To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.
THE HEADLINES
IRANIAN RESILIENCE. The Azadi Hotel, originally built in the 1970s as the Hyatt Crown Tehran during Iran’s oil-fueled boom, now stands above a city battered by June’s so-called Twelve Day War, when Israeli airstrikes devastated residential districts and infrastructure, forcing millions to flee. Yet in October, this same hotel hosted a glittering million-dollar art auction. The Art Newspaper wrote that this is evidence of the Iranian elite’s resilience in a nation isolated under some of the harshest sanctions ever imposed. For a week, Tehran Auction, the country’s sole major auction house, exhibited 120 works by leading modern and contemporary Iranian artists on an upper floor of the hotel. On October 4, the sale totaled 134 trillion toman, or roughly $1.5 million before fees, a striking result in a country cut off from international banking, facing water shortages, and struggling to import essential medicines. Meanwhile, in London, works by Iranian artists were sold at Sotheby’s and Christie’s with their weakest results in years, extending a decline in Western demand. The contrast reflects how sanctions, geopolitics, and shifting tastes have created a booming, closed domestic market in Iran and a stagnant one abroad. Despite soaring inflation, currency collapse, and slow GDP growth, Tehran Auction’s founder Ali Reza Sami-Azar says the real value of domestic art spending continues to rise, with more Iranians investing in art than ever before.
TOP SPOT. Ibrahim Mahama has topped ArtReview’s Power 100 list, the magazine’s 24th annual ranking of figures who have most shaped the art world this year. He’s the first African artist to head the rankings. The Ghanaian rose to international prominence through monumental installations made from jute sacks and discarded textiles, materials tied to Ghana’s cocoa trade, stitched by large teams into vast quilt-like surfaces that are then draped over buildings. Mahama’s work confronts themes of labour, extraction and exploitation, and he has used his visibility to create practical change. In his hometown of Tamale, he has reinvested gallery profits into institutions such as Red Clay Studio, the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA), and Nkrumah Volini. These spaces host residencies, workshops, student initiatives and exhibitions, offering alternative models of cultural infrastructure at a time when traditional museums and galleries face challenges. This year’s Power 100 reflects a broader shift toward artists creating their own systems of support.
THE DIGEST
Artnet News has highlighted ten of Caravaggio’s most striking works, chosen for their narrative force, the intrigue behind their creation, and their fearless originality. [Artnet News]
Here’s one of the first looks inside the UAE’s newly opened Zayed National Museum, described as “an awesome landmark befitting the Gulf state’s rich history. [The National]
The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant has named its 2025 recipients, among them Artforum contributors Glenn Adamson and Jeremy Lybarger. [Artforum]
Rare sacred Islamic artifacts have gone on display at a Scunthorpe museum, UK. [BBC]
THE KICKER
LESSONS OF CONTESSA. The Baroque portrait of Contessa Colleoni, painted by Giuseppe Ghislandi, resurfaced in an unexpected place: a real estate listing in Argentina. It was quickly recognized as a work once owned by Dutch dealer Jacques Goudstikker and looted by the Nazis in 1940. Its appearance prompted police to investigate. Authorities arrested the homeowner, Patricia Kadgien, and seized the painting while also examining other works in the house. Patricia had inherited the collection from her father, Friedrich Kadgien, a Nazi official who fled to Argentina after the war and died there in 1978. This case highlights the challenge facing the art market in sufficiently rooting out toxic provenance. “[The case] raises questions about Nazi-looted art held in private collections,” Alexander Herman, the director of the Institute of Art and Law, writes in The Art Newspaper. “While the leading museums and associations in Europe have adopted standards for dealing with claims for Nazi loot in their holdings, there is no equivalent for private collectors.”
