London’s October Auction Results Suggest the Market Is Playing It Safe
Christie’s £107.5 million Peter Simon sale and a £31.6 million Kandinsky led a week in which buyers concentrated on established, institutionally backed names. Even blue-chip lots faltered where demand was thin.
A Closer Look at Nice, Beyond the Promenade and Riviera Beach Clubs
Once the summer crowds thin, Nice invites a longer stay, with grand hotels, lively markets, Niçois restaurants and cultural treasures tucked into the hills above the Mediterranean.
Carlos Slim Domit Backed Checo Pérez. Now Rafael Câmara Has a Haas Seat
Carlos Slim Domit helped Checo Pérez reach Formula 1 and built Escudería Telmex into a powerful motorsport program. Now, with Rafael Câmara set to join Haas in 2027, the América Móvil chairman has another driver poised to reach the F1 grid.
New York
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For Sarah Zapata, Weaving Is a Radical Act
At Sargent’s Daughters, the artist transforms yarn, thread and architectural forms into an immersive landscape rooted in embodied knowledge and community. “Textiles are human,” she tells Observer. “It’s about people who preceded us and who made it. It’s about us being together.”
Julia Fox and Nora Fried Threw a Carnival in Elizabeth Street Garden
Fox, who said the event was harder to pull off than the movie she shot in August, spent the night signing copies of ‘Down the Drain’ and talking about the women whose stories brought her to tears.
In “Casserole Culture,” Melissa Joseph Redraws the Geography of Home
At Charles Moffett, she trades grand narratives of diaspora for the specifics of growing up Indian American in rural Pennsylvania. Her monumental needle-felted images of childhood residences, everyday objects and communal rituals honor the concept of home in all its warmth and contradiction.
Everything to Know Before Heading to WatchTime New York
North America’s premier public horology show brings luxury houses, independent ateliers and accessible brands together for three days of launches and conversation. For collectors, it is a rare chance to compare very different kinds of craftsmanship in a single room.
Subtitled NYC Is Carving Out a Third Path for New York’s Artists
The gallery launched as a practical way for artist Jaejoon Jang to afford studio space and share work he admired. It has grown into one of Brooklyn’s most adventurous independent spaces.
Art
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Oscar Sunderland and Chloe Stewart Would Rather Collaborate With Their Artists Than Represent Them
They see traditional representation agreements as constricting, preferring to work with other galleries and art professionals to support artists through their first sales. Their approach, Sunderland tells Observer, is part of a generational shift toward pooled resources and shared networks.
In Paris, Sotheby’s Is Betting on Intimacy to Win Over Private Buyers
Chez Sotheby’s installs roughly $150 million worth of artwork by Picasso, Matisse, Warhol, Richter and others in a salon-style setting with its own restaurant and bar. Six pieces found buyers before the venture even opened.
London’s Newest Museum Elevates Sir Philip Sassoon Above Lessons from World War II History
When the museum opened this June, Trent Park’s legacy was heralded as being on par with Bletchley Park, the country estate that housed British codebreakers and today honors the lasting legacy of Alan Turing, but here allegiances are divided. The story of the forgotten translators manning the cramped basement listening stations remains down there, while the ground floor is primarily concerned with restoring Sassoon’s former standing among the 20th-century aristocracy.
72 Hours of Art in Cincinnati
BLINK and the FotoFocus Biennial transform the city every other October, but its museums, murals and theaters reward a visit in any season. Here’s where to stay, what to eat and the sights not to miss.
Beyond Frieze, London’s Hotel Art Fairs Are Finding Momentum
Minor Attractions has moved to the Newman in Fitzrovia, while newcomer London Invitational takes over suites in the Chancery Rosewood. Both trade the scale of the megafair for intimate, site-responsive presentations and more accessible prices.
Business
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Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton Call for A.I. Safeguards. Enterprise Buyers Can Help Enforce Them.
From the collapse of Barings to the rise of cyber insurance, businesses have learned that controls matter only when they are independently verified and enforced. McMillanAI’s Jeff McMillan argues that major enterprises can use their purchasing power to establish enforceable A.I. safety standards through contracts, insurance and independent verification.
Mozilla CEO Anthony Enzor-DeMeo Wants to Challenge Chrome—and Rely Less on Google
Anthony Enzor-DeMeo wants Firefox Enterprise to challenge Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. Mozilla’s new subscription service could also help the company diversify the search revenue that has long supported its browser business.
Aryeh Bourkoff’s LionTree Has a Stake in Hollywood’s Merger Era
LionTree founder Aryeh Bourkoff has helped negotiate some of Hollywood’s biggest deals. With an investment fund participating in Skydance’s $47 billion equity financing, his firm’s role in the consolidation era goes well beyond advising.
Hillary Super and a $50 Million Bra: Can Victoria’s Secret Win Women Back?
The Angels have been back since 2024, but Victoria’s Secret CEO Hillary Super is finding new ways to make them relevant. With a $50 million Fantasy Bra, a nationwide casting competition and improving sales, the lingerie giant is working to reclaim its cultural cachet without abandoning its renewed emphasis on inclusivity.
Luxury’s Answer to the A.I. Trust Gap? The Archive
Getty Images’ Bob Ahern examines why authentic photographic archives are becoming more valuable to luxury brands as A.I.-generated imagery makes the past easier to imitate. Ahern argues that archival photography preserves evidence of real cultural moments that brands can use to build trust and give their histories renewed relevance.
Travel
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What It Takes for a Paris Hotel to Earn France’s Elite Palace Distinction
The Palace distinction goes beyond thread counts and Michelin stars, rewarding Paris hotels that pair history and design with unusually personal service.
An Insider’s Guide to Johannesburg: Where to Stay, Eat, Drink and Explore
Too many travelers rush through Joburg on their way to safari. Here’s why South Africa’s largest city deserves a place on your itinerary.
The Western Mountain Towns That Rival New England for Fall Foliage
The West’s answer to New England foliage comes with aspens, alpine lakes, cowboy towns and mountain resorts built for a long weekend.
The Berkshires Beyond the Foliage, Where Gilded Age Grandeur Meets Country Charm
Beyond the autumn colors, discover the Berkshires through the Clark’s art collection, Edith Wharton’s former home, centuries-old workshops and restaurants rooted in the surrounding countryside.
The Insider’s Guide to Exploring Newport’s Gilded Age Mansions
Step inside The Breakers, Marble House, Rosecliff and more for a closer look at the architecture, scandals and social ambition of Gilded Age Newport.
Nightlife & Dining
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L.A.’s Top October Restaurant Openings, From Pasta Bars to Smash Burgers
Bar Fortuna brings handmade pasta to Santa Monica, Gilbert Pérez Bar finally opens in Sherman Oaks and Birdie G’s returns, while L.A.’s smash burger boom keeps expanding.
At Storm King’s 2026 Gala, Sculpture Met Sky
The open-air museum’s 2026 gala honored Alicja Kwade and Cathy and Peter Halstead, whose Montana art center owes much to the Hudson Valley institution’s example. Funds raised will support its collection, exhibitions and education programs.
The London Restaurants With the Most Impressive Art Collections
From Sketch and Toklas to Mount St. Restaurant and The Cocochine, these London dining rooms pair serious cooking with works by Warhol, Picasso, Hirst, Tillmans and more.
Kwame Onwuachi’s New Cookbook Is a Love Letter to Comfort Food
The chef’s new cookbook is an ode to both the dishes of his childhood and what he cooks now when he has a (rare) night in.
Truffle Hunting in Tuscany, Where the Pigs Have Been Replaced
Forget what Nicolas Cage taught you in ‘Pig.’ In the oak woods outside San Gimignano, truffles are found by dogs raised on parmesan, and a few hours of foraging can send you home with a surprisingly heavy haul.
Expert Insights
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The Biggest Threat to Roger Goodell’s NFL Empire May Be Itself
Roger Goodell has grown the NFL into a business generating more than $23 billion annually. But its push for higher media rights fees, more streaming subscriptions and premium experiences is testing both broadcast partners and fans. The league’s dominance remains intact, although its pursuit of growth could create problems for the next generation of executives.
Two Collections, Two Canons: What Andrew and Paul Mellon Built, One Generation Apart
Andrew Mellon assembled one of America’s premier Old Master collections before founding the National Gallery of Art. His son Paul inherited the institution, but not his father’s taste. Art advisor Megan Fox Kelly examines how their parallel collecting journeys illuminate the way cultural authority is cultivated across generations.
Starbucks’ CSO Shake-Up Raises Questions About Corporate Climate Commitments
As Starbucks reorganizes its sustainability function, Kaleidoscope’s Sandhya Sabapathy examines why corporate climate strategies often lack influence over the financial and operational decisions that determine their success.
David Ellison Has Hollywood Scale. Now He Needs Precision.
David Ellison now controls Paramount, Warner Bros., HBO, CBS, CNN and a sprawling collection of Hollywood brands. The challenge is deciding which ones get the money, attention and room to grow.
As Google, OpenAI and Meta Push A.I. Agents, Enterprises Need Models That Think Less
The next breakthrough in enterprise A.I. may not come from models that reason more deeply, but from systems that know when to rely on established rules instead. Campfire’s John Glasgow argues that specialized models and deterministic systems can offer greater consistency at a fraction of the cost.
Lifestyle
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Victoria Beckham Finally Turns a Profit. Beauty Leads the Way.
After nearly two decades of losses, Victoria Beckham’s luxury group finally turned a profit. But with beauty accounting for most of its revenue, the fashion business remains the harder test.
Behind the Wheel of James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5
RM Sotheby’s has called it the “most iconic and recognizable Aston Martin ever built.” Beneath the legend, our reviewer finds a smooth, comfortable grand tourer built for the open road.
The 15 Heritage Watches With History Worth Wearing
These timepieces preserve the character, proportions and purpose that made their predecessors worth remembering.
Patek Philippe’s Milan Exhibition Is a Love Letter to Rare Handcrafts
“Watch Art” is a rare opportunity to see some of the world’s most elaborate timepieces. Yet amid the hundreds of extraordinary watches and clocks, the most memorable moments come from simply watching the people who create them work.
German Property Magnate Ulrich Marseille’s Billion-Dollar Bet on Modular Hospitals
Ulrich Marseille made his fortune in real estate and elder care. Now he’s combining VAMED’s international hospital engineering business with WWH’s modular construction system. A project in Germany and a proposed hospital in Ghana could put his approach to the test, even as contract disputes in Guyana complicate the company’s plans.
Interviews
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Khalif Tahir Thompson Reflects On Life in Brooklyn and His Living Collages at Victoria Miro
In “Send in the Clowns,” the artist moves beyond the domestic archive to reconstruct Brooklyn through the lens of his family archives and the accumulated visual noise of everyday life. Collaged paper and Fauvist color give each scene a cinematic charge.
Yan Du’s YDP Brings a New Model of Art Patronage to London
The project space is both a platform for artists and an ongoing experiment in more flexible, creative models of philanthropy. Du sees herself as part of the younger generation of collectors redefining what cultural support can look like.
Why James Brett Wants to Retire the Term “Outsider Art”
The founder of London’s Gallery of Everything argues that self-taught, visionary and spiritual makers belong in the art historical canon rather than in a category apart. His Frieze Week program includes Sam Doyle’s first U.K. solo show and a memorial presentation of works by Seyni Awa Camara at 1-54.
The Haas Brothers On Finding Magic in Math at Marianne Boesky
Twin brothers Niki and Simon Haas made their name creating characters onto which collectors project personalities and affection. “Mathemagical” in New York pairs those bronze beings with new paintings governed by mathematical rules.
Public Gallery Built Its Reputation by Letting Artists Take the Lead
Founded in 2020 in a Brutalist estate on the edge of London, the space run by Alex Harrison, Harry Dougall and Nicole Estilo Kaiser has become a fixture at the major fairs. The co-directors explain how a flexible model shaped around the people they represent has carried them through several difficult markets.
Features
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At Frieze London and Frieze Masters, Rediscoveries Are Giving the Market New Momentum
A £5 million Jan Brueghel the Elder led opening-day sales, while overlooked modernists from Morocco, Colombia and Antigua drew collector and institutional attention. In the contemporary tent, emerging voices and steady blue-chip sales set a measured, reset-era tone.
The Must-See London Exhibitions Beyond Frieze
Major surveys of Cecilia Vicuña and Salman Toor share the spotlight with Issy Wood’s self-portraits at the National Portrait Gallery and Sam Doyle’s first U.K. solo outing, while smaller project spaces round out a week of openings across the city.
The Insider’s Guide to Providence, Rhode Island’s Underrated Dining Scene
The Ocean State capital is home to an underrated culinary scene, with world-class chefs, freshly caught seafood and cozy Italian restaurants serving up red-sauce pasta and old-world ambiance.
Munch, Black Metal and the Nobel Peace Center: A Guide to the Art of Oslo
This city is an entryway into Scandinavia, into Norway and into a society and aesthetic that feels familiar yet is uniquely its own. Its unhurried pace and looming institutions present an atmosphere of stoic civilization, yet running through it all are undercurrents of eclectic folk myth and a mossy woodsiness intertwined with threads of Black Metal and a particular type of expressionistic Scandinavian madness.
Eight Books That Illuminate the Brilliance and Biases of the Nobel Prize
Works by Ishiguro, Wiesel and Feynman show the range of achievement the honor has recognized, while other selections confront the prize’s politics and critique the selection committees’ choices. The result is a fuller portrait of an honor that has defined excellence for more than a century.
Power Lists
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Observer’s 2026 A.I. Power Index: Who Controls the Capital Flow in A.I
Power in artificial intelligence no longer moves through the channels everyone learned to watch.
Observer New Media Power List: Call for Submissions
Nominations are open for Observer’s 2026 New Media Power List
The 50 Most Powerful PR Firms of 2026
This year’s honorees are emblematic of a notable shift in public relations from responsive publicity to proactive leadership in the moments that matter most.
Wall-to-Wall Cultural Capital: Inside Observer’s Art Power Index Party
Under the dim lights of the Lower East Side’s Maison Nur, art world luminaries gathered to celebrate Observer’s Art Power Index—and each other. From the impassioned speeches to the sharp tailoring and Damien Hirst over the bar, the evening embodied our legacy of chronicling power with style.
2025 Nightlife & Dining Power Index
Humanity is still the most vital ingredient in hospitality, and that isn’t changing anytime soon.
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One Fine Show: “Ana Mendieta” at Tate Modern in London
Sent from Havana to live in the United States at 12, Mendieta abandoned painting in graduate school for performance, film and a land-based practice inspired in part by her personal history. This sweeping survey brings that transformation into focus.
Dan Ives Is Putting His Wall Street Fame to Work at Yorkville Ives
Dan Ives spent eight years as one of Wedbush’s best-known technology bulls. Now, armed with 49 new stock recommendations and a familiar Wall Street brand, he’s trying to build a business of his own.
Ed Bastian’s Premium Strategy at Delta Faces a $6 Billion Fuel Shock
Delta’s premium cabins and American Express partnership are bringing in billions, but even those revenue streams can’t fully absorb a $6 billion fuel shock. With profit expectations falling and airfares climbing, the airline faces a difficult test of how much more its customers will pay.
From Sam Altman to Elizabeth Holmes, Hollywood’s Big Tech Obsession Goes Viral
Mark Zuckerberg is back on the big screen. Sam Altman is getting the Luca Guadagnino treatment. Elizabeth Holmes and Elon
How Kiawah Island Became the South’s Most Exclusive Sandbar
How a buggy, half-built golf development became one of the priciest addresses in the South is a story of foreign money, a hurricane, a bankruptcy and a great many very well-protected trees.
Experience the Best of Maine in Fall, From Oyster Boats to Pumpkin Regattas
New restaurants, private oyster cruises, L.L.Bean’s $50 million refit and the harvest rituals that make it worth driving from Portland to Katahdin.
Preppy Kitchen Founder John Kanell’s Favorite Books Span Galaxies and Dystopias
As his new book hits the shelves, the former math and science teacher-turned-cookbook author shares his love for a genre that feeds the same curiosity he brings to his recipes. Each one, he says, asks big questions about society, memory and what makes us human.
Gökhun Baltacı Paints the Psychic Weight of Memory
In “A Moonless Plateau” at kaufmann repetto, the artist’s materially dense, psychologically charged paintings slow perception down, and images emerge through layers of erasure and accumulation. The nearly sold-out show confirms the universal resonance of his subtle, subconscious-driven compositions.
For Jonathan David Katz, the Story of American Art Is a Queer One
The scholar and curator argues that a list of the nation’s greatest artists would largely mirror a list of its greatest queer ones. Through exhibitions, education and a grant-funded cohort of graduate students, he is working to make institutions admit it.
Screening at New York Film Festival: Tony Gilroy’s ‘Behemoth!’
Gilroy seldom finds meaningful visual or thematic throughlines, resulting in a work of heightened moments and performances that work wonders individually, but never harmonize.
Inside the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, Watchmaking’s Most Prestigious Prize
There isn’t a Nobel Prize for watches, but the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, better known as the GPHG, is routinely described as the industry’s Oscars.
After Losing Two Fairs, Vienna’s Galleries Built One Together
Astoria Artshow is “a very important” and “very innovative” addition to Vienna’s art scene, according to Bärbel Vischer, curator of contemporary art at the city’s Museum of Applied Arts. It was launched by a group of 35 Viennese dealers following the cancellation of the city’s two main fairs, Vienna Contemporary and Spark Art Fair Vienna.
