The week in art news: Christie’s data ransom deadline, Sotheby’s slashes London staff, Tate director criticises British Museum BP sponsors and more…

Deadline passes for Christie’s $20M ransom: hacked customer data sold off. The auction house refused to engage with the ransomers after assessing that the hacked data contained no financial or business records. Christie’s wrote to the customers directly affected, explaining that the only data accessed related to proof of identity documents. It was a risky move to call the hacker’s bluff, and it seems to have paid off.

Sotheby’s slashes staff: The Art Newspaper reports up to 50 members of the auction house’s London staff are facing redundancy. Reportedly, the cuts will impact roles from director-level down to art handlers. The move comes after sluggish spring sales in New York. Are there more cuts on the way?

Artist Gavin Jantjes slams UK galleries’ “kneejerk” response to Black Lives Matter. In an interview with The Guardian, Jantjes, who is showing at the Whitechapel Gallery this summer, said that the rush to acquire old works by previously ignored Black artists showed that “institutions still do not want to bother investigating what artists are doing today rather than talking about their ethnicity, sexuality or post-colonial engagement or whatever.”

Tate director Maria Balshaw criticises the British Museum’s £50M partnership with oil co BP. In an interview with The Observer about her new book, Gathering of Strangers: Why Museums Matter, Balshaw noted that while museums always faced funding problems, current public opinion is that it’s “inappropriate” to accept money from a company that “has not yet demonstrated whether it’s really committed to changing.”

Diamonds recovered from TEFAF Maastricht heist. In 2022, five disguised and armed men smashed a display cabinet of London jewellers Symbolic & Chase and made off with the bags of jewellery, estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars. Last Thursday, Dutch police announced that one of the diamonds was found in Hong Kong and another in Israel. They also identified a woman of interest. The five male suspects remain at large.

Stunted sales: art collector James Stunt isn’t having much luck. First, the ex-husband of Petra Ecclestone was declared bankrupt; then a court ruled that his Van Dycks would be sold to clear his debts; now his paintings aren’t even selling. The Art Newspaper reports that two works by the 17th-century painter Peter Lely failed to find a buyer in Christie’s New York spring auctions. One of Stunt’s Lelys did sell, but at a fraction of its original price.

Drama down under: last month, Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart learned the meaning of “the Streisand effect” when her demands that the National Gallery of Australia take down her “unflattering” portrait by Vincent Namatjira caused the painting to go viral. According to the gallery, visitors numbers have been up by nearly 25%. Now there are reports that Rinehart tried to donate her preferred portrait by painter Alix Korte to the gallery in place of Namatjira’s work. Rinehart denies the claims, saying that Korte’s portrait was commissioned by the gallery six years ago.

What was it again? Art Basel Plus Paris? Art Plus par Paris Basel? Paris Plus par Art Basel? Whatever it was, it’s rebranded for 2024 as Art Basel Paris.

The Serpentine Pavilion opens this week in Kensington Gardens. Archipelagic Void was designed by Minsuk Cho of South Korean architecture company Mass Studies. The star-shaped structure is made of five “islands” in different sizes and forms, it’s supposed to resemble a traditional Korean courtyard house.

Sick of Yayoi Kusama? Too bad. One of her insta-famous Pumpkins will be installed at the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens between July and November. Here’s an idea: drink every time you spot it on Hinge / Instagram / TikTok.

Philadelphia’s University of the Arts shuts unexpectedly. In a statement, president Kerry Walk and board chair Judson Aaron said low cash flows meant that “we could not cover significant, unanticipated expenses.” Many of the 700 staff and 1200 students only found out that the 150-year-old private art school was closing through social media and local news reports. Students will be able to transfer to either Temple University, Drexel University or Moore College of Art and Design.

Brussels Gallery Weekend cancelled. The annual contemporary art event, founded in 2008 and run by non-profit organisation Brussels Art Days, was due to run from 12th -15th September. A post on Instagram said the decision to cancel was due to the “financial situation” faced by the organisers, and thanked previous participants as well as visitors and sponsors.

Ron Perelman’s $410M insurance claim will go to court: according to Perelman, works by Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha and Cy Twombly were damaged in a fire at his East Hamptons estate in 2018. However his insurance company is refusing to pay out, saying the works are undamaged. Perelman was recently revealed as the consigner responsible for putting nearly $1B in art on the market following the collapse of his financial portfolio.