Fuelling culture war, UK government forms new ‘retain and explain’ board for controversial monuments
“Independence cuts both ways,” UK culture secretary Oliver Dowden warns museums and heritage bodies
Read more
Cultural Heritage
Nationalist Governments Are Targeting Museums To Change Their Narratives
In Poland and other countries ruled by nationalist governments, far-right political parties are increasingly attempting to twist history to fit into their own narratives. And they’re going after cultural and educational institutions to do it.
Read more
Yuz Museum and Lacma confident they can show Middle Eastern art in China—despite crackdown on Islam
Joint exhibition programme under way between Shanghai and Los Angeles will soon involve Qatar Museums
Read more
In Canada, It’s A Moment For Indigenous Art – But What About The Artists?
The vast majority of Inuit artists, even the celebrated ones, “eke out an existence.” Canada’s famed reconciliation isn’t touching their lives much.
Read more
Not Everything Glittered In The Netherlands’ So-Called Golden Age, Says Museum
The Amsterdam Museum said on Thursday that staff were banned from using the term to describe the 17th century because “the term is strongly associated with national pride because of prosperity and peace but ‘ignores the many negative sides of the 17th century, such as poverty, war, forced labor and human trafficking.’” There’s blowback, of […]
Instead Of Trashing Or Replacing Its Old-Style, Stereotyped Colonists-Meet-Indians Diorama, This Museum Is Interrogating It
The American Museum of Natural History in New York has a 1939 diorama purporting to show a diplomatic meeting between
Read more
Old Photos Of Enslaved African-Americans Should Belong To Their Descendants, Not Museums, Argues Lawsuit
Just as the law now requires that Native American remains and artifacts should be returned to today’s Native tribes, the descendants of a pair of slaves seen in historic daguerreotypes now owned by a Harvard museum claim that they’re the rightful owners of those slaves’ images, which are, says their lawsuit, “spoils of theft.” – […]
A Sociologist Explores Explanations For Why Art By Men Gets Higher Prices Than Art By Women
“Who and what defines art and quality, which institutions matter and how they are accessed, who knows whom, whether advantage
Read more
The UNESCO World Heritage Label May Be Prestigious And Coveted, But Is It Effective?
A Q&A with Lucas Lixinski, a scholar of international cultural heritage and human rights law, argues that the UN body’s project to designate important pieces of cultural heritage is very effective — except for the communities whose culture t…
Read more