Sanctions, Scandals, and Venice’s Market Fever

The European Union has imposed sanctions on Mikhail Piotrovsky, the longtime director of Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The Art Newspaper says Piotrovsky was added to the EU’s 20th package of sanctions, adopted on 23 April, describing him as a “close associate” of Vladimir Putin who has “actively supported and justified Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” The listing cites his comparisons between Russian culture’s global role and the “special military operation,” along with support for legislation enabling the incorporation of cultural items from Ukrainian museums into Russia’s State Museum Fund. It also mentions unauthorised archaeological excavations in occupied Crimea. A Hermitage spokesperson told The Art Newspaper the museum had no comment.

Still in Europe, the art world is mourning Ittai Gradel, the Danish classical gems specialist whose research helped expose thefts from the British Museum. The Art Newspaper reports Gradel died on 28 April, aged 61. He first wrote to the museum in 2021 saying he had proof objects were being sold on eBay, and he named senior curator Peter Higgs as the person he believed was behind the sales. After being told in October 2022 that “there is no evidence to substantiate the allegations,” the museum later reported to police in January 2023 that hundreds of items had been stolen or severely damaged, mainly ancient Greek jewels. Hartwig Fischer resigned on 25 August 2023, and Nicholas Cullinan later presented Gradel with a special museum award.

Across London, Artnet News reports that the Whitechapel Gallery has hired an economist-in-residence, appointing Mariana Mazzucato for a three-year term. The piece frames it as a response to years of squeezed museum budgets, with institutions trying everything from higher ticket prices to more sponsorships. Whitechapel has its own pressure: the Financial Times reported its deficit at £eight hundred eighty thousand four hundred fifty eight, up from £two hundred seven thousand three hundred seventy seven the year before, and documents showed exhibition income declined while trust and foundation funding fell amid intense competition. Arts Council funding also declined, from £6.1 million for 2018–22 to £5.8 million for 2022–26. Director Gilane Tawadros said the role is meant to rethink not only money, but culture’s social and political value.

A comment piece digs into what it calls the “slopification” of political art, arguing that today’s conflicts move so fast that visual dissent often turns into disposable, AI-generated noise. It points to AI images of Donald Trump presented with bland Christian iconography, and notes his post likening himself to a Jesus-like figure drew criticism earlier this month, including from parts of the MAGA movement. The piece also discusses viral AI-generated animated Lego videos showing militarised Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps minifigures rapping diss tracks about the US and Israel’s unsanctioned attacks in the Middle East. YouTube suspended the account behind them, Explosive Media, citing “violent content,” and Explosive Media’s representatives confirmed they are not affiliated with the Iranian government, though the regime is a customer.

From London’s debates to Venice’s galleries: The Art Newspaper spotlights Michael Armitage’s monographic show at Palazzo Grassi, The Promise of Change. Opening with 46 large paintings and a room with nearly 100 sketches, it surveys the past ten years of his work. Armitage told The Art Newspaper it feels “like being weighed and measured” to mount an exhibition of this scale, calling it “amazing” but also “unnerving.” The article notes Palazzo Grassi has been owned by François Pinault since 2005, and that Armitage, at 42, is young compared with previous painters shown there. It traces how he grew up in Kenya—born in 1984 to a father from Huddersfield and a mother from Nairobi—and later fused East African exposure with Western European art histories in work that moves between crisp figuration and hallucinatory scenes.

And since we’re already packing for the lagoon, Artnet News runs down major flashpoints around the Venice Biennale, including Russia’s planned return in 2026. The article says Italian culture minister Alessandro Giuli pledged to boycott the opening week, and that nearly ten thousand artists, cultural leaders, academics, and policymakers signed an open letter urging organizers to reaffirm ethical principles. It also reports the European Union withdrew €2 million of funding for the 2028 edition. The proposed project, “The Tree is Rooted in the Sky,” would include more than 50 young musicians, poets, and philosophers, but critics object to the involvement of commissioner Anastasia Karneeva and her family ties to Rostec. Leaked emails described a strategy to allow participation without violating EU sanctions, which organizers defended to Italian press as respecting the rules.

In a separate Biennale fight, the same Artnet roundup details activist pressure to remove Israel from the event. It says Israel will be accommodated in the Arsenale while its Giardini pavilion is closed for renovation. Two open letters calling for Israel’s exclusion have circulated, including one from the activist group Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) with nearly 200 signatories, and another from over 70 artists and curators participating in “In Minor Keys,” which expanded its call to include all “current regimes committing war crimes,” naming Israel, Russia, and the U.S. The article also reports that the jury said it would not consider for top prizes any country whose leaders face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, a criterion it says applies to both Israel and Russia—ruling out a Golden Lion for Israel’s artist, Belu-Simion Fainaru, and Russia’s group exhibition.

Back to the market, Artnet News reports that Erwin Bankowski and his daughter Karoline Bankowska, a New Jersey father-and-daughter pair, pleaded guilty to running a counterfeit art scheme worth at least two dollars million. They admitted in federal court in Brooklyn on April 28 to wire fraud conspiracy and misrepresenting Native American-produced goods. Prosecutors said the scheme ran from 2020 to 2025 and placed more than 200 counterfeit works—many made by an artist living in Poland—into galleries and auction houses across the U.S. To boost legitimacy, they fabricated ownership histories and in some cases forged gallery stamps and certificates of authenticity using custom-made stamps on aged paper. The case also involved the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. They’re due to be sentenced on Aug. 5 and face deportation after serving sentences.

Across the Atlantic, the American Folk Art Museum is presenting Self-Made: A Century of Inventing Artists, a major show that rethinks the “self-taught artist” label through authorship, agency, and self-representation. The exhibition spans the early 20th century to today and features 90 works organized around self-portraiture, alter egos, and autobiography. The museum frames it as the first sustained exploration of artistic self-fashioning by artists working outside conventional art-world systems, including people historically excluded due to race, gender, disability, and other deviations from dominant power structures. Drawn largely from the museum’s collection, it includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, videos, photographs, and artist books—many shown for the first time—and builds on AFAM’s Rethinking Biography reparative cataloguing initiative. Admission remains free at 2 Lincoln Square.

Speaking of Venice’s market ripple effects, ARTnews looks at how the Biennale may impact Alma Allen’s market amid controversy over his selection as America’s representative. The article says scrutiny has focused on a selection process under President Trump, noting that instead of a museum commissioning the pavilion, the commissioner is a newly created body called the American Arts Conservancy led by Jenni Parido, who until 2024 ran a boutique pet food lifestyle shop in Tampa and entered Trump’s orbit through pet charity events at Mar-a-Lago. After the announcement, Allen’s galleries Olney Gleason and Mendes Wood DM dropped him, and Perrotin picked him up. Collector Beth Rudin DeWoody is quoted: “I collect his work and I’m not at all happy with his controversy.” The piece also details Allen’s pricing, auction results, and an October Paris solo with Perrotin.

To close, Hyperallergic reports that George Herms, a founder of the West Coast Assemblage movement, died on Friday, April 24, at age 90. Known for sculptures and collages made from found materials, rusted metal parts, and cast-off debris, Herms began in the Beat scene after moving to Los Angeles in 1954 and working with Wallace Berman and Shirley Berman on Semina. He staged a self-curated 1957 “Secret Exhibition” in a Hermosa Beach vacant lot, leaving the works to decay. In 1961 he was included in MoMA’s The Art of Assemblage. Hyperallergic notes public artworks including “Clocktower: Monument to the Unknown” (1987) in MacArthur Park and “Portals to Poetry” (1989) at Citicorp Plaza, and quotes gallerists Craig Krull and Louis Stern on his poetry and unpretentious experimentation.

That’s today’s download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for more art world news you can actually use. Chinga la migra

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