Centre Pompidou to shut for 5 years
Paris gallery will close from 2025 to 2030 for major refurbishment and expansion
— First time here? Subscribe below for free.
Happy Friday.
Eurovision fever has well and truly hit the UK this week, as the city of Liverpool hosts the Song Contest. It’s the first time it’s been on UK soil in 25 years. All reports seem to suggest that the there is a buzz on the Mersey like never seen before.
That buzz extends to the city’s Museum of Liverpool who has definitely got in on the action. A live screening of tomorrow’s Grand Final at the venue has sold out (as has a screening at the nearby glorious surroundings of the World Museum). And tomorrow it will also host the “world’s biggest ever physical and digital flash mob” in support of Ukraine who the UK is hosting on behalf of. They also welcomed Jedward last night for a Semi Final party, but you can’t win them all.
Good luck to Liverpool tomorrow, and good luck to Royaume-Uni.
Now let’s read on, as I wrote a newsletter.
Maxwell
Need To Know
Museum’s “overreaction” over digital content
One of America’s most important museums of medical history has sparked a backlash by taking down all of its online exhibitions and YouTube videos. US media outlet WHYY reports that the museum’s management had concerns this content wasn’t ‘respectful’ and also highlighted worries about negative TripAdvisor reviews from squeamish visitors.
But critics say the move is a dereliction of the museum’s core duty to inform and educate its community about important subjects such as the human body. They argue it limits access to high quality information — made in good faith — by experts.
Evi Numen, former Exhibitions Manager and Designer of the Mütter Museum has told this newsletter that the Mütter has previously set the tone in the level of open access to its collection and associated imagery. “Until now it adopted a progressive level of sharing the knowledge represented within their collection without shying away from the realities.”
But she says, “Now its new leadership is backtracking and radically limiting access instead of pushing forward and charting the way for other collections in a way that can balance transparency and sensitivity along with its educational imperatives and responsibility in public health education.”
Numen, who is now Curator of the Old Anatomy Museum of the School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, added that “seemingly this radical move is an overreaction to fears of ‘cancel culture’ stemming from recent scandals in other Philadelphia institutions and an attitude of seeing the museum as a PR liability instead of an educational asset.” (Read more)
Centre Pompidou to close in 2025
The Centre Pompidou in Paris will close from 2025 to 2030 for major refurbishment and expansion. The plans will see an entire rehang of the Centre — and a 20,000 square metre expansion into a space located under the gallery piazza currently occupied by disused bus parks.
The work will be the building’s first major upgrade in its history and will cost €262 million. Other upgrades will see the structure updated for fire safety, disability access and general repairs.
France’s Culture minister Rima Abdul Malak said the Pompidou’s refurbishment would “enable its survival.” She also announced that the institution will temporarily occupy the national galleries of the Grand Palais during the closure period.
The initial restoration plan involved shutting down the museum for four years from the end of 2023, but this was delayed until after the Paris 2024 Olympics. It will now shut for five years, for more ambitious works, and will mean it’ll be closed for the gallery’s 50th birthday. (Read more)
News from the UK
Benin Bronzes | Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology was due to hand over 116 Benin Bronzes to a Nigerian delegation next week. But the event has been quietly postponed in light of Nigeria’s President’s recent move giving the Oba — instead of the state — ownership of all Bronzes, which in theory gives him sweeping powers over their management. "There being a bit of confusion, it seemed better to pause" explained one official. (Read more)
Bye Britannia | Gagosian — one of the world’s biggest commercial galleries — is closing one of its London sites. After 20 years, Gagosian’s Britannia Street location in King's Cross, north London will shut for good. A spokesman said the decision came as the property is being redeveloped by the landlord, and that they would focus instead on a new initiative to place artworks in public spaces across London. (Read more)
More Room | If you can believe it, there are still nooks to be discovered in Sir John Soane’s Museum, surely the most packed-to-the-brim of all museums. They’ve just opened the famous architect’s rarely-seen Drawing Office to the public for the very first time in its 200-year history. It’s the oldest surviving example of its kind in the world, and can be visited as part of a tour. (Read more)
Hunterian Reopens | After a six-year closure, the totally revamped Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons headquarters in London has been revealed. 2,000 items are on show including human organs and the bodies of creatures ranging from bees to elephants. Ahead of next week’s public opening, Director Dawn Kemp said “its history makes it a unique place to contemplate what it is to be human.” (Read more)
🔗 Go deeper: Tooth transplants and pickled penises: inside the revamped Hunterian
Price Tag | After last week’s rumours that the cost of the relocation of the Museum of London could be moving towards half-a-billion pounds, officials have now confirmed that while it’s not quite that eye-watering, the price tag has gone up 30% — to £437m — due to the buildings on the new site being in a worse state of disrepair than first anticipated. They are now in discussions with the Mayor of London to plug the £100m funding gap. (Read more)
News from around the world
USA | Édouard Manet’s famed 1863 painting Olympia is to travel to the United States for the very first time, as part of a major exhibition examining the artist’s relationship with fellow Frenchman Edgar Degas. Some 160 works will be displayed at the Met in New York. Manet’s titular subject in Olympia was a sex worker, which scandalized the audiences of the 1860s when it was first shown. (Read more)
USA | The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art is without a director for the third time in six years, as Ngaire Blankenberg quietly left the post in March. Blankenberg told The Art Newspaper she faced “individual and institutional resistance and then backlash.” An anonymous source also told the publication her focus on ideological issues and international outreach created a clash with the museum’s staff. (Read more)
Australia | Staff at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum have raised further allegations of damage to priceless objects in its collection due to a new ‘open display’ policy and due to staff cuts. They are calling on the local government to intervene in the museum’s future. The allegations — which the museum has branded “lies” — come ahead of the site’s hugely controversial £266 million redevelopment. (Read more)
Netherlands | The newly-renovated Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam is to host a pop-up tattoo parlour next month, dubbed “The Poor Man’s Rembrandt Project.” Punters can get original tattoos costing from €100 to €250, inspired by the Dutch master. “You are making a bit of art for people who otherwise would not collect art at all” one of the Museum’s ‘tattoo artists in residence’ said. (Read more)
Iraq | Officials have announced that Mosul’s once-celebrated museum would reopen in 2026 after being closed to the public for 20 years. The museum shut in 2003 amid the chaos following the US-led invasion of Iraq, and it was later ransacked by Islamic State group jihadists after they seized the city in 2014. It has now entered the final stages of a major restoration project. (Read more)
Best of the rest
🔗 Tracey Emin has opened a new exhibition in Rome of artworks made since she was given the all-clear from cancer. She described the pieces as a testament “to the healing power of art.”
🔗 London’s Alexander Fleming Museum has scrapped its entry charge, presumably because no one knew there was an Alexander Fleming Museum in London.
🔗 Greece’s Prime Minister has repeated calls for a “win-win” solution on the ownership of the Parthenon Sculptures. But he insisted they will “never recognise” that they are owned by the British Museum.
🔗 Council leaders have insisted that Glasgow’s museums will maintain their official accreditation, despite cutting 40% of conservation teams.