Museums & Heritage

Tate's U-turn on Sacklers

The museum will remove the opioid sellers’ name from multiple locations

First director picked to lead Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino

Jorge Zamanillo, currently the executive director and chief executive of HistoryMiami Museum, will lead the new Washington, DC museum through planning and construction

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

After years of wrangling, Australia commits $228m to build a landmark centre for Indigenous culture

Ngurra precinct in Canberra will provide a home for returned ancestral remains in the heart of the capital

Restitutionanalysis

Why Macron's radical promise to return African treasures has stalled

Four years after a landmark pledge to hand back colonial loot, French government has opposed a new restitution bill backed by the Senate

Museum devoted to George Grosz to open in a former Berlin petrol station

The privately funded museum is to be led by Ralph Jentsch, the managing director of the Grosz estate

Museumsanalysis

State of the unions: why US museum workers are mobilising against their employers

With the arts sector increasingly vulnerable in the wake of the pandemic, a new breed of digitally optimised worker is emerging

Aliph global protection fund raises $90m for next round of heritage projects

Donors include Saudi Arabia, which gave $30m, and private bodies

Accused of 'cancel culture', Dresden museums defend renaming works

The Dresden State Art Collections (SKD) has altered 143 work titles since 2020, a decision that has been met with resistance by Germany's right-wing political parties

Berlin's 'hidden museum' that championed forgotten women artists closes down after almost 40 years

Das Verborgene Museum is passing on its archive and research mission to the Berlinische Galerie

NFTreview

The Seattle NFT Museum wants to mint a new art world

The museum’s founders organised an inaugural exhibition that is acutely aware of its place in history

The next Whitney Biennial’s 63 participating artists and collectives revealed

The exhibition’s 80th iteration, originally scheduled for 2021, will open on 6 April with its own official symbol

A Mexican millionaire is building a museum to house his art collection, and using public funds to do it

Mauricio Fernández Garza first proposed the structure, which is a replica of his mansion in San Pedro Garza García, near Monterrey, when he was mayor of the well-heeled town

Lootnews

German museums may have thousands of looted relics from China’s Imperial Palace, research group believes

Collaborative research by major German institutions may expose huge amounts of Chinese objects taken during Boxer Rebellion

Ye Charlotte Ming

Louvre teams up with Sotheby’s to investigate provenance of works bought during the Second World War

The auction house will help the Parisian institution research the history of items purchased between 1933 and 1945, which "may lead to restitutions"

UK’s first LGBTQ museum to open in London this spring

Queer Britain charity pledges new institution will be free of charge

Manicure at the Mauritshuis? Dutch museums turn into beauty parlours in protest over Covid restrictions

Initiative questions why gyms, hair salons and brothels have reopened but culture venues remain closed in the Netherlands

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

For the first time ever, a Korean museum is selling off 'national treasures' at auction

Two bronze Buddha statues are likely to make records for cultural artefacts at auction in Korea

Tate Liverpool plans £30m gallery overhaul—with help from UK government’s ‘level up’ fund

The £10m public grant is part of a new initiative aimed at equalising quality of living between the north and south

Delhi's heritage buildings at risk of being sold to private buyers by right-wing government

The ruling BJP has been accused by a rival party of "selling off Delhi's history" following new licensing around historic structures in the capital

Labournews

Employees at the Art Institute of Chicago museum and school vote to join union

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees will now represent 266 employees at the museum and another 249 at the school

Kazakhstan protestors entered leading museum looking for ancient armour

The Central State Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the capital sustained some damage, according to a government statement

Three new non-profit spaces challenge the dominance of real estate and the market in China's contemporary art ecosystem

The Longlati Foundation in Shanghai and the Macalline Art Center and Fen Sonic HQ in Beijing put curation at the forefront

Cameroonian provenance researchers denied visas for Munich conference

The researchers are investigating the origins of 200 artefacts from Cameroon at Munich’s Museum Fünf Kontinente

NFTnews

British Museum banks on Turner NFTs after Hokusai initiative

Prices for Ultra Rare editions start at €4,999 but museum sales percentage remains under wraps

Plans to close pottery museum in Stoke for five months a year and cut full-time positions spark backlash

Gladstone Pottery Museum to be used as a film location under controversial council proposals

American Folk Art Museum gifted major work by itinerant 19th-century portraitist Ammi Phillips

‘Portrait of Frederick A. Gale’ is quintessential of Phillips’s paintings of children, who are the subjects of his most beloved works