Museums

Local councils resist temptation to cash-in on their art—for the time being

Budgets cuts and closures across England increase fears that sell-offs will follow<br>

Swap shop: the stories behind six objects in Pia Camil’s New Museum installation

Find out why visitors brought a glass chicken, a Mardi Gras wig, a vintage hat, a diary page, a quilt and a package of seaweed for the artist’s first solo show

Artnews

Louvre-Lens director Xavier Dectot steps down after five years, and heads for Edinburgh

Medieval expert will head the department of art and design at the National Museum of Scotland

The 21st-century Tate is a commonwealth of ideas

Museums must widen the ways in which they serve their audiences to reflect new forms of social interaction

New Lithuanian art space to open in 2019

The first museum dedicated to Lithuanian Modern and contemporary art will open in the country’s capital

For-profit Parisian museum in receivership

Founder of the Pinacothèque hopes to restructure the institution

Artnews

France builds grand alliance to protect cultural heritage

Louvre director’s plan calls for co-ordinated response to destruction in Syria and Iraq

Reviewnews

A uniquely British phenomenon: how museums sprang up in the UK

From the 1860s, a network of museums were founded nationwide

The Year Ahead: museums opening in 2016

A look at the top institutions due to launch worldwide in the coming year

Taxing times: private museums under scrutiny by US government

Who benefits most from tax breaks on private art museums: patrons or the public?

Our pick of the top museum acquisitions of 2015

Major gifts and purchases from around the world that stood above the rest

Artnews

Vik Muniz to reveal flip side of Mauritshuis’s Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer

Artist's painstaking copies of backs of famous paintings include the Mona Lisa

London’s ICA to stay put in historic Nash House

Director Gregor Muir hopes to revamp spaces

Kenneth Griffin gives MoMA $40m—one of the New York museum's largest ever donations

The hedge-fund manager&nbsp;has also funded the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Whitney Museum

Bridget Riley helps students access British Museum gems

The artist's foundation is funding a three-year project to bring the museum's drawings to students outside London

Susie Lingham steps down as director of the Singapore Art Museum after only two years

Management is in discussions with the UK-educated academic about her role in the 2016 Singapore Biennale <p> </p>

2015's best new museums

Prestigious institutions have sprung up around the world, from the Prada Foundation in Milan to the Broad in Los Angeles

Artnews

Germany could pay $3m to borrow Tehran’s Modern art

Negotiations include huge loan fee part of which will help fund revamp of Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art

Spending review signals grim divide in UK

No cuts for national museums but regionals face ripple effect of reduced funding for local authorities