.

Artnet News is digging into newly surfaced “Epstein files” that it says reveal the opaque world of top-end art transactions—where loans, limited liability companies, and private deal structures can make it hard to see what’s really happening. According to the report, the documents show the convicted financier Jeffrey Epstein structured deals involving Leon Black’s two dollars billion art collection. The point Artnet underscores is the machinery: art can be leveraged through complex arrangements that are routine at the highest levels of wealth, but still largely hidden from public view. The story doesn’t present this as a niche scandal so much as a window into how art and finance overlap—through intermediaries and paperwork that can keep key details out of sight until records emerge.

That same Epstein document trail also prompted leadership fallout at a major school. ARTnews reports that David A. Ross resigned as chair of the School of Visual Arts after the Epstein files revealed ties, including a note that quoted Ross telling Epstein, “I’m still proud to call you a friend.” ARTnews frames the resignation as a direct response to what those files contained. The story focuses on the institutional consequences: when a public set of documents ties a prominent figure to Epstein in personal terms, it puts pressure on organisations connected to that person to act quickly. Ross’s departure is presented as SVA’s move to address the situation in the wake of the revelations, as the art world continues to grapple with what the files show.

Across the Atlantic, ARTnews reports that Jewish heirs have filed suit in a French court over the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s ownership of a painting by Camille Pissarro. The lawsuit challenges whether the Met has rightful title to the work, placing the dispute in the broader context of claims tied to the Nazi era and the circumstances under which art changed hands during that period. ARTnews emphasises that the case is being brought in France, which is significant given the way many wartime-era transactions are scrutinised there. The article presents the filing as a fresh legal effort by the heirs to contest ownership through the courts, rather than a purely diplomatic or museum-to-claimant negotiation, and it notes the Met is again facing high-stakes restitution litigation.

Now to Central America, where The Art Newspaper reports Guatemalan authorities shut down the Museo de Arte Colonial in Antigua after a court-ordered raid on 29 December. Officials from Guatemala’s Public Ministry demanded the relocation of 287 works—moved in a two-week “emergency” process and now temporarily stored at the Palacio Nacional de la Cultura in Guatemala City. Six paintings remain inside the museum because they were too fragile to remove, and the article notes concern because security personnel have been dismissed. The legal proceeding was initiated by an undisclosed plaintiff alleging poor conservation conditions. Cultural minister Liwy Grazioso said the decision followed a “unilateral hearing” and that access to the case file has been denied. A report by the Consejo Nacional para la Protección de la Antigua Guatemala noted only ten works needed urgent restoration and recommended it be done in situ.

Pivoting to the Gulf, The Art Newspaper has new details on the AlUla Contemporary Art Museum, a Lina Ghotmeh-designed institution planned for the AlUla culture and heritage site in northwest Saudi Arabia. The museum’s name and curatorial vision were revealed on 1 February at the launch of *Arduna*, an 80-work group show in a temporary exhibition site in the AlUla oasis—the eventual museum site. *Arduna*, co-curated with the Centre Pompidou, includes works by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Dana Awartani, Etel Adnan, and Tarek Atoui, and explores humanity’s relationship with nature. Director Candida Pestana says the institution’s “three pillars” are heritage, the environment and landscape, and community—and that collecting will focus on acquiring works across artists’ careers, including archives that will be digitised and made accessible to researchers.

That same region is also testing market appetite. The Art Newspaper reports that at Sotheby’s second sale in Saudi Arabia—“Origins II,” held 31 January in Diriyah—Safeya Binzagr’s *Coffee Shop in Madina Road* (1968) sold for two dollarsm (with fees), setting a record for the Saudi artist. The auction had 67 lots and achieved an 89% sell-through rate, with a fifteen dollarsm hammer total (nineteen dollarsm with fees), near the pre-sale high estimate. The Binzagr painting was consigned by a Spanish diplomat to Qatar who had bought it from the artist; Sotheby’s says only a handful of significant Binzagrs remain in private hands. The article also notes three lots were passed, four withdrawn before the sale, and that about one-third of buyers came from Saudi Arabia—on par with last year.

And in Doha, Artnet News reports that Art Basel Qatar’s first edition opened with plenty of VIP praise but limited sales on day one, raising questions about what kind of fair it will become. The debut has 87 exhibitors and an intentionally booth-less format across M7 and the Doha Design District in Msheireb. At a pre-fair briefing at the National Museum of Qatar, Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz said the model is “intentionally different,” adding that even if it looks like a biennial, “everything is also for sale.” The fair is produced in partnership with Qatar Sports Investments and QC+, the commercial arm of Qatar Museums, with Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani calling it “the beginning of a bold and unique undertaking.” Artnet also notes geopolitical unease in the background, affecting who felt comfortable traveling.

Back in the United States, ARTnews reports that curator Ekow Eshun has been selected to organise the next SITE Santa Fe International. The article focuses on the appointment itself—SITE Santa Fe’s decision to hand its next International to Eshun—and positions it as a major curatorial role within the institution’s signature recurring exhibition. ARTnews presents Eshun as the curator chosen to shape the next edition’s direction and artist selection, placing him at the center of how SITE Santa Fe will frame its upcoming International for audiences in New Mexico and beyond. The story is an announcement rather than a preview of a final checklist, but the takeaway is clear: SITE Santa Fe has made its pick, and Eshun will lead the next iteration of one of its most visible programs.

Hyperallergic is asking a deceptively simple question: where would contemporary art be without plastic? In a review by Louis Bury, the outlet looks at a new anthology on plastics in art and argues the material’s ubiquity produces philosophical conundrums and contradictions—because plastic is both indispensable to modern life and deeply entangled with environmental harm. Hyperallergic describes the book as revealing how artists and thinkers have grappled with plastic not just as a medium, but as an idea: a substance tied to convenience, mass production, and the realities of a petrochemical economy. The review’s emphasis isn’t on an easy verdict for or against plastic in art, but on how the anthology surfaces the tensions at the heart of a material the world relies on—tensions that artists can expose, amplify, or complicate.

That’s today’s download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for more art world signals and noise, decoded. Chinga la migra

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