Museums & Heritage

Budapest’s green mayor puts brakes on €250m New National Gallery

Local politicians block construction on cultural quarter backed by right-wing government, citing “enormous impact on environment”

Cold War-era mosaic sees light of day again in eastern Germany

Reappearance of a Josep Renau mural hints at a greater acceptance of East German public art

Hong Kong plans 2020 Botticelli exhibition in unprecedented deal with Italy's Uffizi

This is the first time the Florentine museum has formed a long-term partnership with a foreign institution

Cambridge college returns Benin bronze to Nigeria

Statue of a cockerel was looted by the British in 1897 from the Court of Benin

Noguchi Museum launches digital archive about the globe-trotting artist’s life and career

Online trove includes 60,000 photographs, manuscripts, records and drawings and an updated catalogue raisonné

Hong Kong Museum of Art to reopen in spite of escalating violence of pro-democracy protests

Launch of revamped government-run museum to go ahead as planned following $119m facelift

Derelict iron flaxmill is brought back to life in Shrewsbury

Building was considered an audacious architectural experiment when it was built in 1797

Thieves steal priceless Baroque jewels from Dresden museum

After breaking in through a window at the Green Vault, the intruders grabbed three royal jewellery ensembles containing diamonds and pearls

Chinanews

Guangzhou museum given three days’ notice to evacuate before demolition

Privately funded Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art says its forced closure follows “a long period of disputation” with the local authorities

Conservators to restore Michelangelo’s Florence Pietà in full view of visitors

Restoration will remove centuries of grime and stabilise the sculpture at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo

Paris news

Special delivery: Musée de la Poste reopens in Paris—with art to boot

Museum's little known, 6,000-strong Modern and contemporary art collection includes a ball gown made of 2,000 stamps

Former factory in Iraqi Kurdistan stirs hope for cultural tourism

From studio spaces to museums, a future complex holds the promise of galvanising artists

The Marciano masquerade is exposed

The art foundation, which has closed its doors, was never more than the shell of a museum

Terra Foundation plans 2024 sequel to Art Design Chicago

Yearlong 2018 effort drew 2.5 million people and brought attention to overlooked artists

German parliament approves institute for photographic legacy based in Dusseldorf

Government says institute is necessary to address “considerable backlog in securing the visual memory of our society”

New Hampshire museum acquires a rare house by Frank Lloyd Wright

The 1957 home, the Currier Museum of Art's second Wright dwelling, is built in the “Usonian Automatic” style, with rectangular concrete blocks

What is art for? Why, to help sell arms, silly!

October saw full deployment of culture in Russian and French political and commercial diplomacy with Saudi Arabia

The French general’s advice to Notre Dame's chief architect: ‘Just shut up!’

A public spat between officials erupted this week in Paris over the reconstruction of the fire-ravaged cathedral and whether its historic spire should be restored as it was or a new spire built in its place

Three ways museums can face up to the climate crisis

No issue is more relevant—and relevance is the cultural sector’s current leitmotif

The Huntington Library acquires two collections of US slavery and abolition records

The historic documents “highlight the complexities of documenting America’s ‘peculiar institution’”

Opening new galleries and showcasing its sphinx, Penn Museum rebrands its image

Museum at the University of Pennsylvania will open 10,000 sq. ft of reimagined spaces

Whitney Museum acquires 88 works by biennial artists

Additions to the collection include a painting by one of the eight artists who threatened to pull their art from display in protest against vice chairman Warren Kanders

Meadows Museum in Dallas teams up with local and Madrid opera companies

Opera sets will evoke the museum’s collection, and soloists will perform at the museum

Jayne Wrightsman leaves over 375 works of art and $80m to the Met

From European paintings to the decorative arts, the patron and her oil tycoon husband, who both served as trustees for decades, gave the New York museum more than 1,275 works in all

Russianews

Moving to the suburbs: vast museum collections centre destined for 'New Moscow'

State Tretyakov Gallery among 23 Russian museums planning to store and show works near former killing field Kommunarka

UK national museums could learn a lot from their regional cousins

When it comes to having a historian rummaging in their stores, smaller institutions tend to be more enthusiastic and accommodating

From the archive | Louvre pyramid architect I.M. Pei on the church-like museum he designed for the Goulandris collection

In this 1994 interview, he reveals how he likes art to be displayed, such as natural lighting for Impressionists

Goulandris collection of Modern masterworks finally revealed in new Athens museum

Dream museum of collectors Basil and Elise Goulandris brought to life almost three decades after original proposal

Interview | Lonnie Bunch on founding the Smithsonian's African American history museum and drawing inspiration from Lincoln

As his new book is released, the new secretary of the Smithsonian Institution talks of extending its reach beyond Washington

London's National Gallery launches public campaign to fund last £2m to buy Orazio Gentileschi masterpiece

The 17th-century painting The Finding of Moses was painted in London for Charles I and represented the birth of Charles II