Museums & Heritage

Welcome to the slow museum, where less is more

In an effort to deepen existing programming and community engagement, some institutions are choosing to stage fewer exhibitions

Legal challenge to preserve Toronto's Ontario Place rejected as mega-spa project moves forward

In addition, it was discovered that the provincial government agreed to pay almost C$1m to make its controversial case for moving the Ontario Science Centre, which closed permanently Friday due to structural decay

MFA Boston director Matthew Teitelbaum will retire after ten-year stint

Teitelbaum has navigated one of the US’s most prominent art museums through a decade of renovations, revamped education initiatives, scandals and shutdowns

UK export bar placed on Louis XIV’s £7.5m table top

The decision was made in the hope that a buyer can be found to “save the” object “for the nation”

Walker Art Center invites visitors to reimagine its galleries

The Minneapolis institution has crowdsourced its rehang—which means a lot more than just new configurations of works

Judge dismisses Holocaust restitution claim to Guggenheim’s Blue Period Picasso

Karl and Rosi Adler’s heirs had claimed that “La repasseuse” (1904) had been sold under duress as the couple fled Nazi persecution

Two eco-activists arrested after Stonehenge sprayed with orange powder

The ancient site remains open as curators investigate the damage

Monet to go on sale after Kunsthaus Zurich reaches settlement with Jewish heirs

The collector and textiles entrepreneur Carl Sachs sold the painting after fleeing to Switzerland from Nazi Germany in 1939

Conservation experts deploying to Lahaina, Hawaii, to support recovery from 2023 wildfires

Thanks to a grant of almost $20,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, two experts will travel to Maui to assist affected museums and historic sites

Art Institute of Chicago to return 12th-century temple artefact to Thailand

The Krishna palister once stood along the doorframe of the most important monument to the Khmer dynasty in Thailand

Madagascar's nascent art scene gets boost from businesses

Two entrepreneurs have founded spaces and set up programmes in one of the world’s poorest countries

‘We are not seeing the picture Rubens intended’: conservation reveals drastic changes made to acclaimed Judgement of Paris

More than a year of meticulous research and work has led to the painting being glowingly restored—while revealing amendments by an unknown artist that “changed the narrative completely”

Swiss Bührle Foundation seeks to settle with Jewish heirs on major Impressionist works

Paintings by Courbet, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and Gauguin are to be removed from display at Zurich’s Kunsthaus

Australian blockbuster Pharaoh show could inspire British Museum's revamped Ancient Egypt galleries

Curators from the London institution said they might adopt some of the innovative ways the objects were displayed at the National Gallery of Victoria

Centre Pompidou must not close for five years, say French critics and curators

An open letter has called for the public to have access to the complex during its major forthcoming renovation—and for the role of Paris’s state institutions to be protected as a result

Wreck of the ship Ernest Shackleton died on found off the coast of Canada

The famed explorer died aboard the Quest in 1922; the ship sank in the Labrador Sea 40 years later

Germany returns looted antiquities in Berlin’s Altes Museum to Italy

As a “thank you” gesture, Italy is reciprocating with loans from Paestum and Naples

Brooklyn Museum director’s home targeted by pro-Palestine activists

The entrance to museum director Anne Pasternak’s apartment building was vandalised with red paint and a banner describing her and the museum as a “White-Supremacist Zionist”

Migrant museum on the Italian island of Lampedusa closes after seven years

The Museum of Faith and Dialogue, which could not afford the new €10,000 annual rent, displayed items found at sea following shipwrecks

Fire guts historic Toronto church, destroying its Group of Seven murals

A restoration campaign for St Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto is already underway, but its historic art is lost forever

Amid backlash, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will modify exhibition on Hollywood’s Jewish founders

Organised in response to criticisms that its initial display did not acknowledge Hollywood’s Jewish origins, the exhibition now faces charges of antisemitism from Jewish activists

What do the Magna Carta and five small, costly, enamelled brackets have to do with each other?

A Paris dealer wants €50,000 for them, deadline the end of 2024, and a crowd-funding appeal has been launched in Italy

Campaign launched to stop demolition of Museum of London for office building

Although the controversial project has been green lit, it may take years before building work begins

Four must-see exhibitions during Art Basel

From Precious Okoyomon's nightmarish animatronic bear to a global survey of Black figurative painting, sci-fi chairs and Dan Flavin

Staff at the American Folk Art Museum vote unanimously to form a union

The institution’s new union, formed under UAW Local 2110, will represent workers across departments including curatorial, information technology, retail and more

Palm Springs Art Museum launches permanent LGBTQ+ programming

The California institution’s new Q+ Art initiative is the first of its kind in the US and includes exhibitions, public programming, acquisitions and awards

Fire that damaged Israel Museum being investigated as arson

The fire is believed to have been set at three different sites near the museum building

New arts complex to open in Philadelphia with help from Theaster Gates

The collectors Michael Forman and Jennifer Rice will both house their extensive collection there and engage the working-class neighbourhood where they bought almost a whole city block