Greg Abel Runs Berkshire. Howard Buffett’s Job is to Keep it Berkshire.
Warren Buffett called his son Howard an insurance policy Berkshire shareholders should hope never to use. The metaphor explains the job.
The New York Gallery Shows Not to Miss During Armory Week
These exhibitions, spanning museum-level presentations of works by Lynda Benglis and Alfredo Jaar, ambitious gallery debuts and digital experimentation, are worth making time for.
The Long, Strange History of Yacht Clubs
The yacht club evolved over three centuries from private fleets and dining societies into institutions that shaped racing, boat design and the culture of sailing.
New York
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Art Fair Confidential: An Insider’s Look at Staging the Armory Shows of Yesteryear
Setting up hundreds of gallery booths in a 72-hour window meant managing a mix of skilled art handlers and freelance labor with no art background. The result was a strange amalgamation of precision and practicality, with masterpieces and forklifts sharing the same crowded and chaotic space.
The Herbert Lust Collection Lands at Christie’s, Led by a $30M Giacometti
Family and friends describe the late collector as a scholar first, insisting that, for him, deep knowledge of an artist always preceded acquisition. His friendships with the likes of Alberto Giacometti, Alexander Calder and Robert Indiana helped shape an extraordinary art collection that also included works by overlooked figures such as Hans Bellmer, Mary Bauermeister and Carlotta Corpron.
Collector or Dealer? Lio Malca Built a Cultural Ecosystem by Refusing to Choose
After making early bets on Basquiat, Haring, Scharf and Condo, the collector-turned-dealer created a three-pronged arts ecosystem with exhibition spaces in New York and Ibiza and an art hotel and residency in Tulum. He intends to keep pushing against traditional art world boundaries for as long as he can.
The Women of the Legendary 1913 Armory Show
It’s remarkable that not one or two, or a handful, but 50 women in 1913 were accepted by the all-male Association of American Painters and Sculptors, and showed side by side with the most prominent artists of the day in one of the most consequential exhibitions of all time.
A Smarter Guide to a Greener New York, From Refillable Fragrance to Reclaimed Design
Seven stops take in a perfume refill, a handbag appraisal and lemon-pith kosho butter before crossing into Brooklyn for a sorting shift and a night among salvaged heart pine.
Art
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Best of TIFF: Jesse Eisenberg’s ‘The Debut’
Outside the occasional blockbuster, you’re unlikely to experience mid-movie applause so thunderous that it drowns out whole lines of dialogue. And yet this film invites just that, with its funny, folksy, ludicrously invigorating tale of a mousey suburban housewife finding herself through the stage, before getting lost all over again.
TIFF Remains a Launchpad Even as the Festival Blurs the Line Between Fandom and Industry
Debates still rage over the festival’s shifting atmosphere, yet the intensity of that debate underscores how deeply the city and the industry remain invested in it. This year’s massive crowds, high-profile premieres and rapid hype cycles confirmed Toronto is still a significant cultural touchstone for awards season.
Jewel’s First Major Exhibition Merges Science, Myth and Feminine Power
In “Matriclysm: An Archaeology of Connections Lost,” the Grammy nominated musician brings together deeply personal and universal concerns, grounding them in questions of memory, power, identity and connection. The result is an exhibition that moves between the intimate and the elemental, with an enduringly universal appeal.
The Art World’s Real Vulnerability Isn’t Theft. It’s the Move.
When valuable works of art move between museums, galleries, shippers and temporary crews, chain of custody and access control are as important as alarms and physical barriers. Acre Security’s Kumar Sokka argues that the greatest risks emerge in the gaps between people, systems and moments of responsibility.
The Best Lesson I Learned on the Road as a Traveling Art Handler
Atelier 4 founder and CEO Jonathan Schwartz recalls an early job in his career when he misplaced a Jasper Johns and how the mishap inspired him to always have at least two art handlers on every truck.
Business
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Meet the Data Center Builders Behind A.I.’s Next IPO Wave
For years, the data center boom was financed by sovereign wealth, private equity and bank debt. Now Nscale, Vantage and Humain are testing whether public investors will finance the next phase of A.I. infrastructure.
The Fed Moved. The Borrowing Math Changed for Businesses.
Citizens’ Mark Valentino and Eric Merlis unpack the business implications of the Federal Reserve’s latest rate hike, examining what the new borrowing environment means for investment and financial planning.
Philanthropy Needs to Invest in the Infrastructure of Mobility
Point Source Youth’s Larry Cohen examines what youth homelessness reveals about the gaps between philanthropy’s investments in education and economic mobility and the conditions required for those investments to succeed.
At Cannes, BYD and the Superyacht Industry Chart a High-Tech Future
At the Cannes Yachting Festival, BYD’s battery technology and advances in alternative fuels offer a glimpse of a cleaner, quieter future for superyachts.
Women’s Brain Health Is Philanthropy’s Next Big Bet
Maria Shriver, founder of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, makes the case for treating women’s brain health as a philanthropic investment priority. Shriver argues that targeted investment in women-centered research can close critical scientific gaps while reducing the disease’s costs to families, workers and the global economy.
Travel
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The New Status Symbol Is a Yacht That Reaches Antarctica
Expedition yachting has become luxury’s newest arms race, where prestige is measured in polar permits, helicopters and submarines instead of beach clubs.
How to Explore Cornwall, One Charming Coastal Pocket at a Time
Cornwall is at its best when the itinerary leaves room for harbor towns, coastal walks and the occasional pub detour.
Inside Claridge’s Century-Long Love Story With Fashion
For more than 100 years, designers, models, editors and socialites have turned Claridge’s into one of fashion’s most enduring London haunts.
Where to Stay During London Fashion Week, From Mayfair Classics to Soho Scene-Stealers
From Claridge’s and The Twenty Two to Broadwick Soho and At Sloane, these are the hotels that keep you close to the shows, the parties and the post-runway damage.
The Insider’s Guide to Venice, Beyond the Tourist Circuit
The restaurants, wine bars, workshops and cultural spaces that reveal a more local, less polished side of Venice.
Nightlife & Dining
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The Best New L.A. Restaurants Opening in September
Nancy Silverton returns to the Palisades, The Brothers Sushi lands in Beverly Hills and a new crop of brasseries, bakeries and steakhouses joins the fall dining rush.
At Mexico’s Apapaxoa Festival, Dominique Crenn Thinks Beyond the Stars and the Rankings
Honored alongside some of the world’s most inventive chefs, Dominique Crenn argues that the future of fine dining depends as much on farmers, fishermen and human connection as it does on culinary ambition.
Candace Bushnell: “You Just Have to Go Out Every Single Night”
When it comes to meeting someone, the Sex and the City columnist still believes in 1990s methods—specifically, meeting in real life.
The 10 New York City Restaurant Openings to Know This September
During one of the year’s most crowded months for restaurant openings, Cafe Charmant, Brasserie Boulud, Dante Elizabeth Street, Creola and Faux land in New York City.
In London, a New Wave of Greek Restaurants Goes Beyond the Taverna
Rather than simply chasing a trend, these chefs and restaurateurs are making a broader case for Greek cuisine through refined, regionally specific and occasionally experimental cooking.
Expert Insights
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The Fight Over Data Centers Is a Fight Over Who Owns the Compute
The A.I. boom has concentrated compute in enormous data centers, but Product Science’s Anastasia Matveeva argues that advances in distributed training can challenge the assumption that serious A.I. workloads must live in hyperscale campuses.
Gloria Steinem Taught Us How to Walk Forward Without Her
Entrepreneur Stacey Boyd, who knew and collaborated with Gloria Steinem, reflects on the organizing principles behind Steinem’s extraordinary life and legacy. Boyd considers what Steinem’s leadership can teach business leaders and philanthropists about listening and building the infrastructure for movements to outlast any one person.
Beyond the Front Row: What Fashion Month Reveals About Traceability
Fashion Month is increasingly putting the systems behind fashion on display. The Footwear Collective’s Dr. Yuly Fuentes-Medel examines how traceability, material transparency and collaboration across fragmented supply chains are becoming part of the industry’s broader story.
Meta’s Muse Wants to Become the Interface for Your Digital Life
Meta has the distribution to make its new personal A.I. agent Muse ubiquitous. The harder question, argues A.I. strategy and enterprise-wide adoption expert René Bohnsack, is whether consumers will trust it with access to their digital lives.
The Gold Sitting in American Jewelry Drawers Is an Untapped Asset
Jewelry is still treated primarily as a possession rather than a financial asset, despite the significant value of the gold sitting in American homes. Unvault’s Nidhi Singhvi argues that better information can give owners greater control over an asset that has long existed outside traditional systems of wealth measurement.
Lifestyle
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The 2026 Toyota GR Supra MkV Final Edition Is a Perfect Eulogy on Wheels
In its last incarnation, the GR Supra is that most wonderful of cars: a vehicle that exists for no other reason than to celebrate the joys of driving.
We Loved a Serial Columnist: New York Toasts 30 Years of Candace Bushnell’s Original SATC
Thirty years after Sex and the City first ran, Candace Bushnell returned to Observer’s pages to explain why the column was never about sex at all.
La Sponda, From the Daniel’s Miami Team, Chases Pasta Perfection on Biscayne Bay
Thomas Angelo and Danny Ganem bring La Sponda to Biscayne Bay with regional Italian dishes, handmade pasta, wagyu and a deep wine list.
Eugene Remm’s Cafe Charmant Brings a Worldlier Brasserie to the West Village
At Cafe Charmant, chef Jake Tyler Brodsky takes brasserie cuisine around the world.
The World’s Only White-Gold Cartier Cheich Heads to Auction in Hong Kong
Created as a special commission in 2010, the one-of-a-kind watch leads a sale with an extensive selection of rare Cartier designs.
Interviews
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Mila Askarova Adds Chelsea to Gazelli Art House’s International Footprint
Just before the opening of this year’s Armory Show, the London- and Baku-based gallery will take over the space formerly occupied by Marlborough Gallery at 545 West 25th Street, vacant since its closure in 2024. With the expansion, Askarova is rethinking how a commercial gallery can work more cohesively across historical, contemporary and digital art.
The Nasher’s New Survey Treats Protest as an American Tradition
Highlighting blue-chip practitioners like Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, the Guerrilla Girls and Chuck Close alongside less flashy names like Marielle Plaisir, Robert Colescott and Sam Durant, “Turn the volume up!” asserts that every voice still matters, no matter how insignificant and powerless many currently feel.
A Decade In, London’s Somerset House Studios Is Still Refining Its Model of Artist Support
Director Marie McPartlin says the residency program was designed to give artists what many institutions won’t: years to work, a built-in culture of peer mentorship and permission to fail along the way.
Jimmy Chin On Finding Beauty in Landscapes That Kill
Few photographers have earned their vantage points the way Jimmy Chin has, with first ascents in the Himalaya and the first American ski descent of Everest. The same nerve won him an Academy Award for ‘Free Solo’ and earned him an Oscar nomination for ‘Nyad’. Along the way, Chin built one of photography’s largest audiences, with 3.4 million followers on Instagram alone, by bringing back images from places few people will ever reach.
Inside Cohere’s $20 Billion Sovereignty Bet, With Co-Founder Nick Frosst
Earlier this summer, after Anthropic’s June shutdown, Cohere co-founder Nick Frosst talked to Observer about why sovereign A.I. matters. This week, Cohere signed a merger with Aleph Alpha that values the combined company at $20 billion.
Features
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What’s Next for British Art?
British art is having a moment, but British Art Fair co-founder and director Gay Hutson cautions that before we celebrate too loudly, it’s worth considering whether we are looking for art’s next stars in the right places.
Toronto’s Fall Cultural Calendar Foregrounds Ruin, Rebirth and Rupture
Fall programming across the city spans not only TIFF and a biennial but also Melissa Auf der Maur’s unfiltered ’90s tour photography, a scaled-down survey of Impressionist masterworks and a sound installation built from 600 brass bells.
Toronto Biennial Curator Allison Glenn On Creating Connections and What Happens When Things Fall Apart
For the 2026 edition, 30 artists and collectives will explore the idea of rupture as a generative force, expanding the exhibition beyond Toronto via waterways, public spaces and cross-border collaborations.
How Fashion Week Became an Economy of Attention
University of Nebraska Omaha’s Jane Liu, Ph.D. examines the economics of Fashion Week, unpacking how the runway has become an investment in attention, cultural relevance and future demand rather than simply a vehicle for selling clothes.
The Restaurants, Bars and Clubs to See and Be Seen During London Fashion Week
The new openings, revived institutions and discreet members’ clubs that anchor the city’s unofficial Fashion Week itinerary.
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: “I SPY! Walter Wick’s Hidden Wonders” at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art
The show includes several three-dimensional models from which Wick’s photographs were made, showcasing the physical construction that went into images long mistaken for pure illustration.
Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden Navigates a Tough Turnaround After Yeezy Split
Adidas has put its Yeezy crisis behind it, but CEO Bjørn Gulden says the company’s next test is keeping its comeback on track in a tough sportswear market.
Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty Redefines Success with Purpose That Performs
At the Fast Company Innovation Festival, Selena Gomez and her beauty brand’s chief impact officer Elyse Cohen explain how Rare Beauty and the Rare Impact Fund drive mission-led growth.
Screening at TIFF: Arie and Chuko Esiri’s ‘Clarissa’
Novelistic and abstruse, the film—named for Woolf’s nostalgic middle-aged socialite, Clarissa Dalloway—unfolds with the very same stream-of-consciousness telling as the original text.
Houston’s Insiders Say the City’s Cultural Scene Remains One of the Art World’s Best-Kept Secrets
“Houston is a city of transplants, and I think that constant influx makes the cultural fabric richer,” dealer Laura Burton told Observer.
After a Family Health Crisis, Bill Ackman Takes a Startup Approach to Brain Research
Bill Ackman is launching the Ackman Oxman Institute, a startup-style brain research organization, after his daughter survived a massive brain hemorrhage earlier this year.
The University of Toronto’s Alumni Are Everywhere in the A.I. Boom
Geoffrey Hinton’s research ecosystem helped turn the University of Toronto into a breeding ground for the founders and technologies driving today’s A.I. race.
This Gloucester Exhibition Looks at David Hockney Through the Eyes of a Friend
Curated by Bing McGilvray, “Hockney Reproduction(s)” at Manship Artists Residency explores the artist’s six-decade engagement with technology and graphic reproduction.
Collector Dick Hedreen Has Sold Artworks Before, But This Time It’s to Fund His Legacy
Proceeds from upcoming auctions at Sotheby’s, expected to exceed $90 million, will fund a new museum at Seattle University to house his major 350-work gift.
The de Young’s New Egypt Show Draws From Two of the Past Century’s Biggest Discoveries
Most of the 130 objects on view in “Treasures of the Pharaohs” are on loan from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, selected by former director Tarek al-Awadi before the show’s earlier debut in Rome.
In Arles, Photography and Art Ease the Transition from Summer into Fall
While Arles tends to be buzziest in July and August, the autumn season is a quieter, crowd-free time to explore a town packing a great artistic punch.
Google DeepMind’s 3 Founders Are Now Shaping A.I. From Very Different Posts
Hassabis Once united by DeepMind’s AGI mission, Demis Hassabis, Mustafa Suleyman and Shane Legg are now pursuing distinctly different futures for A.I.
