Museums & Heritage

What it's like to visit museums now—and how Covid-19 has fundamentally changed them long term

Coronavirus restrictions have dramatically altered the visitor experience, but the changes run deeper than mask-wearing and one-way systems

Unionsnews

Brooklyn Museum employees seek to form a union bargaining unit

The labour chapter would represent 130 curators, conservators, front-desk staff and others

Exclusive survey: what progress have US museums made on diversity, after a year of racial reckoning?

We asked art institutions around the country about their efforts to diversify their workforces, exhibition programmes, permanent collections and audiences

Germany launches African museum exchange programme to discuss returning looted objects

New government initiative MuseumsLab aims to foster more international co-operation and consider topics including decolonisation and restitution

San Diego’s arts institutions cry out as mayor maintains 50% reduction in city funding into 2022

Prolonging the pain will not help the culture sector—a formerly $1bn industry that supported 36,000 full-time jobs—bounce back, leaders say

Campaigners fight to preserve monumental Soviet-era murals in Ukraine

Victor Arnautoff’s large-scale 1960s mosaics on public buildings in Mariupol are threatened by neglect and a “decommunisation” campaign

The first ‘wall to wall’ museum union in the US turns one year old

Staff labour organisers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art reflect on their accomplishments

Podcastspodcast

'Art is our spiritual oxygen': new shows to see in London and New York

We discuss Matthew Barney, Igshaan Adams, Eileen Agar and Louise Bourgeois

Hosted by Ben Luke. with guest speaker Louisa Buck. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack, Aimee Dawson and Henrietta Bentall
Sponsored byChristie's

How a Van Gogh painting was stolen from a Cairo museum—not once, but twice

The Khalil Museum, with its fabled Impressionists in a mansion by the Nile, has reopened after an 11-year renovation—without Vincent’s flower still-life

a blog by Martin Bailey

UCCA Edge: Shanghai outpost of Beijing museum opens to China's 'most engaged and active' contemporary art audience

Opening exhibition looks back at the global emergence of the Chinese art world at the 2000 Shanghai Biennale

Newark Museum of Art’s much-disputed sale of Thomas Cole painting nets $988,000

Auction at Sotheby’s yields promising yet mixed results for museum’s drive to fund collections care

Chez Victor Hugo: author's former Paris home reopens after revamp

Closed for five months longer than planned, the renovated house-museum can finally unveil expanded spaces, restored treasures and new acquisitions

V&A confirms it will keep its focus on materials—but workforce will be reduced by 15% to cut costs

Following backlash over proposed chronological reorganisation of London museum, specialist departments will now remain

As French museums reopen, Loire region unveils Modern art collection in a Medieval abbey

The Fontevraud Modern Art Museum, housed in a 12th-century monastery’s former stables, will preserve more than 800 works donated by collectors Martine and Léon Cligman

Employees at the Whitney and Hispanic Society seek to unionise

Job stability and ongoing inequities have become even more pressing during the pandemic, workers say

Hermitage Amsterdam close to reaching €1m in urgent crowdfunding appeal to survive Covid-19 crisis

The privately funded Dutch branch of the State Hermitage Museum has attracted 10,000 donations from the public but director says "we're not done yet"

National Museum of Women in the Arts will close for two-year renovation

The $66m project includes expanding galleries, creating research and education spaces and restoring its landmark 1908 building

'A vast underwater museum': Greece plans to open shipwrecks and other submerged heritage sites for visitors to explore

Experienced divers and casual bathers alike will gain access to ancient marine monuments, which remain where they were found on the seabed

Fuelling culture war, UK government forms new 'retain and explain' board for controversial monuments

"Independence cuts both ways," UK culture secretary Oliver Dowden warns museums and heritage bodies

Off with her head! Infrared technology shows how a 15th-century French king used a paintbrush to replace one wife with another

Francis I of Brittany had his first wife painted over in a medieval prayer book before giving it to his new spouse, research at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum shows

Katerina Gregos will lead the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens as artistic director

The museum looks to a “new era” after a difficult history, including long delays in the opening its new home and the termination of two of its directors by the Culture Ministry

National Gallery of Art recruits the first woman and person of colour to serve as its chief curator

As the museum commits itself to diversity, E. Carmen Ramos, a curator of Latino art, will be “the principal architect of the visitor experience”

Chinati will use $1.25m Start Small grant to restore sites and train young women in preservation skills

Support comes from the Covid relief fund launched last year by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who has visited the Marfa arts centre

A fatal Mafia bombing shook Florence in 1993—now the Uffizi is fixing damage to its famous Vasari corridor with memorials of the attack

Work on the 760m-long Renaissance passageway, which has been closed for safety since 2016, will be completed in May next year

How a ceremonial shrunken head, held by a US university for decades, was finally returned to Ecuador

A newly published research paper explains the authentication and repatriation process for a tsantsa once housed in Mercer University’s natural history collection

Lootnews

Looted Libyan sculpture seized at Heathrow Airport heads back home with help from the British Museum

The funerary piece was illicitly excavated from the ancient city of Cyrene which is under threat from property developers

‘The Colosseum is the last thing I would spend money on’: experts angry over plans for €15m floor at Italy’s most famous site

Archaeologists object to covering the amphitheatre's unique underground space and point to more vital restoration projects in the country

'Intelligent design': Frank Gehry's surprisingly subtle $233m makeover of Philadelphia Museum of Art revealed

Architect's Core Project expansion creates 90,000 sq. ft of new galleries and reimagined public spaces at heart of 1928 landmark