Auction Fever, Museum Fallout, and Artworld Threats

Sotheby’s says it posted four dollars billion in first-half sales between January and June, its strongest-ever first half, according to Artnet News. The house reported that total was up 58 percent from the same period last year. Auction sales climbed 59 percent to three dollars billion, and private sales rose 52 percent to eight hundred twenty six dollars million—an all-time high. Sotheby’s said art auctions in May and June brought in around one dollars billion, or 34 percent of total sales, helped by single-owner collections. Its marquee New York sales totaled nine hundred eight dollars million with a 92.5 percent sell-through rate, and estate collections were reported at 96 percent, including the late dealer Robert Mnuchin’s holdings at one hundred seventy three dollars million in May.

Staying with Sotheby’s, ARTnews reports a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as “Gus” sold for fifty dollars million on Tuesday, making it the most expensive dinosaur ever sold at auction. The 67-million-year-old specimen drew 19 bids, hammering at forty three dollars million before premiums, surpassing the previous record of forty four dollars million set in 2024 by the Stegosaurus Apex, also sold by Sotheby’s. The sale capped another successful “Geek Week,” reflecting Sotheby’s expansion into science and natural history categories. But ARTnews notes strong criticism from paleontologists, including Richard Butler of the University of Birmingham and Stephen Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh, who worry that major fossils sold privately are harder to access for research. Sotheby’s has pointed to excavation and conservation work behind such specimens.

Across the Atlantic, The Art Newspaper reports that the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has donated three sculptures to Artist Rooms, the collection jointly shared by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland. The works—G-I Glut (1986), Rasputin's Revenge Early Winter Glut (1987), and Mobile Cluster Glut (Neapolitan) (1987)—are part of Rauschenberg’s Gluts series. The Art Newspaper says they’ll go on show at Tate Modern in London in a new display devoted to Rauschenberg, running from 20 September through December 2027. Courtney J. Martin, executive director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, said in a statement that the sculptures ask viewers to consider “what we value and what we discard.” Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, which co-represents the foundation, described the Gluts as an early foray into metal using found objects assembled and riveted into reliefs and sculptures.

Also in the United Kingdom, ARTnews reports a man has been charged after what authorities described as a “high-value burglary” at the Bristol Museum last September. The BBC identified the suspect as Dean Hall, 41, from Redcliffe, Bristol, charged with handling stolen goods. He was given unconditional bail and is next due at Bristol Crown Court on 17 August. Police say the investigation remains ongoing into the theft of more than 600 objects from the museum’s British Empire and Commonwealth Collection. ARTnews notes items taken included military badges, pins from the East India Company, and carved Buddha statues. The New York Times previously reported that security had been tightened at the Bristol Museum, and the museum’s website says the collection documents links between Britain and countries in the British Empire from the late 19th century to recent times through objects, souvenirs, and archival materials.

Now to criticism—and a documentary that turns the spotlight back onto critics themselves. Artnet News runs a column by Kenny Schachter centered on House of Criticism, a new documentary by Alison Chernick about Roberta Smith and Jerry Saltz. Schachter calls his piece more of a paean to Smith than a standard review and says he has known and admired the pair for more than 35 years. He writes that Smith made him cry twice: once in 1991, when she scolded him after he approached her in front of a painting, and again about 20 years later when she emailed to say she liked his writing. Schachter contrasts their public personas, calling Smith “brilliant” and “stern” and Saltz a “boundary-pushing populist.” He notes Smith began at The New York Times part-time in 1986, became co-chief art critic in 2011, and retired in 2024 as the film was being shot.

From critics to institutional critique, a review from Los Angeles focuses on a Museum of Contemporary Art show devoted to Michael Asher. The writer says walking through the two-gallery exhibition, one might mistake Asher for a donor because his name is mounted so prominently, but Asher—who died in 2012—was a conceptual artist and longtime CalArts educator. The piece explains that Asher’s reputation rests on examining how museums look and operate, a practice that helped establish “Institutional Critique.” Because he made few sellable objects, the exhibition leans on archives and ephemera. One key work is Painting and Sculpture from the Museum of Modern Art: Catalog of Deaccessions 1929 through 1998 (1999), a red book that listed 403 works MoMA had offloaded. The review also describes Asher’s “Grinstein Collection” (1979), a private commission that replicated a property wall but shifted it by 11 inches.

Another New York museum story turns on missing objects too—this time in a gallery at The Met. In a column edited by Lisa Yin Zhang, Hyperallergic highlights Erin L. Thompson’s reporting on a marble Roman portrait bust dating to the 2nd century CE that was no longer on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with only its label left on the wall. The bust had been purchased from Phoenix Ancient Art, a gallery that promoted its due diligence and emphasized that it sought evidence its antiquities left their countries of origin before export bans. Thompson’s piece follows the trail of the gallery’s co-founder, described as a convicted antiquities dealer, and notes that artifacts linked to him remain in museums around the United States despite questions around provenance. The roundup frames the episode as part of broader pressure on museums to reckon with ownership histories and the antiquities trade’s promises versus what documentation can truly support.

From museum ethics to art-world politics, ARTnews reports that Dominique Lévy of the New York gallery Lévy Gorvy Dayan said she received death threats after publicly denouncing a 2023 Artforum open letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The letter, published October 19, 2023, described Israel’s war in Gaza as an “escalating genocide” and demanded “an immediate ceasefire and the opening of Gaza’s crossings,” and it was signed by artists including Nan Goldin, Tania Bruguera, and Kara Walker. ARTnews says the letter did not mention the October 7 Hamas attack, which killed one thousand two hundred people and involved taking more than 250 hostages. The day after the letter ran, Lévy, Brett Gorvy, and Amalia Dayan published a response with Artforum calling it “one-sided.” A week later, editor David Velasco was fired, and the publisher cited editorial-process issues. Lévy told Tablet there were “death threats” and vandalism, and that security was hired.

Across the Pacific, ARTnews reports that Superblue has landed in India for the first time with an immersive exhibition at Mumbai’s Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre. Titled Second Nature, the nine-work show opened July 3 at NMACC’s four-story Art House and runs through January 10, 2027. It’s curated by Superblue cofounder and CEO Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst alongside head of curatorial Margot Mottaz. ARTnews says the exhibition features large-scale installations by teamLab, A.A.Murakami, Simon Heijdens, and Es Devlin, exploring boundaries between humans, technology, and the natural world. Dent-Brocklehurst told ARTnews it’s a collaboration, not a permanent Superblue venue. Devlin’s Screenshare (2025) was reworked for NMACC, built from 365 sketchbooks, and visitors can take a page home, gradually dismantling the piece. Dent-Brocklehurst said the show has drawn over one thousand visitors a day.

Finally, Hyperallergic heads to San Luis Obispo, California, to meet Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens—filmmaker/artists and longtime collaborators—around a screening and lecture at Cuesta College. Their latest film, Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency (2025), is described as the last in a documentary trilogy that also includes Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story (2014) and Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure (2019). The article says the new film centers on the Northern California fires in 2020, which forced over seventy thousand residents to evacuate, and it touches Boulder Creek in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where Sprinkle and Stephens lived. Hyperallergic describes their mix of tragedy and humor—eco-friendly “texting goats,” a free-roaming white peacock named Albert, animated montages, and an “ecosex scene.” The piece situates it all within their ecosexuality movement, begun in the 2000s, combining environmental preservation with sensuality.

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, and until then: Chinga la migra

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