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News
The French government is taking its first legal steps to officially restitute 26 items to Benin and one to Senegal. The draft law would bypass an existing legal principle in the country that deems objects in public collections “inalienable.’ [The Art Newspaper]
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III said he is personally reviewing complaints of racism submitted by Black employees at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art. “There is no room for racism at the Smithsonian,” he said. [The New York Times]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will reopen five days a week beginning August 29. As part of its reopening, it will decrease visitorship to 25 percent of its total capacity and require visitors to wear face masks. [The Art Newspaper]
Related Articles
The Massachusetts Cultural Council estimates that the state’s cultural organizations have lost some $425 million in revenue as a result of the pandemic. [MassLive]
Museums
Salvador Salort-Pons, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, has come under fire for displaying a work by El Greco that belongs to his father-in-law. A whistleblower complaint says that he did not go far enough in disclosing how he might benefit from the showing. [The New York Times]
The Minnesota Museum of American Art has fired its longtime executive director, Kristin Makholm, who took over the institution in 2009 when it was on the verge of bankruptcy and had lost its home. [Star Tribune]
Aaron Randle looks at why open letters to museums have become a prominent tool used by activists looking to expose racism and change museums. “America is changing, and museums need to change with it,” said Jennifer Williams, one of the activists interviewed, said. [Artnet News]
Collecting
Denise Gardner, the vice-chairman of the board at the Art Institute of Chicago, has focused on collecting the work of Black artists for nearly four decades. She talks with Kelly Crow about three artists she’s currently looking at. [The Wall Street Journal]
The New York Times reports that museum curators across the country “are imploring us to see historical value in the everyday objects of right now,” from protest signs to journals to shopping lists. [The New York Times]
Art & Artists
Last night, KCET began airing new program called Southland Sessions. It’s first episode, titled “Change(Makers): The Future of Arts and Culture” looks at the ways in which cultural leaders in Southern California are reevaluating the roles their organizations play amid a global pandemic and the ongoing protests. [KCET]
Mixed-media artist and community organizer Brianna Harlan has launched a campaign to make the arts more equitable in Louisville, Kentucky. [89.3 WFPL]
The Guardian looks at the images of the next generation of Magnum photographers, Yael Martinez, Hannah Price, Khalik Allah, Sabiha Çimen, and Colby Deal. [The Guardian]
In a new album, titled Nam June’s Spirit Was Speaking to Me, sound artist Aki Onda uses a radio antenna to channel the ghost of the late video artist. [Art in America]
See a slideshow of the Museum of Modern Art’s recent acquisition of the photography-heavy Gayle Greenhill Collection. [ARTnews]
Correction, July 16, 2020: An earlier version of this article misstated which Smithsonian institution was the subject of complaints of racism submitted by Black employees. It was the Smithsonian Museum of African Art, not the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
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