Swedish state museums to go free next year
21 September
Many of Sweden’s state-run museums will go free next year, thanks to a reform passed by the Social Democratic government on 21 September. The government has allotted SKr80m ($9.4m) to enable 17 institutions, including the Moderna Museet in Malmö and Stockholm, to drop their charges. The Social Democrats had introduced free entrance in 2005, but the conservative government withdrew the reform a year later.
Guggenheim relatives lose Venice court battle
24 September
Relatives of the late art collector Peggy Guggenheim lost their third court appeal against the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York over the management of the collection in Venice she donated before her death in 1979. Relatives claimed that the collection, including 326 works of art by artists including Picasso and Salvador Dalí, was not maintained according to her wishes, which specified that the collection remain as it was left and not include new works of art.
Rubenstein gives $25m to arts at Duke University
5 October
Duke University, North Carolina, received a $25m gift from the chairman of its board and alumnus, David Rubenstein. The gift, which will bring Rubenstein’s donations to Duke University in the past decade to nearly $100m, will fund arts programming at the university as well as a 71,000-square-foot building for the arts.
Alberto Burri’s Grande Cretto finally completed
17 October
After 30 years of planning, the vast land art work Grande Cretto, by the late Italian artist Alberto Burri, was finally completed and unveiled in Sicily. The 8,000 sq. m concrete landscape, first conceived by the artist in 1985, serves as a memorial to the town of Gibellina, which was destroyed by a devastating earthquake in 1968. The artist Giancarlo Neri and the British musician Robert Del Naja marked the opening with a participatory sound and light show.
Museums investigate possible looted objects
19 October
A flood of institutions are restituting works of art bought through the former art dealer Subhash Kapoor, who is awaiting trial in India on charges of smuggling looted artefacts worth more than $100m. On 19 October, the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore said it would return an 11th-century bronze sculpture of a Hindu goddess to India; the piece was bought for $650,000 in 2007. Kapoor denies any wrongdoing.
Homecoming for Hieronymus Bosch
21 October
Works by the Dutch Renaissance master Hieronymus Bosch will come home for the 500th anniversary of his death. Charles de Mooij, the director of the Noordbrabants Museum in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, spent seven years negotiating the loans of 20 of Bosch’s 25 surviving panels, some of which have been separated for centuries, and 19 of his 25 drawings for an exhibition opening in February 2016.
UK museums on high alert against theft
21 October
Museums in the UK are on high alert against theft after the Arts Council England (ACE) and the Scottish Council on Archives issued a warning stating that organised criminals are targeting museums and galleries. In the statement, the ACE urged all institutions to ensure their collections are held in optimally safe facilities, and to ensure staff are “extra vigilant to visitors paying undue attention to collections”.
Pergamon Museum makeover under way
23 October
The renovation of the main building of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin is now expected to be completed by 2019. Also, a new wing dedicated to Egyptian art is due to open in around 2025. As part of the project, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which runs the Berlin State Museums, also plans to create an underground “archaeological walk” to link four of the five institutions on Berlin’s Museum Island.