Museums & Heritage

Bill to build Smithsonian women’s museum fails in US congress amid disputes over Trump and trans rights

The previously popular bipartisan legislation was undone by Republican additions about “biological women” and allowing Trump to override its location on the National Mall

Chanel gives Centre Pompidou financial boost with new five-year partnership

The “commitment will strengthen Centre Pompidou’s work across access, scholarship, and the preservation of public knowledge” according to a statement

London exhibition explores untold history of how homelessness was criminalised

Work by artists and activists including 10 Foot, Matt Bonner and Gemma Lees shows how land enclosures and early colonial expansion began to change how unhoused people were treated

Museums in England largely oppose proposal to charge admission for foreign tourists

A storm of opinion is raging in the arts world on whether an admission fee is needed, with some museums arguing the income would be offset by a loss of other revenue

Israeli organisation threatens legal action against Canadian Museum for Human Rights over Palestine exhibition

The Tel Aviv-based group Shurat Hadin is urging the museum in Winnipeg to pause its upcoming exhibition on the Nakba and its legacy to allow for a “legal and scholarly review”

Stonewall monument targeted by Trump administration among the US’s most endangered historic places

The latest edition of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual list spotlights federal erasure and rollbacks to public land conservation

Sainsbury Centre receives one of largest ever UK museum donations

The £91.2m donation from British politician and businessman David Sainsbury will be used for essential renovations to the building

Expansion plans for Rome's Galleria Borghese draw fierce response

Italian heritage preservation organisations object to new construction for the museum which is located within a historically sensitive area

Seoul’s new Centre Pompidou Hanwha museum opens next month—can it live up to expectations?

The French institution’s partnership with the Hanwha Foundation of Culture promises a “reciprocal exchange”, but there are concerns it will be too Western focused

Migrants were a continuous feature of medieval Britain, archaeological study shows

Scientific research shows that rather than a victim of invasion, early medieval Britain was a cultural melting pot

Finnish museum creates a new and radical support model for artists

Espoo Museum of Modern Art has committed to supporting four artists over the next several years with financial, practical and institutional backing

London's Wellcome Collection returns 2,000 manuscripts to the Jain community

Unusually, the objects will not be transferred to their country of origin but to the UK Institute of Jainology for deposit at the University of Birmingham

New York’s Neue Galerie will merge with the Metropolitan Museum

The merger, to be completed in 2028, will bring the Ronald Lauder-founded Neue Galerie’s exceptional holdings of German and Austrian Modern art into the Met’s encyclopaedic collection

Parliamentary report calls for major changes at French museums in the wake of Louvre heist

The French parliamentary commission raises alarms over the “worrying condition” of their collections and proposes 40 recommendations amid rising threats to museums

'A work of conceptual art': Belmond launches new Art Deco-inspired train dining car

The film director Baz Luhrmann and his wife, production designer Catherine Martin, have designed the lavish interior

Greta Thunberg, Hugh Bonneville sign letter defending Southbank Centre chair Misan Harriman

Harriman has been the focus of several articles in conservative UK media outlets following posts he shared on social media

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are given a voice by New York's Metropolitan Opera

A new production, loosely based on the artists' lives, is accompanied by an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art—both visually imagined by the set and costume designer Jon Bausor

Getty’s Black Visual Arts Archives receives additional $1.8m in funding

The initiative funds institutions to process, digitise, preserve and activate archival collections related to Black art in the US

Underground Railroad stop in New York threatened by real-estate development

Construction next door to the Merchant’s House Museum in Manhattan could damage its historic secret hiding place

New Museum unveils Sarah Lucas's bawdy Bowery commission

The British artist's playful riff on a reclining nude will hold court at Bowery and Prince Street for two years

With new Costume Institute exhibition and galleries, the Met makes powerful statement about fashion's place in museums

Featuring nearly 400 objects ranging from gowns to ancient Greek armour and vases, “Costume Art” argues the dressed body is the only form of artistic expression that connects each of the museum’s collecting areas

19th-century European weapons found in cenote in Mexico

More than 150 guns and an iron cannon were recently documented at the Síis Já cenote in Yucatán

Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit reopens, with the local community front and centre

Showing off its upgrades after being closed for almost a year, the Midwestern kunsthalle hopes to inspire dialogue in its galleries using a method called Visual Thinking Strategies

Fire erupts at San Francisco's Vaillancourt Fountain during its dismantling

The controversial San Francisco landmark has met its end after a contentious fight to save it failed

Trump’s plan to paint Washington, DC's Eisenhower Building could cost more than $7.5m

In a National Capital Planning Commission meeting, one public commenter compared the project to the ending of ‘Death Becomes Her’

Dancereview

Brendan Fernandes animates a century-old Chicago auditorium through dance

The artist’s year-long residency at the Driehaus Museum centres on a recurring dance piece in the recently renovated Murphy Auditorium

Metropolitan Museum receives $23m to endow internship programme

The gift, from the foundation of Jennifer Rubio and Stewart Butterfield, is the latest example of donors offering targeted support that goes beyond funding institutional acquisitions

Rio’s Museum of Image and Sound finally opens after 16 years in development

Located just off of Copacabana Beach, the new museum celebrates the artists and musicians that helped make the city a global cultural destination

Museumsanalysis

No money, more problems: 85% of US museums in urgent need of building repairs

A survey by the federal Government Accountability Office shows that a majority of the nation’s museums lack the resources to maintain their buildings, putting collections at risk

Latino community organisation opens $33m arts centre in Boston

La Casa, the new home of Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, will be a hub for civic engagement, education and artistic expression