Museums & Heritage

What's the tea? Oldest brew in the world discovered in China

The 2,400-year-old remains of tea leaves were discovered in a royal tomb in Shandong province

'It’s time for museums to take critical race theory seriously'

There’s a campaign against discussions of race in the American education system—and museums have a part to play in fighting that

Nigeria seeks to calm tensions over return of Benin bronzes

Government museums body takes control of repatriated artefacts after ruler of Benin challenges new trust set up to unify Nigerian claimants

Museumsanalysis

How an Australian collector’s strings-attached gift paved the way for a new $36m museum

Shepparton Art Museum opened late last year but a ballooning budget and conflicting local politics have made led to a mixed reception

The Virginia museum spotlighting overlooked histories and perspectives

In a trio of current and upcoming exhibitions, the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University will showcase prints, paintings and a sonic environment that champion underrepresented narratives

Archival discovery prompts exploration of 1980s movement to support Central American artists at time of political upheaval

A dozen boxes of materials found in the Museum of Modern Art’s library served as the impetus for a new exhibition on the legacy of the Artists Call group at Tufts University Art Galleries

Louvre's attendance last year dropped to 1986 levels

Covid continued to impact on French museum visits, but the government provided a much-needed financial safety net

Italynews

McDonald’s blocked from building drive-through at Rome's ancient Baths of Caracalla

The council of state upheld a previous ruling preventing the fast food chain from opening at the popular heritage site

Belgium plans to hand back colonial loot to DR Congo

New law will set up expert commission to sift through thousands of objects at the Royal Museum for Central Africa

Labournews

Two years after forming union, MOCA Los Angeles employees still negotiating first contract with museum leaders

Negotiations have been delayed, with wages proving a major sticking point and with administrators proposing increases well below union members’ demands

US museums close or reduce capacity as Omicron variant causes surge in Covid-19 cases

The Metropolitan Museum will stay opened at reduced capacity, while others like the Yale University Art Gallery and the Baltimore Museum of Art close temporarily

Closed since early 2020, Puerto Rico’s Museo de Arte de Ponce faces long road to reopening

Despite challenges wrought by the pandemic and earthquake-caused damage to its building, the museum has a new director and new momentum

Utah museum acquires works by Japanese American artist Chiura Obata made in internment camp

Obata was incarcerated at the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah during the Second World War; now 35 of his works have been acquired by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts

Museums in London start to shut down as Omicron wave sweeps capital

Natural History Museum closes due to front-of-house staff shortages caused by Covid-19

Nelson-Atkins Museum acquires one of the earliest daguerreotype portraits made in the US

The 1840 profile portrait is part of a collection of early photographic works by Henry Fitz Jr. that is joining the Kansas City museum’s holdings

Business as usual for European museums operating in China, despite genocide ruling

A London panel has assembled the largest cache of evidence on the concentration camps in Xinjiang, but museums will not say if they have examined it

Swiss museum to part with 29 works from Gurlitt trove suspected of being Nazi loot

Kunstmuseum Bern announces results of in-depth provenance investigation of controversial 2014 bequest

From NFTs to LFTs: 2021's biggest art stories—and what they mean

The Art Newspaper team picks apart this year’s most important developments, from demands for colonial restitution to the return of culture wars

Hosted by Ben Luke. With guest speakers Anna Brady, Martin Bailey and Jane Morris. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack and Aimee Dawson. With Henrietta Bentall
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Bronx Museum of the Arts to undertake $21m expansion

The project includes the addition of a multi-storey entrance and lobby, and is being supported with state and city funds

Lacma acquires 60 works with a focus on Black representation

Among the works joining the museum’s collection are paintings by Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley as well as a self-portrait by an artist who worked as a preparator at Lacma for decades

True mettle: restoring Hampton Court Palace's glorious but scarred Baroque iron screens

Reviving 17th-century Tijou screens commissioned by Protestant monarchs William and Mary means undoing decades of damage and haphazard repairs

From artist residency to fully-fledged museum: Ghana's new space for contemporary African art prepares to open in March

Just a year after launching a studio programme in Accra, its ambitious young founder is turning it into a museum

The Met begins $70m renovation of African, ancient American and Oceanic art galleries

The galleries, housed in the Michael C. Rockefeller wing of the museum, will be modernised to better contextualise the collection and illustrate the ‘complex story of cultural development over the last 5,000 years’

Returning home: Italy pulls 100 works from major museums and sends them to regional institutions where they were previously shown

Loan initiative aims to decentralise Italian collections and encourage more people to visit smaller museums

Boston College museum receives $25m in art and grants from philanthropist Peter Lynch

The McMullen Museum of Art is gaining works by Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Albert Bierstadt, and others

Macron's Gulf tour: UAE's Louvre Abu Dhabi contract extended to 2047 and more French-Saudi culture deals

Renewal of Abu Dhabi deal means the Louvre can partner with the network of museums planned for Saudi Arabia's AlUla region

Cy Twombly Foundation pulls lawsuit after Louvre agrees to rework renovation of gallery that bears artist's ceiling

The foundation said earlier this year that the “aggressive colours“ covering the walls “violated the harmonies“ of Twombly’s pale blue canopy

Buddhist composer Philip Glass in dialogue with a storied Tibetan art collection

The Smithsonian commissioned the composer to create a performance responding to an exhibition of objects from the illustrious Tibetan Buddhist art collection of Alice Kandell