Secrets, Scandals, and Power Plays in Art

First up, Artnet News reports that newly released U.S. Department of Justice files from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation shed light on art acquisitions involving billionaire collector Leon Black and Ronald Lauder. Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019, served as Black’s tax and estate advisor from 2012 to 2017 and handled aspects of Black’s art investments—meaning emails and spreadsheets that passed through him are now public. In those documents, Artnet found confirmation that Black and Lauder co-owned multiple works, including holdings tied to Lauder’s Neue Galerie and a purchase through Friends Ventures LLC. Artnet notes neither man has been accused of wrongdoing; Black’s representative declined to comment and Lauder’s representative didn’t immediately respond.

Staying in the U.S., Artnet News reports that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is denying allegations that its recent layoffs targeted employees of color. The article describes the museum pushing back on claims that the cuts disproportionately affected staffers of color, saying the layoffs were not based on race. The dispute is unfolding publicly, with critics questioning how the museum arrived at its decisions and what the impact will be on the institution’s culture and operations. What’s clear from Artnet’s coverage is that this is now about more than a single round of job cuts: it’s also about perception, trust, and whether the museum can credibly explain how it handled layoffs amid ongoing conversations in the field about equity and representation. The museum’s response centers on denying discriminatory intent.

Across the Gulf, Artnet News looks at sales dynamics at Art Basel Qatar, describing a fair environment shaped by private introductions and discreet negotiations. The article’s framing is that dealmaking often happened through relationship-driven channels rather than purely on-the-floor spectacle, with collectors and influential figures operating in quieter, more controlled ways. Artnet characterizes the scene with details like royals passing notes and the presence of “back room deals,” emphasizing how local context can change the rhythm of a global-brand art fair. The broader point the piece makes is that Art Basel’s model is adaptable: sales and access can be structured by networks and etiquette as much as by booth traffic, and that reality influences which works move, and how quickly.

Over to the Netherlands: The Art Newspaper reports that technical research and conservation on Vincent van Gogh’s Poplars near Nuenen revealed what conservators describe as a “triple painting.” According to the museum, the canvas began as a July 1884 moonlit view of Nuenen’s Protestant old church tower and graveyard. Van Gogh then painted over it in November 1885 with an autumn landscape of poplars and three figures. Later—probably September to December 1886 in Paris—he reworked that landscape, making it brighter and adding thicker impasto. Conservators identified pigments linked to his Paris period, including cerulean and cobalt blues and cadmium yellows. The newly conserved painting goes on display at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam on 7 February after four years of work.

Staying in Rome, The Art Newspaper reports that an angel’s face resembling Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni was erased from a fresco in the Basilica of St Lawrence in Lucina after Vatican officials complained. Artist Bruno Valentinetti said he restored a fresco he had painted in 2000, after the parish priest, Monsignor Daniele Michelett, told the BBC the work needed conservation following water damage. La Repubblica first spotted the likeness earlier this month; Valentinetti later told the paper on 5 February, “Okay, it was Meloni, but along the lines of the painting that was there before.” The face was removed earlier this week as Italy’s culture ministry and the Diocese of Rome opened an inquiry. The Vicariate of Rome said the features didn’t conform to the original iconography and sacred context.

Back in France, ARTnews reports on painter Claire Tabouret responding to criticism of her Notre-Dame Cathedral commission. In the interview, Tabouret acknowledges the backlash but says, “I’m also receiving a lot of love,” emphasizing that the reaction hasn’t been uniformly negative. ARTnews presents her comments in the context of Notre-Dame as a uniquely charged site, where contemporary artistic decisions can become lightning rods for wider debates about taste, tradition, and what feels appropriate for an internationally symbolic monument. The article focuses on her public response to the scrutiny rather than treating the controversy as purely aesthetic gossip. What comes through is the pressure of working in a space where any new element is intensely visible, heavily debated, and interpreted as a statement about heritage and cultural identity.

Also in Paris, ARTnews reports that the Louvre has indefinitely postponed announcing the winning architect for its seven hundred seventy six dollars million expansion project. The article says the museum had been expected to name a selection from a shortlist that includes Amanda Levete Architects, architecturestudio, Dubuisson Architecture, Sou Fujimoto, and STUDIOS Architecture, but the announcement is now delayed without a new date. ARTnews frames the pause as a significant development given the scale of the planned expansion and the public profile of the Louvre. While the article does not pin the postponement on a single cause, the practical result is clear: the process of choosing the architect is on hold, leaving the shortlisted teams waiting and the timeline for this major project less certain than previously expected.

Shifting to a personal essay, Hyperallergic publishes “When Artists Lose Their Archives” by Damien Davis. Davis writes about no longer being able to afford a storage unit, then having it auctioned off—and later discovering parts of the lost work being sold online. The piece focuses on what’s actually at stake in an archive: not just finished works, but the material record of a practice, and the emotional weight of losing it through financial precarity. Hyperallergic’s description underscores that this isn’t a rare tragedy or a dramatic one-time disaster; it’s a mundane, systems-driven loss that can happen when the cost of storing a life’s worth of creative output outpaces an artist’s income. Davis’s account traces the chain from a missed payment to an auction to an online resale.

Another Hyperallergic piece, “The Unruly Politics of Glitter” by Francesco Dama, examines how glitter functions in visual art as more than decoration. The article argues that glitter has been used to make the presence of marginalized identities “impossible to overlook,” framing sparkle as a strategy of visibility and insistence. In this telling, glitter becomes a material that refuses to stay discreet: it catches light, commands attention, and disrupts expectations about what belongs in “serious” art spaces. Hyperallergic positions this as political because materials carry cultural meaning, and glitter’s associations—often dismissed as frivolous—can be deliberately mobilized against hierarchies of taste. The piece centers on glitter as a tool artists use to foreground identity, presence, and the aesthetics of flamboyance and refusal.

Finally, Hyperallergic’s newsletter post “The Art World After Epstein” looks at institutional and media aftershocks tied to the Epstein story. The piece asks how art institutions can reject corrupt funding, then moves through a set of related headlines and recommendations, including noting that the Washington Post laid off its art critic. It also points readers to art books to read this month and highlights Hyperallergic’s weekly community columns. The overall thread is accountability and cultural infrastructure: who pays for art, who shapes the narrative, and what happens when criticism and coverage get cut back. Hyperallergic frames Epstein’s shadow as a governance and ethics problem, not simply a scandal recap—one that raises questions about vetting donors and maintaining transparency.

That’s today’s download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for another fast, opinionated scan of the art world.

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