Leadership Exits and Forgery Wars Shake Art World

Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario is preparing for a leadership transition. The Art Newspaper reports that Stephan Jost will step down as director and chief executive on 31 December, after leading the AGO since 2016. Jost said he reflected over the summer on arriving at the AGO ten years ago and the strategic plan called AGO 2028, and concluded the gallery has met its goals ahead of schedule. During his decade, the permanent collection grew by more than eighteen thousand accessioned works, including donations like 450 pieces from the late Carol and Morton Rapp and three thousand five hundred photographs in the Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs, plus major groups by Diane Arbus, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Peter Hujar, and Käthe Kollwitz. The AGO will name an interim director and launch a global search.

In Paris, prosecutors are pushing a long-running Old Master forgery scandal closer to court. The Art Newspaper says Paris prosecutors have requested that Giuliano Ruffini be sent to trial for commercial deception and money laundering, and have asked to renew an arrest warrant for Italian painter Lino Frongia, described as “on the run” in Italy. Prosecutors Clémence Radafshar and Marianne Frochot recommended dropping the most serious gang-fraud charges for technical reasons while focusing on deception and money laundering. They also want intermediaries Jean-Charles Méthiaz and Michaël Tordjmann tried, and seek the indictment of Ruffini’s son Mathieu for money laundering. A judge is expected to confirm the indictment in coming weeks, and a trial could be scheduled as early as 2027. Ruffini has maintained his innocence, saying experts made the attributions, not him.

At Tate Modern, a new Frida Kahlo show is trying to explain how an artist becomes a legend. In The Art Newspaper’s review of Frida: The Making of an Icon—rated three-and-a-half stars—the critic notes that the exhibition is not a blockbuster on the scale of Tate’s 2005 Kahlo show. This time there are around 30 Kahlo paintings, shown alongside works by her contemporaries and by later artists who deployed her image over the last half-century. The review highlights intimate photographs taken by the dealer Julien Levy around Kahlo’s November 1938 solo show in New York, and points to the exhibition’s seven thematic sections, including early self-portraits and “Surrealist Affinities.” The critic also argues there’s a “strange and glaring absence” about Kahlo’s explicitly Marxist politics, including her Communist Party membership.

Also in London, Serpentine is launching a six-month programme explicitly aimed at how AI is reshaping culture. The Art Newspaper reports that Serpentine’s Future Art Ecosystems R&D Fellowship will support four fellows—Alice Bucknell, Reina Mun, Alfredo Salazar-Caro, and Auriea Harvey—each receiving £ten thousand and mentorship. They’ll travel to London this month to begin research “exploring how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping cultural production, institutions and public life.” Judges include artists Refik Anadol and Cao Fei, as well as Lila Ibrahim of Google DeepMind and University College London professor Mariana Mazzucato. Bucknell will develop Medium Sized World on AI systems that simulate environments and predict outcomes; Mun will examine what “AI enhancement” means and who defines it; Salazar-Caro will explore post-digital architectures; and Harvey will look at craft and authorship under algorithmic production.

In Washington, DC, Hyperallergic reports that the National Park Service deinstalled Joel Shapiro’s 24-foot-tall sculpture Blue (2019) from the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on September 2. Crews began wrapping, disassembling, and moving the work before dawn. Blue was one of 10 inaugural visual artworks presented when the Kennedy Center’s 4.6-acre REACH campus opened in September 2019. Hyperallergic says the Kennedy Center did not provide a reason or advance notice, though the NPS issued a street-closure notice earlier in the week indicating removal would be complete by Wednesday afternoon, causing delays on Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway. The Washington Post reported that the Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan Foundation will decide where it’s installed next. Shapiro died last year at 83; the Kennedy Center once described Blue as “poised in mid-kick.”

In South Korea, dealers are still playing the long game, even as the first day of sales stayed cautious. ARTnews reports that Frieze Seoul opened its fifth edition in partnership with Kiaf Seoul at COEX in Gangnam, alongside biennial openings in Gwangju and Busan. VIP day was crowded, but sales moved at a measured pace amid a market correction. Fair director Patrick Lee said he has been pushing local audiences to be “more inquisitive” and initiate dialogue with galleries. Thaddaeus Ropac told ARTnews he’s been building an audience over five years in Seoul and called Korean audiences among the most sophisticated in Asia. Notable first-day sales included Adrian Ghenie’s Figure with Funerary Stele (2026) for €1.1 million from Ropac, and Gallery Hyundai selling works by Kim Tschang-yeul, including one for one dollars million, alongside broader activity across Korean modernists and international names.

Another South Korea headline: a major media-art honor has gone to a figure known for turning data into sensation. ARTnews reports that Japanese visual artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda won the ninth Nam June Paik Prize, a biannual award that includes a ₩50 million purse and a solo exhibition at the Nam June Paik Art Centre in Yongin. Ikeda said he was “deeply honored,” adding he had the privilege of meeting Nam June Paik in his later years. The article traces Ikeda’s path from 1990s digital-audio glitches to immersive works like superposition (2012), and notes his data-verse 1 projection and sound installation, which premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2019 using open-source data from groups including NASA, CERN, and the Human Genome Project. A jury and committee including Cecilia Alemani, Naomi Beckwith, and John G. Hanhardt selected him. Ikeda will be honored September 8, and his exhibition is slated for 2027.

At Phillips, a wave of exits is being read as a strategic reset. ARTnews reports additional recent departures beyond those previously noted, saying chief technology officer Joseph Prindle and global director of client strategy Katherine Thorpe Kerr have also left. The article ties the turnover to a broader shift: for years, Phillips tried to become a true third competitor to Christie’s and Sotheby’s, particularly under Ed Dolman, CEO from 2014 to 2025, by hiring specialists, chasing consignments, and backing guarantees. Now, sources told ARTnews the owners appear less interested in spending what it takes to keep competing at that level, and watches, prints and multiples, photography, and the Dropshop e-commerce platform look like areas of strength. The story also notes Bernd Runge joined Phillips as COO in February 2025 and is described by one source as a key adviser to shareholders. Phillips says it elevated Cherry Lam to general manager of Asia.

In Venice, the Biennale’s president is defending a controversial decision about national participation. Hyperallergic reports that Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, president of the Venice Biennale Foundation, told Corriere della Sera he would do “everything” again regarding Russia’s inclusion in the 61st Venice Biennale, despite backlash from the Italian Culture Ministry and the European Commission. In March, the Foundation announced Russia would return to its pavilion, saying the administration “rejects any form of exclusion or censorship of culture and art,” prompting criticism, boycott calls, and an open letter demanding revision. Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli asked for correspondence with the Russian Federation to assess compliance with EU sanctions, while the European Commission threatened to freeze a €2 million culture grant. The Biennale’s award jury said in April it would omit Russia and Israel from Golden Lion consideration. Ultimately, the Russian pavilion would remain closed to the public after vernissage dates.

And in the Occupied West Bank, Hyperallergic reports a push to dismantle Palestinian memorials following a highly public act of destruction. The outlet says Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu order the dismantling of 40 additional Palestinian memorials, as first reported by Israel’s Channel 14. Smotrich made the request in a letter in late August, five days after Zvi Sukkot—a Knesset member from Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party—broadcast the destruction of a memorial in Madama Village using a sledgehammer. The stone monument included names of Palestinians killed by Israel. Netanyahu denounced Sukkot for taking the law into his own hands, while Smotrich defended him on X and called for the destruction of “dozens more” memorials, attaching a table listing 40 sites and urging the Israeli Defense Forces to dismantle them within 24 hours. Netanyahu has not publicly responded.

That’s today’s Daily Art Download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for your next hit of art world reality, and until then, Chinga la migra.

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