Hadani Ditmars

Thessaloniki’s 15th-century Hamza Bey Mosque reopens as arts centre after nearly 20-year conservation effort

The historic site will operate as a permanent exhibition space as well as a cultural centre, managed by the Metropolitan Organisation of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki (MOMus)

Signet ring depicting the Lighthouse of Alexandria—a lost wonder of the ancient world—discovered during underwater excavation

The ring, the only of its kind known to exist, was found on the submerged Royal Island of Antirhodos

Toronto biennial brings monument to resilience and spiritual liberation to a Sikh community centre

Nirbhai (nep) Singh Sidhu’s large-scale sculpture commission is now a permanent fixture of the Scarborough Gurdwara

Filmpreview

The Japanese photographer who turned an empathetic eye on rural communities of the Pacific Northwest in the early 20th century

A new documentary about Frank Matsura captures the incredible journey of an immigrant photographer who created indelible images and served as a bridge across cultures

Vancouver Art Gallery makes its interim leaders permanent co-chief executives

Eva Respini and Sirish Rao will share chief executive duties, with the former also serving as chief curator while the later takes on the role of executive director

Fourth Toronto Biennial of Art brings more than 30 artists and collectives together around the theme of rupture

Titled “Things Fall Apart” and curated by Allison Glenn, the biennial unfolds across and beyond the city, on Lake Ontario and, thanks to a new partnership programme, in a half-dozen other cities

Prizesnews

Steven Shearer wins Audain Prize, one of Canada’s top art awards

The Vancouver-based painter and photoconceptualist will receive $71,000

From ailing cooling systems to toxic chemicals, a museum tour shines a light on the effects of austerity

To drive home the impact of stagnant support for arts and culture, the Museum of Vancouver is offering “austerity tours” of its aging campus

Amid affordability crisis for artists, Vancouver’s city council establishes cultural land trust

The model—already deployed in San Francisco, Helsinki and London—aims to protect creative communities from rampant real estate speculation and development

Peter Max, artist who achieved ubiquity marrying Pop art and psychedelia, has died, aged 88

A celebrity in his own right who also created riotous portraits of many famous and powerful people, Max made images that became inseparable from the legacy of the Summer of Love and countercultural movement

Researchers rescuing war-damaged manuscripts in Gaza receive Unesco prize

Abdul Latif Hashim and Haneen Al-Amassi have been awarded the $40,000 Unesco/Jikji Memory of the World Prize

Awardsnews

Winners of 2026 Governor General Awards, one of Canada’s top art prizes, revealed

An exhibition featuring works by all eight recipients of this year’s awards will open in New Brunswick this autumn

Police and firefighters break into gallery after sculpture is mistaken for a person in distress

The sculpture, of an art preparator whose torso is concealed in a crate with their legs sticking out, prompted a late-night rescue mission at Vancouver’s Access Gallery

Man discovers Denmark’s largest Viking Age silver hoard while digging a terrace in his garden

Treasure trove comprises 700 10th-century objects and fragments, weighing almost 18.5kg

Theftsnews

Egyptian queen’s 673-diamond necklace stolen from Vienna museum in brazen daytime heist

Authorities are searching for two unmasked men who bought tickets to the Museum of Applied Arts, smashed a display case, snatched the valuable necklace and walked out

Neolithic sculpture of a man riding a leopard discovered in Turkey

According to archaeologists, the statue's abstract style and depiction of a human on an animal make this discovery significant

More than 100 works from Canada’s federal collection of Indigenous art are ‘unaccounted for’

The Indigenous Art Centre has been unable to locate 111 works from its collection of more than 5,000 pieces by First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists

How has a famous group of 2,000 year-old Chinese rock paintings remained so vibrant? Because it was made with blood, new research says

Murals at Unesco World Heritage Site Zuojiang Huashan in southern China were made using animal blood and blood from childbirth, according to researchers

Archaeologists uncover ancient, live-work ceramic studios linked to Moche civilisation in Peru

Excavations at the Cerro Mayal site in the north of the country show it was an important production facility for Moche ceramics around the seventh century

Unesconews

‘We’re astounded and a bit perplexed by it’: colossal 2,500-year-old sculpture discovered at Unesco site in Turkey

The statue gives new insight into the ancient Lydian civilisation, Turkey’s culture ministry says

Lidar analysis reveals more than 20,000 pre-colonial earthworks under Amazonian rainforest

A new study based on aerial surveys suggests the pre-Columbian Aquiry civilisation had a much more developed and dispersed footprint than previously thought

Family of donor who helped establish Canadian Museum for Human Rights to pause support over Palestine exhibit

The Asper family’s foundation last donated to the museum in 2023, and Gail Asper says she has indefinitely paused a personal gift of C$50,000 over a display about the violent displacement of Palestinians

Trove of art by Basquiat, Javier Calleja and others at play in mammoth Vancouver real estate lawsuit

A lawsuit related to the collapse of the developer Coromandel Properties includes an art collection purchased for $4.9m that was used as collateral for a loan

Three Ancient Egyptian tombs with ‘significant’ inscriptions discovered in Saqqara necropolis

Rare carvings may reveal important information about New Kingdom era connections to the Near East and ancient domestic life

Ancient Egyptian grave with colourful murals discovered in Luxor

Archaeologists hope that further research of the site will reveal more about the lives of the people who lived in the ancient city of Thebes

Experts blame extensive earthquake damage in Venezuela on decades of government neglect

Numerous heritage sites were among the 58,000 buildings destroyed by the deadly twin earthquakes last month

Human rights museum’s Palestine exhibition sets off feud between Canadian politicians

The country’s heritage minister criticised curatorial choices in “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present”, drawing widespread rebukes including from the leader of the New Democratic Party

Canadian Museum for Human Rights show on Palestinian displacement offers nuanced, empathetic perspective amid uproar

Met with opposition and outrage from the moment it was announced, the show gathers historical objects and images, poetry, contemporary art and video interviews

Royal Ontario Museum acquires collection of nearly 600 Arab textiles and artefacts

The collection was assembled by the textile historian Widad Kamel Kawar and significantly bolsters the Toronto museum’s holdings of materials from the region

‘Marks that speak across time’: rock carvings and drawings discovered in Oman

A newly discovered archaeological site has revealed a massive rock face covered in art that is believed to be ancient