Arts & Culture

HONG KONG — Sotheby's showed Vincent van Gogh's 'Châtaigniers en fleurs' in Hong Kong through October 15, before a Paris stop and a New York sale on November 18, the South China Morning Post reported. The May 1890 Auvers-sur-Oise landscape is the lead work in the Argentine Blaquier-Arrieta Collection, which Sotheby's values at about $450 million. The painting is one of only eight Auvers landscapes by the artist still in private hands. Sotheby's is estimating around $180 million. That would far exceed the artist's auction record of $117.2 million, set in 2022 for 'Orchard with Cypresses.' The collection's second headline lot is Cézanne's 'Arlequin,' estimated at $120 million. A Pissarro Paris street scene is expected to fetch more than $30 million. The estimate is an expectation, not a result; the price is set only when bidding takes place in November.

MIAMI BEACH — Art Basel will remain at the Miami Beach Convention Center through 2031 under a five-year contract that the city commission approved 6-1, Artforum reported. The deal ends an 18-month standoff in which fair owner MCH Group said the roughly $1 million annual rent was too high and floated a move to Las Vegas. Miami Beach agreed to cut the rent to $500,000 a year. The fair has been held in the city since 2002. Artforum, citing the New York Times, put attendance at about 80,000 and the annual economic benefit to the city at $60 million. Billionaire collector Norman Braman, who helped bring the fair to Miami Beach, called the discount offensive and the relocation threat a bluff. Fair chief Noah Horowitz, quoted by ARTnews, described a 'cyclical downturn' for Art Basel's fairs. Galleries are cutting back on fair participation or closing.

NEW YORK — William T. Vollmann's four-volume novel 'A Table for Fortune' goes on sale today from Arcade Publishing, a Skyhorse imprint, as a hardcover boxed set of more than 3,000 pages. Spanning 1968 to 2019, it follows CIA analyst Elliott Stevens through the Cold War, 9/11 and the war on terror. It also follows his son Matthew, who tries to live outside a society he sees as corrupt. Tom LeClair, reviewing for The New York Times, called it a heroic and important work. Alta Journal's review says it may be Vollmann's finest and most personal book, though it finds some psychosexual portraits weaker and says the 'Great American Novel' label does not fit. LeClair writes on his Substack that Vollmann has said, in the novel and in interviews, that he is terminally ill with cancer.

FRANKFURT — YouTube has discussed adding audiobooks to its Premium subscription, possibly in 2027, according to the Wall Street Journal. Publishing Perspectives and Publishers Lunch both relayed the report. Executives are reportedly eager for a paid alternative to unauthorized audio copies of their books on the platform. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Federation of European Publishers said net revenue fell 1.2% to €24.6 billion in 2025. Print unit sales are down 6% since 2021, and Germany shrank 2.9%. Italy's GV Group bought British printers CPI Books and CPI Antony Rowe, which together have annual sales of about £127 million and print more than 100 million books a year. Hachette Book Group reported third-quarter sales up 4%, helped by bestsellers and puzzle books.

The first full critic review of DC Studios' 'Clayface' is negative. Josh Wilding of ComicBookMovie.com, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic who saw it early in the UK, gave it 2.5 out of 5. He called it forgettable and described it as DC's 'Morbius moment.' He praised lead Tom Rhys Harries but found the horror tame and the dialogue wooden. That contrasts with the social-media reactions DC allowed after its October 13 premiere in Los Angeles. Those reactions were mostly enthusiastic: they praised the gore and Harries, and several compared the film to 'The Fly' and 'Darkman.' One early reaction called it an odd third entry for a DC universe still finding its identity. The Hollywood Reporter notes the formal review embargo lifts October 21. The James Watkins film opens October 23 and is the third in James Gunn's DC Universe, after 'Superman' and 'Supergirl.'

WOODSTOCK, N.Y. — Two U.S. festivals named documentary winners over the weekend, and the results bear on the Oscar race. At Woodstock, Pegah Ahangarani's 'Rehearsals for a Revolution' took Best Feature Documentary. It had already won the documentary prize at Cannes, and its US distributor, Sony Pictures Classics, has just released a new trailer. Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller's 'They're Here' won Best Short Documentary. 'Mouse' won Best Narrative Feature. In Arkansas, the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival gave its Critics Prize to 'Naza,' directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. 'Once Upon a Time in Harlem' won Best Documentary Film, and 'Jane Elliot Against the World' took the audience prize. Gold Derby's prediction odds currently list 'Naza' as the leading Best Documentary Feature contender.

LEEDS — The Leeds International Piano Competition closes applications for its 2027 edition on October 31. Under artistic director and jury chair Sir Stephen Hough, entrants may choose all their own repertoire for the first time in the contest's history. The upper age limit rises to 35, and first prize increases to £50,000. A new Prize-Winners Circle Award adds career funding for the gold medallist. New Encore and Piano Trail prizes are also introduced. The jury includes Piotr Anderszewski, Lucas Debargue, Janina Fialkowska, Alexander Gavrylyuk, Orli Shaham, Yeol Eum Son, Kathryn Stott and the composer Errollyn Wallen. First rounds take place March 30 to April 6, 2027, in New York, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Beijing and Seoul. The second round and semi-finals follow in September at the University of Leeds. The concerto finals are at Leeds Town Hall on September 17 and 18 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

COLOGNE — Oper Köln returned to its refurbished home on October 16, after a 14-year renovation, with a new production of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducted the Gürzenich Orchestra. Marie-Ève Signeyrole directed, and Magdalena Hinterdobler sang the Marschallin, with Bianca Andrew as Octavian and Patrick Zielke as Baron Ochs. Bachtrack's Simon Thompson, reviewing the first night, judged the staging disappointing. He wrote that it undersold both the performers and the significance of the reopening, and he described the production's tone as 'preachy and finger-wagging'. He gave it a mid-range rating of three and a half stars out of five. The house's earlier Peter Grimes had also drawn a cool Bachtrack review. The reception sets up a debate over what the reopened house will stand for artistically.

LONDON — Sir Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra opened their Barbican season on October 18 with Mahler's Symphony No. 2, the Resurrection, after a busy tour. The concert began with the UK premiere of Dai Fujikura's Amber Alchemy. Bachtrack's Roy Westbrook awarded four and a half stars, and he credited Pappano with using his opera experience to pace the symphony with dramatic flair. The soloists were Maria Bengtsson and Noa Beinart, with the London Symphony Chorus. Separately, Presto Music's October 16 release round-up lists the LSO's own-label recording of Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony and Maconchy's Nocturne under Pappano. It notes that Bachtrack's Chris Garlick called the February concert one of the greatest Vaughan Williams interpretations he had heard live.