Controversies

Tatenews

Tate to commission artist to 'critically engage' with racist imagery in Tate Britain restaurant mural

Rex Whistler’s 1927 artwork includes scenes of a Black child being enslaved and caricatures of Chinese figures

Russianews

Russian guard who doodled on $1m painting speaks out: ‘I’m a fool, what have I done!’

The 63-year-old injured war veteran spoke to Russian news outlet E1, which describes the incident as a tragedy not a comedy

Russian gallery guard charged after drawing eyes on avant-garde painting with ballpoint pen

Work by Anna Leporskaya from the 1930s is undergoing restoration after "lapse in sanity" by museum employee during first day on the job

Have archaeologists discovered Captain Cook's ship Endeavour? Experts in the US and Australia fight it out

The director of Sydney’s Australian National Maritime Museum announced that he is "convinced" it is the long-lost vessel, while the director of Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project says the findings are not conclusive

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts settles dispute with its former director

Nathalie Bondil, who was fired in 2020, was seeking $1.5m in moral and punitive damages from the museum’s board

Boris Johnson accused of corruption after backing exhibition proposed by a Conservative party donor

Former Tory Vice Chairman David Brownlow provided funds for a controversial makeover of Johnson's flat at 11 Downing Street

Swiss parliament urged to take action on Nazi-looted art amid Kunsthaus Zurich controversy

Zurich museum's displays of the collection of arms dealer Emil Georg Bührle have prompted criticism and a national debate

Catholic church's proposed redesign of Notre Dame interior provokes outrage

Plans to revamp the fire-ravaged cathedral with contemporary art and multilingual projections of Bible quotes have been compared to Disneyland

Monumentscomment

Letter | Would you keep public monuments honouring the late Jimmy Savile?

No one would argue that removing statues of the sex criminal is “cancelling culture”, yet this logic is routinely used to defend monuments of slavers, argues one of The Art Newspaper's readers

Sasha Simic

'Taliban-like minority working to undermine the Western world': uproar after French Academy in Rome moves to remove tapestries linked to colonialism

After a media campaign, French art historians and scholars sign a petition accusing the Villa Medici of "cancelling culture"

Tate Britain director defends museum against accusations of ‘cancelling Hogarth’

Critics round on exhibition’s alternative interpretations of Hogarth paintings, describing them as "wokeish drivel"

London museum wants to move controversial slaver statue to 'less prominent space'

Museum of the Home trustees vote to relocate the sculpture after UK government pressured them to keep it

Humboldt Forum to remove medallion honouring far-right donor

Ehrhardt Bödecker’s family requested the removal after his “militaristic, anti-democratic and in some respects, radically right-wing and antisemitic” views became public

Removal of Welsh slave trader painting from National Museum Cardiff is ‘censoring history’, says BBC broadcaster

Newsreader Huw Edwards will now be invited to the museum to hear more about the reinterpretation process

Giant tribute to the Queen gets green light—but locals call 55m-high sculpture ‘invasive’

Artist Simon Hitchens says work planned for Northumberland moor is "inspired by the rugged and undulating landscape" but local campaign group says it is too "industrial"

Italian photographer dropped from prize after accusations he identified rape survivors in India without consent

By publishing full names alongside images, Marco Gualazzini stands accused of breaking child protection laws and putting his subjects in danger

Plaque added near controversial Cecil Rhodes statue polarises critics and academics

Oxford professor and curator Dan Hicks calls the sign an “embarrassment”

Book Clubinterview

‘Caravaggio was a major-league asshole’: the long tradition of scandal in art

According to Noah Charney’s new book, infamy in the art world—be it contrived drama to drum up publicity or genuine artistic rivalry—is as old as art itself

Male-centric and whitewashed: major photography brands Fuji, Canon and Kodak scramble to diversify following criticism

Camera companies pledge to promote more women, LGBTQ and photographers of colour in response to online pro-diversity campaigns

Whitworth Gallery in Manchester U-turns on decision to remove pro-Palestine statement after Forensic Architecture threaten to pull work

Exhibition addressing the use of tear gas in Palestine adjusted to “give voice to different perspectives” following intervention by Israeli legal groups

Israelnews

Manchester gallery accused of provoking racial discord over exhibition on environmental effects of Israel-Palestine conflict

Cloud Studies by Forensic Architecture on show at the Whitworth Gallery has been criticised by the UK Lawyers for Israel

Queen Victoria statue defrocked after ex-politician Nigel Farage blasts public art project addressing UK’s slavery history

Right-wing commentator says he is "tired of this endless conversation about the UK's complicity with slavery"

Macba in Barcelona dismisses key curatorial staff shortly after appointing new director Elvira Dyangani Ose

Museum's move to sack Tanya Barson and Pablo Martínez prompts art world backlash on social media

Podcastspodcast

Should the Science Museum stop taking money from oil companies?

Plus, Michael Landy's exhibition at Firstsite and artist Shahzia Sikander on a manuscript miniature

Sponsored byChristie's

'It has given legitimacy to transphobia': Students angered by Royal Academy's apology to artist Jess de Wahls

Royal Academy Schools, the London museum's art college, have taken to Instagram to express their dismay

‘One thing is clear to us now, we should have handled this better’—Royal Academy apologises to artist Jess de Wahls over transphobia row

The London museum says that pulling her work from their shop because of her views "betrayed our most important core value—the protection of free speech"

Royal Academy gift shop will not stock work of artist accused of transphobia

London museum posted an Instagram story explaining reasons for withdrawing items by Jess de Wahls

'In solidarity with the Palestinian people', photographers withdraw their works from Prix Pictet show in Israel

Prize-nominated artists Shahidul Alam and Gideon Mendel will not show their works at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv

'Geffrye must fall': Labour MP Diane Abbott leads protests demanding slaver statue be removed from London museum

Former UK shadow home secretary led protests at the Museum of the Home in Hoxton, which reopened to the public at the weekend

Imperialist statue must go: defying college's decision, more than 350 Oxford University academics demand Cecil Rhodes be removed

Oriel College's plan to keep the sculpture of "racist" 19th-century British mining magnate "does not reflect the Oxford we represent", say staff in a letter