The week in art news: you’ll never guess where the Salvator Mundi is, legal breakthrough for artists ripped off by AI, Netflix founder to build ‘skiable museum’

Where is the Salvator Mundi? The painting, supposedly by Leonardo da Vinci, was sold in 2017 at Christie’s, New York to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman, for $450M. It remains the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction. Since the sale, its location has been a mystery. Now, a BBC report claims that the painting is in storage in Geneva – where else? Apparently, MBS wants it to be the centrepiece of a new museum in Riyadh. The same one he just got Hartwig Fischer to head up?

Finishing last, it’s the Mona Lisa: The Art Newspaper reports that Louvre visitor numbers “plummeted” during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, dropping by almost 25%. It’s no surprise given the increased security measures brought in across the city centre for the duration of the games: the museum was surrounded by security fences and checkpoints, and most of the local metro stations and bridges were closed.

Legal breakthrough for artists ripped off by tech firms. On 12th August, a California judge ruled that a class action copyright lawsuit brought by ten artists against text-to-image generative AI companies could proceed. The artists argue that their artwork was used without their permission to train generative AI models used by tech companies Stability, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway. According to Hyperallergic, a lawyer for DeviantArt previously warned of the “havoc that would be wreaked” if the lawsuit was allowed to proceed. Cry harder!

Netflix and chill: streaming service billionaire co-founder wants to open a ski slope art park. Reed Hastings says he’ll turn Powder Mountain in Eden, Utah into a “skiable outdoor art museum” containing works by Nancy Holt, James Turrell, Jenny Holzer, Paul McCarthy and more. It’s due to open by 2026. It says a lot that he’d rather look at fine art than queue up another episode of Sense8, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina or Emily in Paris.

Related: the latest season of the ‘bingeworthy’ trash series Emily in Paris sees the hapless hero visit the ponds and gardens at Claude Monet’s home in Giverny. Spoiler alert: she falls in a pond.

The Rothko Chapel closes after hurricane damage. The non-denominational chapel that houses 14 murals by the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko was damaged when Hurricane Beryl, a category 1 storm, struck Houston, Texas on 8th July. The ceiling, walls, and three of Rothko’s murals were damaged. The chapel was completed in 1971, following the artist’s death as a space for “spiritual growth and dialogue that illuminate our shared humanity and inspire action leading to a world in which all are treated with dignity and respect.”

Kinetic sculpture outside News Corp’s New York offices collapses. One of the moving metal rings of Annular Eclipse Sixteen Feet I (1998) by the late American artist George Rickey fell to the ground on 14th August. Luckily no one was injured in the incident. According to The Art Newspaper, a joint attaching the ring to its base had rusted through.

Anish Kapoor exhibits at Liverpool Cathedral as part of centenary celebrations. It’s also the first time in 40 years that the artists’ work has been seen in the city. ‘Monadic Singularity’ brings together sculpture from across Kapoor’s 25-year-long career, including some of his largest works, such as Sectional Body Preparing for Monadic Singularity (2015). It’s not the first time that the cathedral has worked with contemporary artists, its collection includes the work of five Royal Academicians: Craigie Aitchison, Tracey Emin, Elisabeth Frink, Christopher Le Brun, Adrian Wiszniewski.