Museums & Heritage

The British Museum says it needs another £1bn to refurbish itself—first it must prove it deserves it

It's time to drag the institution out of its entrenched past and into the 21st century

Medieval Jewish codex to be shown in New York before conservation

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will begin conservation efforts later this year with a $27,600 grant from The European Fine Art Foundation

Budi Tek, art collector, museum founder and tireless champion of Chinese art, has died aged 65

Tributes pour in for the Indonesian-Chinese businessman who founded the Yuz Museum Shanghai in 2014

German museums offer curator jobs to Ukrainian and Russian refugees

Berlin-based Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation is supporting roles for a one-year period

Milan’s Museo del Novecento could lose 600 works in legal battle with heir

Mario Bertolini’s vast collection of Modern art, amassed over his lifetime and donated to the museum in 2014, is at the centre of a claim seeking to invalidate the acquisition

Ceremonial starfish offerings unearthed at Aztec temple in Mexico City

The ‘precious relics’ discovered at Templo Mayor link Aztec cosmology to the sea

Former Metropolitan Museum curator leads reimagining of Penn State’s anthropology museum

A $100m campus expansion will give the informally-established anthropology museum a greater presence

Rising sea levels imperil French church that inspired the Impressionists, including Monet

Coastal erosion in Normandy means that the Saint-Valery church in Varengeville-sur-Mer may soon disappear

Billionaire collector Nicolas Berggruen snaps up his second Venetian palace

Scheduled to open in 2024, Palazzo Diedo will house an exhibition and art residency space

Labournews

Can New York's imminent salary transparency law pierce the art world's smokescreen?

City council's move to enforce wage disclosures in job adverts could usher in a sea change at major US cultural institutions—challenging persistent pay inequality in the sector

Suspect in Museum of Modern Art stabbings arrested in Philadelphia

The man suspected of stabbing two front desk workers at MoMA was apprehended in a bus station in Philadelphia after a days-long manhunt

Museum building heavily damaged in Ukraine's battle-ravaged city of Chernihiv

Director has been posting emotional updates on Facebook as Russian forces shell area

Metropolitan Museum picks Mexican architect Frida Escobedo for $500m revamp of Modern and contemporary art wing

Escobedo, the first woman to design a wing at the museum, was chosen over candidates including David Chipperfield, Ensamble Studio and other firms

Crime news

Suspect in stabbing of MoMA employees remains at large, threatens former president Donald Trump

A man identified as Gary Cabana stabbed two front desk employees at the Museum of Modern Art on 12 March and the following day threatened to trespass Mar-a-Lago

New concerns for the Bamiyan Valley's future in Taliban hands surface on anniversary of monumental Buddhas' destruction

Evidence of encroaching development, looting and a new coal depot near the site poses major threats to its status—and its future

Iraqnews

Iraq Museum in Baghdad reopens after three-year hiatus

Treasure trove of ancient Mesopotamian heritage—ransacked after 2003 Iraq invasion—was closed during anti-government protests in 2019

With art therapy on the rise, France's museums are beginning to take mental health seriously

Palais de Tokyo is building a “care centre” for art and wellbeing programmes, while new workshops launch at Louvre-Lens

As Omicron wave recedes, US museums drop vaccine and mask requirements

With Covid-19 cases down sharply from January’s peak, art institutions from the Smithsonian to the Seattle Art Museum are no longer requiring visitors to mask up

Saving the art of Palestinian textiles: West Bank museum and V&A join forces to create new conservation studio

Palestinian Museum is using a $480,000 grant from the Aliph Foundation to document and conserve traditional embroidered dresses known as thobes

Historic East Hampton museum Guild Hall begins $25m renovation

Founded in 1931, Guild Hall holds a collection of more than 2,000 artworks by Jackson Pollock, Thomas Moran and others

After Amsterdam, the Hermitage Foundation UK now also cuts ties with the St Petersburg museum

Charity, which helps to raise funds for the Russian institution, has halted “building cultural bridges between the UK and Russia”

Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance found off Antarctic coast, more than a century after it sank

An expedition team has located the famed shipwreck in what has been described as a "milestone in polar history"

Smithsonian to return its collection of Benin bronzes to Nigeria

Restitution agreement must still be approved by the museum's Board of Regents

Back to normal: London's Victoria and Albert Museum resumes pre-Covid opening hours

From next month, the institution will be open for seven days a week again and timed tickets for general admission will also be dropped

'The damage is incomprehensible': toll of Australia floods on cultural precinct of Lismore

Floodwaters rose to second-floor ceiling of Lismore Regional Gallery, at the “epicentre” of the disaster for the New South Wales town

New $6bn Sackler settlement would let museums remove family’s name from galleries and buildings without consequence

The settlement, if approved, would also place limits on any statements made by museums as they remove the Sackler name

Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie holds fundraiser for Ukrainian refugees

Klaus Biesenbach, Olafur Eliasson and Anne Imhof are organising a two-day event at the museum

Science Museum Group director hands back award from Putin in protest against Russian invasion

Ian Blatchford received the Pushkin Medal from Russia's president in 2015 after he led an exhibition of Soviet spacecraft and artefacts

Iraqnews

Sculptures vandalised by Isis return to ancient city of Hatra after restoration

Artefacts had been "smashed into pieces" by Isis militants when they occupied the Unesco World Heritage site as a training camp