Museums & Heritage

Maqdala shield to be repatriated to Ethiopia

Withdrawn from auction in February, the shield will make a stop at the Toledo Museum of Art before going on public display at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa

UK’s largest artist residency programme launches £7m fundraising campaign

The Delfina Foundation in London, which has hosted more than 450 artists and curators, hopes to secure its base and continue its programmes

$3.9m restoration project breaks ground in Brooklyn to preserve remnants of a 19th-century free Black community

Weeksville Heritage Center’s historic Hunterfly Road Houses will undergo a significant restoration

Museumscomment

Curatorial risks worth taking to foster a sense of belonging in museums

Stephanie Sparling Williams, curator of American art at the Brooklyn Museum, on how Black feminist practices informed the rehang of the museum’s American art collection

Prizesnews

'This year is particularly special': art prize exhibition delayed by Russian invasion opens in Kyiv

In the midst of an ongoing war, the PinchukArtCentre’s Future Generation Prize will award $100,000 to one of 21 shortlisted artists

Polish bank works with blockchain company and an Arctic vault to safeguard country's artistic heritage

Bank Pekao and the Aleph Zero platform collaborate to keep secure data by tokenising the digitised records of important works of art

PST Art’s science-meets-art extravaganza in eight superlatives

From the Getty initiative’s most widely exhibited artist to its most calming installation

Ancient throne room of powerful Moche woman discovered in Peru

The so-called “Hall of the Moche Imaginary” is one of two elaborately decorated spaces archaeologists recently uncovered at Pañamarca

Israeli archaeology bill raises fears of West Bank annexation

Experts warn that the bill, which expands the Israel Antiquities Authority’s jurisdiction, violates international law and could lead to sanctions against Israel

How artists are helping US communities prepare for environmental emergencies

A Federal Emergency Management Agency programme is using art to raise awareness of flood risks and build resilience in communities

How to decode art: UK schools embark on ‘visual literacy’ week

As government aims to put the arts at the heart of the curriculum, an Art UK project is teaching children how to 'cope with today’s image-saturated world'

'Untenable': UK Arts Society chiefs and trustees resign following internal opposition to reforms

A new governance structure was rejected by 70% of voting members at an extraordinary general meeting

France's cultural pass at risk as calls to scrap it grow

President Macron’s flagship youth scheme receives twice as much public funding as the Louvre

Maison Ruinart creates a bubbly pavilion for art

The world's oldest champagne house has upgraded visitor facilities at its production site in Reims, adding a new building to display part of its art collection

Hammer Museum names new leader to succeed longtime director Ann Philbin

Zoë Ryan, currently the director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, will take the helm at the Hammer in the new year

Pucker up: Mae West Lips Sofa goes on display at Surrealist hub in West Sussex

Monthly public tours will reveal one of the UK’s most prestigious collections of Surrealist art, featuring works by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Leonora Carrington

US government provides more funds and imposes new restrictions to safeguard Ukrainian art

An additional $1m in funding for preservation and conservation efforts follows new import restrictions to help curb Russia’s looting and trafficking of Ukraine’s heritage

Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera rebrands as launch of new modern art space nears

Milan’s most prestigious art museum and several other institutions in the same complex are now known as “Grande Brera”

Smithsonian Institution launches $2.5bn fundraising campaign

The campaign, timed to coincide with the semiquincentennial of the United States in 2026, is the most ambitious fundraising undertaking for a cultural organisation on record

Palestinians begin preservation of Gaza’s heritage with help from $1m fund

Support includes the evacuation of artefacts, surveys of damage to buildings and training to bolster safeguarding of historical sites

The Met will study and catalogue 14 ancient sculptures recently repatriated to Yemen

With the country still in the throes of a civil war, the ancient sculptures were returned by a family in New Zealand but will be temporarily kept in New York

President Volodymyr Zelensky visits New York’s Ukrainian Museum, calls for ‘the decolonisation of Ukrainian art’

The Ukrainian president and first lady, who are in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, inaugurated the museum’s major Alexandra Exter exhibition

‘Art is the opposite of war’: amid a new wave of bombardment, Beirut's culture professionals remain defiant

Israeli airstrikes have led to gallery and museum closures, but artists and gallerists are determined to continue their work

London’s revamped Warburg Institute courts a broader audience

Home to a unique collection smuggled out of Nazi Germany, the institute will show temporary exhibitions alongside Edmund de Waal’s library of exile

Las Vegas’s Neon Museum set for $45m relocation and expansion

The beloved but cramped attraction will move to sites in the Arts District, near the future site of the Las Vegas Museum of Art

Academy of Arts and Letters launches contemporary gallery at Manhattan headquarters

The space will open with an exhibition devoted to the late Conceptual artist Christine Kozlov

Vikings invade the Nordic museum landscape with three themed institutions in the pipeline

Museums dedicated to Viking culture and artefacts are taking shape in two cities in Denmark and the Norwegian capital, Oslo

Axel Rüger leaves London’s Royal Academy for New York's Frick Collection

The RA chief, who saw the institution through the Covid-19 pandemic, will replace Ian Wardropper next spring

Lacma pushes back opening of new building until 2026

Museum leaders are hoping to organise public programming in the empty building next year

National Museum of Denmark returns sacred Indigenous cloak to Brazil

The sacred artefact’s ultimate destination remains a subject of debate