The Headlines
IF THE RIGHT SIZE FITS. One could be forgiven for thinking, at various points over the past year, that the global art industry was approaching an existential breaking point, Tim Schneider writes in the Art Newspaper. A steady drumbeat of gallery closures and a handful of underwhelming auction results has created an atmosphere of persistent unease. It’s natural to worry that the downturn might be permanent. After two decades in the business, however, Schneider is confident the market will recover. The more pressing question is not whether it can return to its pre-2023 peak, but whether it should. Many experts argue that the recent turbulence is less a collapse than a necessary correction, an overdue right-sizing of an industry that overextended itself during years of speculative growth that failed to materialise on schedule. Painful as this has been for those affected, the reckoning may leave the sector leaner, wiser, and better prepared.
WHERE IS GADDAFI’S VW BEETLE? The National Museum of Libya, home to Africa’s most significant collection of classical antiquities and housed within Tripoli’s historic Red Castle, reopened on Monday after nearly 14 years of closure, the Daily Sabah reports. It shut following the civil war that erupted after Muammar Gaddafi’s fall. The ceremonial reopening unfolded as a spectacular pageant celebrating Libya’s layered past, attended by diplomats and Arab celebrities and staged with theatrical flair: a full Italian orchestra, dancers and acrobats, fire-lit arches, and projections illuminating the fortress walls. The crescendo came when a billowing Ottoman sailing ship appeared suspended above the port, welcomed by a woman cast as an angelic symbol of Libya. Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, prime minister of Libya’s UN-recognized Government of National Unity, was ceremonially escorted to the museum doors, striking them with a staff so they could open to admit visitors. Inside, four floors traced Libya’s extraordinary history, shaped by Greek, Roman, Ottoman, and Italian rule. Highlights included cave paintings rivaling Lascaux and 5,000-year-old mummies from Uan Muhuggiag in the deep south. Absent, however, was Gaddafi’s turquoise Volkswagen Beetle, lost during the uprising.
The Digest
The founder of London’s Sherlock Holmes Museum is embroiled in what has been described as a “cataclysmic” legal battle, facing allegations that he transferred ownership of the £20 million business to his wife to avoid settling debts owed to his sister. [The Independent]
A neglected, 16th-century Roman villa called Villa Silvestri Rivaldi is set to undergo a $41 million revamp. [Artnet News]
What are the most expensive works sold at auction this year? (No prizes for guessing which tops the list). [ARTnews]
Artsy has highlighted 10 galleries that had a breakout year in 2025. [Artsy]
The Kicker
SOMERSET’S UNLIKELY ART SCENE. Knocking back fine wine, fermented potato brioche, and smoked eel in a Michelin-starred restaurant is not a traditional West Country endeavor—nor is wandering around a mega-gallery. But ARTnews recently visited Hauser & Wirth Somerset in the town of Bruton, where a reporter dined on a bellyful of Osip’s tasting menu and viewed Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely’s joint exhibition, “Myths & Machines.” Tinguely’s scrapyard sculptures were juxtaposed with de Saint Phalle’s bold, colorful visions. In one work from 1988, La Grande Tête, the late couple’s practices fuse into a tangle of iron, wood, an electric motor, bungee cord, and lightbulbs. Around a decade ago, visitors likely would have been confronted by hay bales instead of high art. The gallery occupies an old farm on the edge of town, and its transformation is emblematic of Somerset’s unlikely metamorphosis into a contemporary art hotspot. Read on.
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