Museums

Ukraine rebuilds museum devoted to controversial national figure

Roman Shukhevych was a key figure in country’s fight for independence, but has also been accused of being a Nazi collaborator

London's Victoria & Albert Museum planning to launch voluntary exit scheme

The scheme comes after trade unions representing museum staff held strikes in September, with negotiations still ongoing

Bilbao Fine Arts Museum gains new €45m Norman Foster-designed wing

Renovation expands exhibition spaces and provides new facilities as well as creating better links with its neighbour, the Guggenheim Bilbao

From an indoor forest to a toilet made with seaweed: Design Museum Gent reopens after €20m eco-focused expansion

Museum renovation showcases creative and sustainable design ideas to help transform contemporary life

British Museum to extend Bayeux Tapestry opening hours

Some ticket holders have reportedly queued for up to two hours to enter the blockbuster exhibition, while others have been turned away

Nine Swiss museums to investigate provenance of thousands of objects from Cameroon

The research project has been awarded £91,000 in federal funding for 2027–28

Matronage over patronage: the Prado and Rijksmuseum team up to research women rulers’ impact on art

The collaborative project will explore the women of Habsburg Empire and include an exhibition at the Amsterdam museum in 2029

Doubts over financial sustainability of Brussels’s new Kanal museum cloud upcoming opening

The managing director Yves Goldstein will step down immediately after the opening in November due to “a difference of opinion” over the institution‘s future

British Museum bans visitors from photographing Bayeux Tapestry

Some ticket holders have reportedly been turned away from the exhibition because previous visitors had taken too long taking photos

The Big Review: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art ★★★½

While the swooping building is impressive and easy to navigate, the collection is patchy and the displays are at times “bizarre”

Rising costs force museums across North America to rethink climate control guidelines

Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems often account for 60%-70% of an institution’s energy consumption and lead to large carbon footprints

Comment | Why museums should tread carefully with audio and video in exhibition spaces

Cultural institutions must avoid falling into the trap of treating art as a visitor attraction

Australian entrepreneur invents hardware aimed at making art-handling lower risk and hands-free

Artist Engineering Hardware is a new system that aims to reduce damage during transport and installation by eliminating direct contact with works of art

Madrid’s Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza to open new venue for contemporary art

The expansion will house more than 360 contemporary artworks donated or on loan from the TBA21 Collection, led by Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza

Metropolitan Museum breaks ground on long-awaited new wing for Modern and contemporary art

The ceremony officially kicked off construction on the wing designed by the Mexican architect Frida Escobedo

Major Swiss museum acquisition proves far larger after extra works revealed in donor’s unopened portfolios

Philippe Bodenmann has gifted his entire collection—including pieces by Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner and Max Bill—to the Musée des beaux-arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds

Paris's Picasso museum reveals designers shortlisted for €55m sculpture garden project

Five teams of designers, featuring architects and landscape designers, will compete for the project, expected to be completed by 2030

‘Rembrandt’s DNA would be the Holy Grail’: new research samples bacteria on the surface of The Night Watch

A installation developed by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and a microbes museum in the city’s zoo will depict microbes found in the Old Master painting

UK government's proposed ‘tourist tax’ should be ring-fenced for the arts, cultural leaders say

There are few controls over how mayors spend the Overnight Visitor Levy income, according to plans announced earlier this week

Portrait of Bayeux Tapestry exhibition sponsor goes on view at British Museum amid scrutiny over ties to IDF

A painting of Igor Tulchinsky is on display within the museum’s blockbuster Bayeux Tapestry show

Hungary’s new government scraps National Gallery plans

The planned SANAA-designed museum for Budapest’s City Park has been cancelled, leaving the future home of Hungary’s national collection undecided

England’s Pitt Rivers Museum announces its largest repatriation of human remains

Institution at the University of Oxford will return 39 pieces of remains, primarily skulls, to the Indigenous Naga people of the Indian subcontinent by the end of the year

Collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos donates 51 contemporary works to four museums in Greece and Scotland

The works—mostly by Greek artists—will go to the National Gallery of Greece in Athens, Momus-Museum of Contemporary Art Thessaloniki, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete and National Galleries Scotland in Edinburgh

Bank opens museum in Spanish city of Santander to display its 1,000-strong art collection

David Chipperfield has converted Banco Santander’s former headquarters into Faro Santander, a new home for works by artists including Velásquez, Titian, Goya, Picasso and Sorolla

$1bn Lucas Museum of Narrative Art lifts off at long last

After almost a decade of delays and controversies, George Lucas and Mellody Hobson launch a giant space to house a 40,000-piece collection spanning from comics to Star Wars materials to a Frida Kahlo self-portrait

Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen caught up in alleged bribery scandal as civil servants dismissed

The city’s mayor said that two civil servants were found to have accepted “gifts from the municipality’s business contacts in exchange for possible preferential treatment”

Chief executive of Sydney’s anticipated Parramatta Powerhouse museum steps down two months before grand opening

Lisa Havilah had stood aside pending “investigations into governance and procurement”, according to New South Wales’ arts minister

Art centre launches in Durham, UK with light-themed works by Tracey Emin, Dan Flavin

The Light in Durham—formerly the Durham Light Infantry Museum and Art Gallery—has reopened following £17m redevelopment