Art: Additional Resources

New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit—alongside 20 other attorneys general—against the Trump administration over an executive order that effectively shuts down three federal agencies responsible for supporting libraries, museums, minority-owned businesses, and labor mediation services.

At the center of the lawsuit is the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a modest but vital federal agency that in 2024 alone distributed $180 million in funding across all 50 states. In New York, more than $8 million from IMLS supported literacy programs, internet access, staff training, and salaries for two-thirds of the state library’s employees. That funding—and the services it sustains—is now at risk. Following the executive order, IMLS has placed nearly all of its employees on administrative leave and frozen hundreds of grants.

James in a press release called the executive order “another attack on vulnerable communities, small businesses, and our children’s education,” and emphasized the ripple effect the shutdown would have across public institutions. “The agencies they are attempting to dismantle support workers nationwide, provide funding to help minority-owned businesses, and make sure our libraries and museums stay open so children can engage in lifelong learning.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court, argues that the order violates both the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act by attempting to unilaterally eliminate agencies created by Congress without going through the legislative process. The suit also challenges the administration’s authority to override federal funding laws without Congressional approval.

Two additional agencies are also in the administration’s crosshairs: the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), which fosters economic growth for minority-owned enterprises, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), which helps resolve labor disputes. The Trump administration has reportedly slashed MBDA’s staff from 40 to just five and halted its grantmaking activities. FMCS, meanwhile, has seen staffing levels drop from 200 to fewer than 15 and has begun terminating core programs that support unionized workers.

New York State Librarian Lauren Moore described the impact on her department as devastating. “This institute provides $8 million in federal support, sustaining 55 state library staff members and essential programs that directly serve local library communities and residents across the state,” she said. “Our libraries are more than just buildings; they are vibrant hubs of knowledge, culture, and community connection.”

James filed the suit jointly with the attorneys general of Rhode Island and Hawaii. Also joining are California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, Illinois, Oregon, and others. The case is the latest in a string of legal actions brought by James in response to the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail federal funding for education, health care, and worker protections. Earlier this month, she won a temporary court order blocking the administration from slashing $11 billion in health funds for states.

The coalition’s legal challenge may set up yet another courtroom showdown between blue-state attorneys general and a White House bent on consolidating executive power. “This isn’t just about budget cuts,” James said. “This is about protecting the institutions that hold our communities together.”

Some trends last longer than others, even in a fragmented art market. One of the most notable ones over the last year has been a spike in the market for François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, whose whimsical sculptures of animals and plants have been the subject of nine-minute bidding wars, generating sale prices that often far exceed these works’ high estimates. 

The prices for sculptures by these artists—also known as Les Lalanne—have grown dramatically, with four of the top 10 sales at auction for works by François-Xavier taking place last year, most of them at Christie’s in New York, according to data analysis by ARTnews.

That rise has been 15 years in the making, according to Edith Dicconson, co-executive director of New York’s Kasmin gallery, which has represented Les Lalanne in the US since 2007.

“Lalanne appeals to everybody, which is amazing. And I think a lot more connoisseurship has come to light,” Dicconson told ARTnews. “I think all of that connoisseurship coming out now is really helping to also find new collectors.”

“In the end,” she said, “once you get one in the room, you start to want more.”

Wendy Cromwell, an art advisor and a member of the Association of Professional Art Advisors told ARTnews that the French couple’s sculptures have broken out of the categories of furniture and design into fine art in a manner similar to works by Swiss sculptor and designer Diego Giacometti. 

“There’s been a movement to include design into the fine art collecting categories, and Lalanne, more than anyone, has shown us and proved [this] to us, along with others,” Cromwell said. “Giacometti furniture is not inexpensive, but I think Lalanne has really taken it to a whole new level.” 

Experts told ARTnews that recent prices at auctionand in private sales have been bolstered by the broad appeal to a wide range of collectors, particularly because of Les Lalanne’s historical connections to Surrealism. (Lalanne was introduced to Man Ray, Max Ernst, and other Surrealists by sculptor Constantin Brancusi, who the couple lived near and were close to.)

Most peg 2009 as the beginning of the shift in the market for Les Lalanne. Even amid that year’s recession, a sale of 10 works by Les Lalanne from French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé at Christie’s in Paris yielded €7.6 million euros ($9.8 million), more than 38 times its total high estimate of €198,000 ($253,000).

The US market for private sales of Les Lalanne gained momentum in the following years as Kasmin put on outdoor exhibitions on Park Avenue in 2009, at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida in 2011, and in a Chelsea gas station, where it mounted the “Sheep Station” show in 2012. 

The market for Les Lalanne has continued to rise throughout the years since, even as the couple’s large production volume meant that hundreds of works hit the auction block during that period. Between 2019 and 2024, Sotheby’s and Christie’s sold more than 700 pieces from the private collections of Les Lalanne and their two daughters, Dorothée and Marie during various sales in Paris and New York. The sales set several records and yielded a nominal total of $330.2 million.

Jodi Pollack, Sotheby’s global head of design, said the house’s Paris sale “L’Univers Lalanne,” featuring 274 works from the couple’s private collection in 2019, was transformative and a turning point in becoming a “gateway” for many new collectors to become attracted to and engaged in the Lalanne market for the first time. “There were hundreds of people participating in that auction that had never bid before on Lalanne, or even bid before at Sotheby’s,” Pollack said.

However, Ben Walker, global head of modern decorative art and design at Bonham’s New York, cautioned that the Les Lalanne market may be overheated.

“I’ve probably been saying in the back of my mind for a good few years that it’s due a correction, most notably because I think there was so much Lalanne out there,” Walker told ARTnews, observing that buyers have seemed to be less discerning about factors for “A+ works” like good patina, limited edition, and castings made while the artists were alive. 

“With the Lalanne market, it doesn’t seem to matter,” he added. “I don’t think it’s negative. I think it really is an indication about how strong the market is. People will just go for the name.”

Kasmin’s Dicconson said that new and younger collectors of Lalanne typically fall into two types: decorators and true connoisseurs. The latter group asks a lot of questions about an item’s provenance, condition, and edition number, as well as any restoration work done. And these connoisseurs, according to Dicconson, drive bids for notable pieces like ‘Hippopotame II’ Bar (1978), which sold for $7.6 million at Christie’s in May 2023.

Even amid the headline sale results, Sotheby’s Pollack has observed pricing for specific types of Lalanne sculptures shifting, especially for François-Xavier’s life-size Mouton works, depicting sheep and made of concrete and wool. “The pricing for both of those is certainly off from their market highs,” she said. “I think if you look at models that are coming up with greater frequency, you will see that most of those prices are actually trending lower.” 

Still, top works continue to exceed estimates. Prior to last November’s evening sale for the Sydell Miller collection, Pollack expected that the grand sculptural table Troupeau d’Éléphants dans les Arbres (2001) by François-Xavier would sell well beyond its high estimate of $6 million. After more than two dozen bids from Pollack and three other Sotheby’s specialists on the phones, it sold for $11.6 million with fees, marking the second-highest price for the artist at auction. 

The eight-figure price on Troupeau d’Éléphants, according to Dicconson, was driven by the piece’s rare and unusual nature—it weighs more than 2,200 pounds and features a total of seven sculptures by François-Xavier. “You’ve got almost a theater of elephants there that you can place in any way you want,” she said. “I can’t think of another piece of Lalanne like that.”

And while the one sold by Sotheby’s was the second in an edition of eight, only five such works were ultimately made. Miller’s ownership also brought a considerable amount of extra attention. “It was frothy from the beginning, and then you’ve got this super rare piece,” Dicconson said. “And then you get a couple of people on the phone, and there it goes.”

In terms of how Les Lalanne’s market will perform this year, Dicconson told ARTnews that even with the recent drops in the stock market, she still has a list of people looking for rare, top-end items she can’t find.

“People are still looking around,” she said. “So I would say that the market is still quite healthy.”

Another factor that may extend the sales momentum is whether the supply of works from the family and estates becomes a little bit scarcer. “Maybe that would make the prices go even higher,” Walker said. 

A lengthy legal dispute over a patch of land in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, that is believed to be the place where Vincent van Gogh made one of his final paintings, has come to an end, with a court ruling in favor of the French couple that owns the land.

Auvers-sur-Oise’s mayor, Isabelle Mézières, has for five years argued that the embankment was public property, but earlier this month, an appeals court in Versailles sided with Jean-François and Hélène Serlinger, the owners of a residence that includes where van Gogh made Tree Roots (1890).

The judge affirmed that the site does belong to a part of the public road, as the mayor has argued, and ordered the municipality to cover €2,000 in legal expenses.

The Serlingers purchased the property at 48 Rue Daubigny in 2013. At the time of the purchase, the couple was unaware of the site’s significance within van Gogh’s oeuvre.

In 2020, Van Gogh Institute director Wouter van der Veen learned of the plot of land after comparing an early 20th-century image that matched the roots in Van Gogh’s painting to the work itself, which was created in the the days before his suicide in a nearby wheat field. The unfinished painting is now housed in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Mézières has criticized the ruling, insisting that the site is culturally significant to the French town. In a statement published to Facebook, she said the roots are part of the town’s history and pledged to appeal the decision. “These roots are not a commodity—they belong to the people of Auvers,” she wrote.

Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, is confronting the most pointed political challenge of his tenure.

On the heels of a recent executive order signed by President Donald Trump that accused the Smithsonian of promoting divisive ideologies and called for an end to exhibitions and programs that “degrade shared American values” or “divide Americans by race,” Bunch and the Smithsonian now stand at a politically fraught crossroads.

Speaking to the New York Times this week, Steven Cheung, the White House’s communications director, said, “Lonnie Bunch is a Democrat donor and rabid partisan who manufactured lies out of thin air in order to boost sales of his miserable book. Fortunately, he, along with his garbage book, are complete failures.”

Last week, Bunch sent an internal memo to Smithsonian staff saying that, despite pressure from the White House, the Institution would “remain steadfast in our mission to bring history, science, education, research, and the arts to all Americans” and would operate “free of partisanship.”

Though the Smithsonian is run independently and is overseen by a bipartisan Board of Regents, the executive order has raised concerns about political interference and potential funding threats. Roughly 62 percent of the institution’s $1 billion annual budget comes from federal sources, leaving it vulnerable to congressional pressure.

According to the New York Times, Bunch, a seasoned historian and registered Democrat, has long walked a careful line—building consensus across political divides while advancing conversations around race, history, and national identity. But the tone from the White House has grown sharply antagonistic.

Behind the scenes, Bunch’s future remains uncertain. At 72 and six years into the role, there’s a possibility he could step down on his own terms. But the administration’s pressure campaign could hasten that decision.

Throughout his tenure, Bunch has maintained a focus on institutional integrity. In that same memo last week, Bunch reaffirmed the Smithsonian’s mission to tell “multi-faceted stories” rooted in “expertise and accuracy.” Whether he remains at the helm or chooses to depart, Bunch’s legacy—particularly the creation of the African American museum—is likely to shape the institution for decades to come.