Alien Art/Arcturus Landing by Gordon R Dickson 1981
ALIEN ART.
On the planet Arcadia, a young man and woman and a swamp otter join together to haul the otter's eleven hundred pound statue overland to meet the deadline of a prospective buyer from another planet.
Arcturus Landing.
The Aliens claim humans can enter the galaxy when and if they develop their own faster-than light drive, but they also stop all research. When an Alien orders Malcolm Fletcher to drop his research, Fletcher joins an eccentric millionaire in a race to develop a stardrive in secret.