This edition also features: Heritage crimes increase | Gladiators to tour UK | Is the Louvre of Saudi Arabia coming?
Happy Friday.
Last week I opened this newsletter by asking what can the arts learn from sport’s popularity? As the week has gone on, I’ve become even more convinced that storytelling is at the heart of this.
The story sport tells is incredibly simple: winners vs losers, and triumphing against the odds. It’s the same whether on the field, track, or on Netflix’s flourishing sports documentaries like Drive to Survive. I mean the clue’s in the title!!
For the arts, it’s not so clear. As I said last week, for an industry designed to tell stories, it often doesn’t do it very well. For museums, this can be evidenced by everything from far-too-niche exhibition topics, to hectoring and lecturing wall texts. You know who you are.
But some institutions are starting to evolve. The London Museum might have a dodgy new logo, but its overhauled website has just launched with some real innovation: 1,000 brand new editorial stories about London’s most important people, places, subjects and historic events. All written to serve what people are actually searching for on Google.
They’re not trailblazers per se, as Europeana — a European Union platform to promote the continent’s digital heritage — has coincidentally just hit publish on their 1,000th story in the same vein. And London’s Southbank Centre has just revamped their website to prominently feature their ongoing ‘magazine’ section of editorial articles. But I’ve not seen a UK museum embrace made-for-online-AND-search content so wholeheartedly. Plus the London Museum is using AI to serve readers even more of what they might like.
Don’t get me wrong, the solution isn’t just to write a bunch of new blog articles. It’s about attempting to build community, to make the arts accessible, to bring the human experience to life, and to create emotional connections. But writing content meeting someone’s needs on the medium they go to to fulfil that need is a good start.
Sport is a story teller. Taylor Swift is definitely a story teller. Now museums and cultural organisations need to learn from the best. Getting it right could even be the perfect story of triumphing against the odds.
— maxwell
PS. Similar to above, Adam Koszary wrote in this newsletter earlier this week that museums need to up their social media game. If you didn’t catch it in your inbox then, catch it here.
I bring you news and opinion from the world of museums, galleries, art and heritage each and every week. You can support this work by making a donation here.
Need To Know
Crime on the up
Heritage sites across the UK are reporting an alarming increase in crime over the past year.
A staggering 92% of sites have said they’ve suffered a crime over the last 12 months — ranging from anti-social behaviour, physical abuse of staff, theft of metal, damage by vehicles, and even the theft of oil. The findings come from new research by the heritage insurer Ecclesiastical.
More sites had to temporarily close because of crime in 2023. 35% were forced to shut their doors compared to 30% the year before. Incidents of petty theft have also jumped, with 32% of heritage leaders reporting cases in the past year compared to 27% in 2022. Due to the increase in threats, 95% of organisations have introduced new measures to protect their organisations and deter criminals during the past 12 months.
The research comes just weeks after a major theft of unique Bronze Age treasures from Ely Museum, and the introduction of body-worn cameras for some staff at English Heritage sites. (Read more)
Reopening after blaze
London’s Somerset House will begin a phased public reopening tomorrow after a major fire shut the arts venue for a week.
25 firefighters and 20 engines originally helped to tackle the blaze which ignited last Saturday. There were no reported injuries. The Courtauld Gallery which is in the vast arts complex was unaffected and all the artworks were safe.
Yet the fire caused significant damage to the building’s west wing and it took 7 hours to extinguish. Speaking at the scene, London Fire Brigade Assistant Commissioner Keeley Foster said: "The fire was located in part of the building’s roof space. The age and design of the building proved a challenge for crew.”
Visitors can from tomorrow return to exhibition The Lore of LOVERBOY. A spokesperson said the organisation was “very moved by expressions of support from around the world” since the fire. (Read more)
Louvre of Arabia planned
The world’s most expensive painting has not been seen in public for 7 years, ever since it was auctioned for $450 million (£360 million) in 2017. Now a new investigation reveals that it’s being kept in a vault in Geneva, with hopes that it will soon rival the Mona Lisa in drawing tourists to a major new museum is Saudi Arabia.
Salvator Mundi — controversially attributed to Leonardo da Vinci — is being held by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a new BBC documentary has reported. And while it’s long thought to have been hanging on his yacht, a confidant of the prince has said the work has been in storage, waiting for “a very large museum in Riyadh” to be built so that it can attract millions of tourists.
In the new documentary The Kingdom: The World’s Most Powerful Prince, Bernard Haykel, a professor of professor at Princetown University, says that the prince wants to replicate the Louvre where he says 90% of its visitors come just to see the other most famous Leonardo work. (Read more)
News from the UK
Remarkable gift ✨ | The full valuation of a 2022 bequest of Chinese antiquities to the British Museum has been revealed for the first time. Sir Joseph Hotung’s gift of nearly 300 pieces was worth £123 million, making it one of the most valuable donations in the museum’s history. Hotung had long supported the museum, most notably resulting in his name on the China and South Asia gallery. At the time the bequest was announced, the museum hailed it as “one of the most significant bequests” it has ever received (Read more)
Memorial unveiled 🐚 | A 7-metre-tall bronze cowrie shell by artist Khaleb Brooks has been unveiled as the winning design for London’s new Transatlantic slavery memorial. The most popular of six designs in a public vote, it’ll be installed outside the London Museum Docklands. Paid for by £500,000 of public funds from the Mayor, “it will sit well, both aesthetically and in terms of scale, with London Museum Docklands as its background” according to the museum’s Director Douglas Gilmore. (Read more)
Male ambitions 🚹 | The V&A has set an ambitious target for the next year — to hire more men. Currently 26% of the 1,000-strong staff are male, and the museum says it wants this to increase to 30% by April. The gender split is much more stark than other museums. For example the Natural History Museum reports a 60 per cent female to 40 per cent male employee split. (Read more)
Best medicine 🤣 | Liverpool is getting a £15m new museum to the late Sir Ken Dodd. The (brilliantly named) Sir Ken Dodd Happiness Centre will provide a permanent home for the comedian's entire archive, and the Happiness exhibition which was a smash hit at the Museum of Liverpool and closed in July. Planning permission was granted last week with the aim of opening the venue in time to mark Dodd’s 100th birthday in 2027. (Read more)
Britain’s battles ⚔️ | Think gladiators only battled to the death in Rome? Think again. A major new exhibition from the British Museum is to tour the country to explore the importance of this bloody spectacle in Roman culture in the British Isles. It’ll open at the Dorset Museum in Dorchester before trips to Northampton, Chester and Carlisle. A major highlight will be the Hawkedon Helmet, the only confirmed piece of gladiatorial armour found from Roman Britain. (Read more)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff6f8993d-1028-47e7-bfb8-d586ab0b7800_1751x1292.jpeg)
News from around the world
USA 🇺🇸 | Following his hugely successful installation at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, El Anatsui has been snapped up for a major new commission for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Featuring 200 human silhouettes made from security seals left around bottle necks, it’ll be unveiled in October and will fill the museum’s Williams Forum for two years. Director Sasha Suda said it was “a dream come true.” (Read more)
France 🇫🇷 | In news that should be surprising to no one whose memory can stretch all the way back to, er, 2012: visitor numbers to the Louvre dropped during the Olympic Games. Visits were down 22%, just as they did when London hosted. The museum also saw a 45% decrease in the nine days leading up to Opening Ceremony which a spokesperson blamed on the security perimeter set up to protect the Seine-based ceremony. (Read more)
Ireland 🇮🇪 | Cork’s Crawford Art Gallery is closing for nearly three years for a multi-million euro expansion. There’ll be a 50% increase in overall space, a five-storey extension, a new restaurant and a new garden. All 3,500 collection works will be removed from the site while work takes place. “Cork is growing, and so too are we,” said gallery director Mary McCarthy. (Read more)
Netherlands 🇳🇱 | Four millennia of stunning bronze art is to go on show at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in their major autumn exhibition opening next month. Asian Bronze. 4,000 Years of Beauty will display 75 treasures that have rarely been seen outside of Asia — 15 have never been to Europe before. It’s also the biggest collaboration the Dutch museum has done with countries from Asia. (Read more)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F88e4a933-3a3b-4b63-9538-95b8aba9245d_1125x1500.jpeg)
France 🇫🇷 | The Louvre is to host its first ever fashion exhibition. The as-yet-untitled show will open in January and will feature about 65 ensembles and 30 accessories that will be shown across the permanent galleries. The aim is to show how designers of recent decades have been inspired by the museum and its historical artworks more widely. Among the ensembles will be Karl Lagerfeld’s haute couture for Chanel, which were inspired by furniture on display in the Louvre. (Read more)
Best of the rest
Royal revamp 🔭 | Plans have been submitted for a major overhaul of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, which includes a new entrance and new galleries. Royal Museums Greenwich’s Director said it “needs vital investment” to “to safeguard its unrivalled heritage.” (More)
Drawing debuts | 30 Italian Renaissance drawings never seen in public before will go on display in the biggest ever show of its kind this November. The King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace will show 80 artists including Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. (More)
Pleasant land | The cottage where William Blake lived and wrote Jerusalem is to be saved from decades of neglect thanks to new funding to protect the roof which is at risk of collapse. It’s hoped the Sussex house could become a museum. (More)
To be? | A window cleaner from Aylesbury thinks the only portrait of Shakespeare painted in his lifetime has been hanging in his living room. Unlikely? Well it’s now been scientifically dated to 1595… (More)
👀 Last week’s most clicked news story | “Astonishing moment” hidden mosaic discovered at Roman site in Shropshire
📊 Catch up | Read my interview with the Founder of Hospital Rooms as he aims to bring art to Britain’s mental health wards
— Still time to treat me to a summer beer. 🍻 Donate to me and this newsletter here.