Dinosaur Skeleton Sells for $47.3 Million at Sotheby's as Art World Reshuffles

A 67-million-year-old Nanotyrannus skeleton named "Jodi" sold for $47.3 million at Sotheby's yesterday, falling short of the $50.1 million record for a dinosaur fossil set in July. The sale anchors this week's round of art-world personnel changes, institutional honors and one bruising gallery exposé.

Who is moving where?

Leah Ke Yi Zheng joins Antenna Space. The Chicago-based painter's first solo show in China opens November 9 at the gallery, which operates spaces in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Zheng is also represented by Mendes Wood DM and had been supported by Galerie Emanuel Layr, which recently announced it would scale back its operations.

Vielmetter now represents Patrick Eugène. The Atlanta-based self-taught artist will appear in the gallery's booth at Art Basel Miami Beach, ahead of a Los Angeles solo show in fall 2027.

Sandra Terdjman has been named the 2026–27 Keith Haring Chair in Art and Activism. The position, presented by the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard) and the Human Rights Project at Bard College, allows the recipient to teach and conduct research at Bard. Terdjman cofounded Kadist, the arts nonprofit that closed its San Francisco exhibition space last year, and Afield, a grantmaking organization for artist-led projects.

Safwan Masri joins the office of Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Most recently dean of Georgetown University in Qatar, Masri will serve as executive director of cultural diplomacy, overseeing Qatar's Years of Culture initiative, the Qatar-China Friendship Association and the Qatar-Africa Business Forum.

Jeff Bergman returns to Ryan Lee as director. He worked at the New York gallery from 2021 to 2025 before departing for a director position at Galerie Lelong. "[Bergman] is a valuable addition, bringing a depth of knowledge and experience to support the gallery's mission," gallery partner Jeffrey Lee said.

What is happening at the museums?

Pérez Art Museum Miami will honor billionaire collector Nicolas Berggruen and his family at its annual Art of the Party fundraiser on November 7. Berggruen is the founder and chairman of the Berggruen Institute. To coincide with the recognition, PAMM opens "Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen" this week.

Silver Art Projects has named its 2026–27 residency cohort. Selected from nearly 2,000 applications, the group includes:

• 21 new fellows
• 4 returning senior fellows
• 1 distinguished artist-in-residence, Shantell Martin

Each will receive a year of studio space at the organization's 120 Broadway building.

Why did "Jodi" not break the record?

Jodi was recently affirmed as a distinct species related to Tyrannosaurus rex rather than a juvenile of it, but the skeleton could not outdo its distant cousin at auction. The $50.1 million dinosaur record was achieved in July, when Sotheby's sold the T. rex "Gus," also around 67 million years old.

T. rex skeletons have been the most prized fossils since "Sue" sold for $8.4 million in 1997. "Sue" held the title until another T. rex, "Stan," sold for $31.8 million at Christie's in 2020. Their reign was then interrupted by a two-year interregnum after billionaire collector Ken Griffin paid $44.6 million for "Apex," a nearly complete, roughly 150-million-year-old Stegosaurus skeleton. Whether Gus enjoys a long reign, or the market enters a contested intermediate period, remains to be seen.

What does the Pace exposé reveal?

The third part of Julie Brener Davich's multipart series on Pace Gallery, "Pace to the Bottom," is now out on her Substack, The Appraisal. Part one surveyed the gallery's history; part two examined CEO Marc Glimcher's courting of Silicon Valley billionaires and his art-tech collaborations. Part three digs into what Davich, drawing on her sources, describes as "claims of 'reckless' executive spending."

Glimcher is not the only figure implicated, according to the series, but he did hire Alexander Gilkes, described as a luxury lifestyle whisperer of sorts, who ensured Pace had $12,000 coffee machines on every floor, plus kombucha and $12 bottles of water in the fridges. The gallery has since laid off staff, cut artists from its roster, searched for a new London space and tried to sublet its custom-built but rented Chelsea headquarters.

Glimcher, who sat for a 90-minute interview with Brener Davich, rejected the charge of irresponsible spending. "We spend on ideas, projects, production, and programming, but we try to avoid spending on frivolous and wasteful things," he said.

The series lands as the gallery continues to retrench, and as collectors weigh whether a market that pays $47.3 million for a fossil will keep rewarding institutional ambition at any price.