The week in art news: Frieze week kicks off, Just Stop Oil activists acquitted, $50 trash is $200,000 treasure, beer can artwork binned and more…

Frieze London opens this Wednesday in Regent’s Park, and with it starts the London art world’s busiest week of the year. Today it’s VIPs only, tomorrow the unwashed public can enter. Across the city, galleries have got their best shows on, venues are booked up for private parties and shottas’ phones are off the hook. If you still haven’t got any plans (why?) or if you’re spoilt for choice, read Plaster’s city guide to the real highlights of what to see, and where to eat, drink, shop and stay during Frieze week. Plus, show your support for Frieze with our “Man I Love Frieze” and “Dude I Love Frieze” tees.

Turner-up for the books: Just Stop Oil activists acquitted after glueing themselves to JMW Turner. In July 2022, Paul Bell and Edred Whittingham glued themselves to the frame of Tomson’s Aeolian Harp at Manchester Art Gallery and wrote “No New Oil” on the gallery floor. They were charged with criminal damage of less than £5,000 and acquitted by the Manchester district judge, who ruled their actions ‘proportionate’ to the climate crisis. This came days after two Just Stop Oil activists were jailed for up to two years for souping Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery.

Another week, another rare painting was discovered at a barn sale: New York art dealer Allen Treibitz spotted the $50 painting of a totem pole at a barn sale in the Hamptons. He wasn’t aware of the artist, but recognised the artwork was ‘extraordinary’. Some research revealed the work was by Canadian painter Emily Carr, famous for her paintings of British Columbia’s First Nations culture. The $50 find is now estimated to sell for up to $200,000.

A lift technician at LAM museum in Lisse, the Netherlands, threw out an artwork by sculptor Alexandre Lavet, after mistaking it for rubbish. To be fair, the technician was a temp filling in for the usual guy, and the artwork, All the good times we spent together was made to look like a pair of empty crushed beer cans, and the artworks were displayed inside the lift shaft. Thankfully, the artwork was recovered and put back on display.

150+ artists raise $1M for Kamala Harris campaign. The Financial Times reports that Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Amy Sherald and Katherine Bernhardt are among the artists who have donated works to an online sale, with all proceeds going to the Harris Victory Fund. The highest valued work for sale is Koons’ sculpture American Flag (Gazing Balls) at $300,000. To date, the Harris Victory Fund has raised $457,643,040, but I’m sure they’ll appreciate the art world pitching in!

Embattled NYC mayor Eric Adams once said, “let your haters be your waiters at the table of success,” maybe he meant curators? One of the allegations to emerge during his downfall is that he pressured the Brooklyn Museum to host an exhibition on the Chinese political leader Sun Yat-sen. So far, Adams has been indicted on five federal charges, including bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and soliciting campaign support from foreign nationals.

Judge rules in Inigo Philbrick Jean-Michel Basquiat case: a collector and art dealer have been in a legal battle over ownership of the Basquiat since the former art dealer’s fall from grace in 2019. Philbrick used the Basquiat, Humidity (1982), as part of his share selling fraud scheme. On Tuesday, a US judge ruled that the work belonged to collector Alexander ‘Sasha’ Pesko not lender Athena Art Finance. Athena said it will appeal the decision.

All the way back in 2022, Jason M. Allen submitted an AI generated image to Colorado’s State Fair art competition, he won, and since then he’s been trying to trademark the work. The only problem is AI images can’t be trademarked. He’s now taking the U.S. copyright office to court. As reported in Artnews, the copyright office’s decision, “put me in a terrible position, with no recourse against others who are blatantly and repeatedly stealing my work,” my work? Don’t you mean the artists’ work the AI companies stole?

Troubling news as Van Gogh Museum experts say three major works are fakes. Teio Meedendorp, Louis van Tilborgh and Saskia van Oudheusden published their research in the October issue of Burlington Magazine. They claim that technical analysis shows Interior of a Restaurant, Head of a Peasant Woman with Dark Cap and Wood Gatherers in the Snow are all fakes made after the artist’s death in 1890. Each of the works was held in private collections and were authenticated in the 1970 catalogue raisonné.

Plaster’s favourite contemporary art gallery, Moco Museum, is consigning works to autumn auctions, according to Artnet. Colin Gleadell writes that five works consigned anonymously to Phillip’s day sale are also featured on the Moco Museum website. “It is not clear whether the museum owns all of these works or what role it has played in the consignments,” he writes. To us, the secret sales raise more questions than answers about Moco Museum’s business.

The new market darlings? Older female artists: 97-year-old painter Lois Dodd saw a record result for her work at Christie’s Post War to Present sale. Her slightly surreal interior scene, Reflection of the Barn (1971) had an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000, but, as Artnews reports, a bidding war saw the work reach $378,000, nearly five times its high estimate. It’s late recognition for the artist, who was once represented by Fischbach Gallery, alongside market favs Alex Katz and Jane Freilicher.

Update on Elizabeth Street Garden: the Manhattan sculpture park has finally been served an eviction notice. Its supporters had hoped that they could convince mayor Eric Adams and deputy mayor Maria Torres-Springer to save the community garden. Adams and Torres-Springer of course have bigger issues going on right now (see above).