The week in art news: Banksy at it again, Mark Zuckerberg commissions bad art, Keith Haring mural faces uncertain future and more…

Banksy’s still at it. Like an ageing rockstar pumping out ‘best of’ albums and nostalgia tours, Banksy is making sure that he’s still in the headlines. For nine days in a row, the graffiti artist (whose real name is either Robin Gunningham or Robert Banks) has been revealing animal artworks across London. The latest pieces include a shoal of piranhas in a City of London sentry box, a horny rhino mounting a dumped car, and a gorilla at London Zoo.

Are you first in the queue at every Stüssy drop? Is your idea of fine dining Soho’s Bob Bob Ricard? Do you dream of Kaws, Basquiat, Banksy and Abramović? Do you own a Togo sofa? Then you’ll love London’s new Moco Museum. The ‘independent’ ‘museum’ opened on Oxford Street earlier this week and promises visitors “an unparalleled collection of art to reflect on modern society.” Very cool! In case you were wondering, yes, the business is somehow involved in NFTs. The reviews so far are… mixed!

Not content with destroying the last remnants of social cohesion and creative culture, Mark Zuckerberg is destroying our eyes with his newly commissioned statue of his wife, Priscilla Chan, by American artist Daniel Arsham. “Bringing back the Roman tradition of making sculptures of your wife,” Zuck wrote in an Instagram post revealing the artwork. We’re now several months into Zuck’s mid-life crisis; it was back in May at his 40th birthday party that he launched his new ‘how do you do fellow kids’ Roman Empire meme era. We hope it ends soon!

Spanish police arrest man over fake €1.3M ‘Leonardo da Vinci.’ The painting was in transit to Italy when French customs officials found that its export licence had expired. It was sent to the Prado for analysis and revealed to be an early 20th-century fake. ​​“As such, its value is between €3,000 and €5,000, and the painting can categorically be ruled out as a being by Leonardo or any other Italian artist of the time,” said a statement given by the Spanish police.

Uncertain future for Keith Haring mural. The 50m-long painting of dolphins, swimmers and mermaids on the walls of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, New York, is one of the artist’s best known surviving works. However, in July the city’s Parks Department announced that the dilapidated building might be demolished as it’s too pricey to repair. A spokesperson for the Parks Department told Artnet News that they were in discussions with the Keith Haring Foundation to preserve the mural.

Michael Jackson cancelled! A court-ordered auction of artworks said to be by the singer Michael Jackson was cancelled at the last minute when the seller, Jackson-Strong Alliance LLC, filed for bankruptcy. A representative of Kings Auctions, Los Angeles, told Artnet News that, “there are many questions here regarding the legitimacy of the Friday filing,” noting that the filing was made at 17:50 the day before the auction was due to be held. In a further twist, a lawyer representing the estate of Michael Jackson said that no evidence has been provided that the artworks are authentic.

London gets its first permanent Yayoi Kusama sculpture. Infinite Accumulation (2024) was revealed outside the Lizzy Line entrance to Liverpool Street Station on Wednesday last week. The mirrored sculpture was originally commissioned back in 2017 for the Crossrail Art Foundation’s public art programme. According to the press release, the sculpture is modelled on wires hand twisted by Kusama herself and “responds to both individual and collective experience within the changing spaces of the urban landscape of London.” Fascinating!

Harvard University refuses to rename Arthur M. Sackler Museum. The Sackler family are one of the biggest names in art philanthropy and much of that money comes from their ownership of Purdue Pharma, which has been linked to the ongoing Opioid Crisis in the United States. Worried about the association, many institutions have removed the Sackler name from their walls, but after years of protest and debate, a committee of university admins at Harvard rejected calls to. Their report notes that while Arthur M. Sackler developed aggressive marketing methods for medication, he died nine years before the sale of Oxycontin.

Patrick Drahi’s gamble pays off as Sotheby’s finds financial backing with Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, ADQ. Drahi will be putting some more of his own capital into the business, for a total investment of around $1B. Drahi will remain the majority shareholder with ADQ taking a minority position. According to a report in Artnet News, the investment will be used to “reduce leverage and support the company’s growth and innovation plans.”

Ambassador, you are spoiling us! Christie’s to auction off former US ambassador’s photography collection. Businessman Trevor Traina served as the ambassador to Austria between 2018 and 2021. His passion for photography has led him to build up quite a collection, including works by Diane Arbus, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and Alec Soth. The sale will take place at Christie’s New York on the 3rd October.

German curator Kasper König dies, 80. Born in Mettingen, Germany, König spent many years in North America and left a significant mark on the American and European art worlds through his careers in curation and education. He was just 23 when he organised an exhibition of Claes Oldenburg’s work at the Swedish Moderna Museet. Together with his brother Walther, he co-founded art publishers König, and in 1977 he and Klauss Bussman co-founded Skulptur Projekte Münster. This October, auction house Van Ham will sell 400 works from König’s collection.