France: President François Hollande has abandoned plans for a Museum of the History of France because of the €100m cost of the project. A selection of French academics stressed that it would be impossible to present complex aspects of the country’s history in a museum setting. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy planned to convert the Archives Nationales in the Le Marais district of Paris into the historical museum.
France: The region of Marseille-Provence is one of the two European Capitals of Culture this year. Among the events being organised are Here, Elsewhere, a contemporary art exhibition at Panorama, a new contemporary art space. In May, the 40,000sq m Mucem museum, which will be devoted to the cultures of the Mediterranean, will open.
Hong Kong: The architects shortlisted to design M+, Hong Kong’s museum of 20th- and 21st-century visual culture, have been announced. The finalists are Herzog & de Meuron, Sanaa, Renzo Piano, Shigeru Ban, Snohetta and Toyo Ito. The winning bid will be announced this summer. M+ is scheduled to open in 2017.
United Arab Emirates: The campaign group Gulflabor has issued another letter calling for better working conditions at the Louvre and Guggenheim museum sites on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. The Gulflabor collective, which includes artists Walid Raad and Sam Durant, requests that the museums “seek uniform and enforceable human rights protections for the workers”.
US: Tim Gold, a former researcher at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and his partner, the furniture magnate Mitchell Gold, have announced plans to establish a national museum focusing on the history of gay, lesbian and transgender people. The pair hope to build the 9,300 sq m museum in the US capital, and have enlisted the MFM Design company to help plan exhibits.
US: The Los Angeles-based J Paul Getty Museum plans to return an ancient terracotta head of the Greek god Hades to Sicily. Getty officials believe that the artefact, which dates from about 400BC, was removed from Morgantina Archaeological Park, in Sicily, in the 1970s. The museum acquired the head in 1985.
France: The region of Marseille-Provence is one of the two European Capitals of Culture this year. Among the events being organised are Here, Elsewhere, a contemporary art exhibition at Panorama, a new contemporary art space. In May, the 40,000sq m Mucem museum, which will be devoted to the cultures of the Mediterranean, will open.
Hong Kong: The architects shortlisted to design M+, Hong Kong’s museum of 20th- and 21st-century visual culture, have been announced. The finalists are Herzog & de Meuron, Sanaa, Renzo Piano, Shigeru Ban, Snohetta and Toyo Ito. The winning bid will be announced this summer. M+ is scheduled to open in 2017.
United Arab Emirates: The campaign group Gulflabor has issued another letter calling for better working conditions at the Louvre and Guggenheim museum sites on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. The Gulflabor collective, which includes artists Walid Raad and Sam Durant, requests that the museums “seek uniform and enforceable human rights protections for the workers”.
US: Tim Gold, a former researcher at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and his partner, the furniture magnate Mitchell Gold, have announced plans to establish a national museum focusing on the history of gay, lesbian and transgender people. The pair hope to build the 9,300 sq m museum in the US capital, and have enlisted the MFM Design company to help plan exhibits.
US: The Los Angeles-based J Paul Getty Museum plans to return an ancient terracotta head of the Greek god Hades to Sicily. Getty officials believe that the artefact, which dates from about 400BC, was removed from Morgantina Archaeological Park, in Sicily, in the 1970s. The museum acquired the head in 1985.
