The Headlines
MOVING CONDO. Galleries Sprüth Magers and Skarstedt will take joint representation of artist George Condo, ARTnews reports. The deal means that Condo will no longer be represented by Hauser & Wirth, which first started working with the artist in late 2019. Condo began showing with Sprüth Magers cofounder Monika Sprüth in 1984, around a year after opening Monika Sprüth Gallery. Condo was represented by Skarstedt from 2004 to 2019, before he joined Hauser & Wirth, where he had a two-venue show in New York earlier this year. In a statement to ARTnews, Sprüth said, “It has been an honor to work with George Condo since he was an artist just starting out in the early 1980s, and to support his career as it has flourished over the years.” In an email to ARTnews, Iwan Wirth, Hauser & Wirth’s founder and president, said, “George Condo is a remarkable artist, and it has been a privilege to work with him over the past six years.”
WAS TURNER NEURODIVERGENT? The artist J. M. W. Turner, often hailed as England’s greatest painter, remains an enigmatic figure despite his prolific artistic legacy. A new BBC documentary, Turner: The Secret Sketchbooks, explores 37,000 of his sketches, drawings, and watercolors to suggest that his creative genius may have been shaped by childhood trauma, and possibly even by his neurodivergence. The film features insights from actor Timothy Spall, artists Tracey Emin and John Akomfrah, musician Ronnie Wood, psychotherapist Orna Guralnik, and naturalist Chris Packham, an ambassador for the National Autistic Society, who highlights Turner’s extraordinary attention to detail and “hyperfocus,” traits often associated with autism and ADHD. He draws parallels between Turner’s obsessive revisiting of landscapes and the focused interests typical of neurodiverse individuals, describing the artist’s perception as “meticulous” and “all-encompassing.”
The Digest
Dana Awartani will represent Saudi Arabia at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Her pavilion will becurated by Antonia Carver, director of Art Jameel. [The Art Newspaper]
Will Frida Kahlo’s El Sueño (la Cama) break her $34.9 million auction record when it sells at Sotheby’s this month? Several experts weigh in. [The Independent]
A new show at Hamburg’s Museum am Rothenbaum, titled “Cats,” interrogates why felines have meant so symbolically much for so long. [Artnet News]
Find out why Joshua Citarella is being called “the Joe Rogan of the art world.” [The New York Times]
The Kicker
TALENT POOL SQUEEZE. The Trump administration has made theH-1B visa process, used to hire highly skilled foreign professionals, including those in museums, galleries, and auction houses, significantly more difficult and expensive. The government argues that foreign workers are taking jobs from Americans. The Art Newspaper reports that as of September 21, employers filing H-1B petitions must notify existing staff within 90 days, demonstrate attempts to recruit US workers first, and pay a drastically increased filing fee of $100,000, up from $780. The new rule applies to first-time applicants but not to visa renewals. While most H-1B visas go to the tech sector, 73 percent of the nearly 85,000 issued in 2023 went to Indian workers, according to the Pew Research Center, and the arts account for just 0.2 percent. Yet the field depends on foreign specialists for expertise in specific artists, movements, and markets.
