Museums & Heritage

Museum of the City of New York opens new centre for social activism

The Puffin Foundation Center for Social Activism’s inaugural exhibitions focus on activism in the Big Apple and the living cultures of the Lenape

Phoenix Art Museum receives $5m gift for new Sri Lankan and South Asian art galleries

The local philanthropist Sukumar Nagendran hopes his gift will deepen cultural understanding of the region and elevate its art

How an EU-funded research programme has been future-proofing art conservation

GoGreen has brought together experts from 13 institutions to explore sustainable methods—testing some out on a 1906 Tiffany dish

How Turkey is racing to save Gallipoli’s vanishing shipwrecks

A recently launched project called Deep Heritage aims to slow the disintegration of dozens of warships sunk off Turkey's coast during the devastating First World War campaign

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

Heritagefeature

Strongest El Niño in decades threatens Peru’s adobe heritage

Authorities are scrambling to protect more than 10,000 coastal archaeological sites as experts accuse them of insufficient planning despite warnings

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

Inadequate public funding may be the biggest threat facing world heritage, study finds

According to a new study by World Monuments Fund, a lack of government resources continues to be seen as more damaging to cultural sites than climate change

São Paulo’s Museu de Arte Moderna reopens after two-year renovation

Two years after shutting its doors, MAM São Paulo returns to the same pavilion with an exhibition built to push Brazilian art past representation

‘He said the secret to a happy life is attention to the details’: William Morris Gallery reopens after major rehang and restoration

The London institution has rearranged its permanent collection to look more closely at the nuances of Morris’s life and politics, while galleries have been transformed

Toledo Museum of Art acquires landmark 19th-century photographic series

The museum’s director says F. Holland Day's "The Seven Words" (1898), depicting the artist as Jesus on the cross, is “the most important photograph that people don’t know about”

Ukrainian Museum in New York marks 50th anniversary by showing collection to its neighbours

A new project by the artist Molly Gochman features large-scale reproductions of artefacts from the museum’s collection on its glass façade

Workers at the Whitney Museum vote to strike

Unionised staff at the New York City museum have voted to go on strike on 5 October if there is no progress in contract negotiations with museum leadership

Historic Chilean church to be restored after arson attacks

Santiago’s 19th-century Church of San Francisco de Borja, known for its stained-glass windows, will resume its community role as a national shrine to Our Lady of Fátima after it was set aflame during nationwide protests in 2020

Ukraine’s historic Academy of Sciences severely damaged by Russian drone

At least two were killed in the direct strike on the country’s top scientific institution, which is the latest cultural site to be targeted by Russian forces

‘He has committed no offence other than wanting to defend heritage sites’: arrest of Iraqi archaeologists sparks backlash

Many fear the real reason for Ali Tabar’s and Amir Al-Jumaili’s arrests are their campaigns against a controversial investment law

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

Culture secretary confirms free admission for all at England’s national museums will remain

The announcement by Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, came after recent discussions of introducing admission fees for overseas visitors

Restorers expose trove of 16th-century nude murals in Rome that were covered by disapproving nuns

Hidden for 300 years, the paintings inside Italy's Villa Silvestri Rivaldi are by some of the leading artists of the day

Switzerland’s Fondation Beyeler opens £109.7m expansion

The Basel institution has added three new structures designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, while also extending its grounds

Greek prime minister rejects idea that Bayeux Tapestry loan offers template for Parthenon Marbles deal

“Greece cannot accept any arrangement that would require it to recognise the British Museum’s ownership of the sculptures,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis says

Moca Los Angeles picks longtime public media executive as next director

Jonathan Abbott takes the helm at the museum after 15 years as chief executive of GBH in Boston

Comment | Why drones are a game-changer for archaeologists protecting heritage sites

As climate change and development place growing pressure on archaeological sites, drones are providing a faster, cheaper way to track damage and guide conservation efforts

Art made with human hair from ‘the Louvre of hairwork’ comes to Brooklyn

The Morbid Anatomy Library has acquired dozens of unique pieces from the recently shuttered Leila’s Hair Museum in Missouri

Giant Diego Rivera sculpture on Mexico City’s Olympic stadium to be restored

The restoration of Rivera’s work launches a multi-year initiative to preserve public art on the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México campus

AI can strengthen human connections to museums, report suggests

Remuseum’s latest report explores the role of artificial intelligence in US art institutions, highlighting five areas where the technology can be particularly impactful

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

Art Institute of Chicago restitutes Metzinger painting sold in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam

The 1913 painting, “Woman With a Fan”, was one of a number of paintings from the Lewenstein collection to be auctioned in 1940 under unclear circumstances

From the Bronx to the Lower East Side, New York’s museum building boom continues

Several institutional construction projects have already opened this year, with more in the pipeline