Tessera

A court in northern China has set a date to rule on detained artist Gao Zhen, his family said, scheduling a verdict for nearly two years to the day after he was taken into custody. www.urgentmatter.press/chinese-cour...

Court sets verdict date for jailed artist Gao Zhen

The Sanhe City court's ruling would land one day short of two years since the U.S. permanent resident was detained in China.

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A Russian drone hit the Oleksiy Shovkunenko Kherson Regional Art Museum early on August 20, burning the wing of a building whose art Russia had looted during its 2022 occupation of the city. www.urgentmatter.press/russian-dron...

Russian drone burns wing of Kherson Art Museum

The museum, whose collection Russia looted in 2022, called the fire a war crime.

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“After years of curiosity, creativity, connection, and countless unforgettable moments, WNDR Museum is preparing to close its doors,” the company wrote. www.urgentmatter.press/wndr-museum-...

WNDR Museum to close Chicago and Boston locations

The immersive art company will shut its Boston space on August 30.

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The FBI returned 48 ancient artifacts to Egypt at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Friday, the bureau's Los Angeles field office said. www.urgentmatter.press/fbi-returns-...

FBI returns 48 ancient artifacts to Egypt

Most of the objects are thousands of years old and date to the Pharaonic, Roman and Coptic periods.

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The union representing hundreds of workers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art says the museum is dragging out arbitration to keep 110 employees out of its bargaining unit. www.urgentmatter.press/met-union-ac...

Met union says museum is stalling on 110 challenged workers

The museum challenged the eligibility of roughly 100 ballots after the January election.

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An artist who worked as a lifeguard in Austin, Texas, has been cleared by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to sue the city, ending its review of his discrimination and retaliation charge and starting a 90-day clock to file in court. www.urgentmatter.press/artist-who-w...

Artist who worked as Austin lifeguard cleared by EEOC to sue city

Brandon Scott Cobb said the retaliation he plans to challenge in court included his supervisor's complaint about a painting he made.

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Illustrator Lauren Marx told her half-million Instagram followers she will stop selling her work in the European Union, citing new EU packaging rules that took effect this month. www.urgentmatter.press/artists-stop...

Artists stop selling to the EU over new packaging rules

“They killed the whole purpose of the EU. It’s crazy.”

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A retrospective of the British artist Ralph Steadman, best known for his long collaboration with Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, opens August 26 at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art at Colorado State University, the final stop on a national tour and the show’s only Colorado appearance.

Ralph Steadman tour ends in state that once banned his art

The 90-year-old artist answered Urgent Matter's questions by email as "And Another Thing" opens its final stop at Colorado State University.

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A website for a fictional painter is using Jordan Casteel’s paintings, she says www.urgentmatter.press/website-fict...

Fake artist site uses Jordan Casteel's paintings

The site, tremblayrebecca.art, was registered in July and has emailed people about exhibitions that don't exist, the artist's studio said.

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Italian police have recovered three works by Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse that were stolen in March from the Fondazione Magnani-Rocca outside Parma, the Carabinieri said Friday. www.urgentmatter.press/italian-poli...

Italy recovers stolen Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse works

The three works were taken from the Fondazione Magnani-Rocca near Parma in March.

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The eight Henri Matisse prints stolen from São Paulo’s Mário de Andrade Library in an armed robbery last December have been recovered, city officials said, eight months after two gunmen fled an exhibition with them. www.urgentmatter.press/sao-paulo-po...

São Paulo police recover Matisse prints stolen in heist

The city said nothing about five Portinari prints taken in the same robbery.

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MoMA keeps its security camera footage for about a month before routinely erasing it, the museum disclosed in court documents — a practice that would have wiped any video of the assaults a nude performer alleged he suffered in a 2010 Marina Abramović exhibition long before he sued.

MoMA keeps security footage about a month, filings show

The disclosure came as the museum moved to freeze all discovery in a nude performer's sexual-assault suit while it appeals.

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Artist Mickalene Thomas has sued her former fiancée, collector and curator Racquel Chevremont, asking a court to force the sale of a Fire Island cooperative apartment they own together. www.urgentmatter.press/mickalene-th...

Mickalene Thomas sues Racquel Chevremont over co-op

The artist wants a judge to force the sale of a Fire Island Pines apartment the two bought together in 2022.

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The Newark Museum of Art denied retaliating against a former employee who says he was fired for complaining to human resources, telling a federal court it terminated him for “legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons.” www.urgentmatter.press/newark-museu...

Newark Museum of Art denies retaliating against fired worker

The museum said it fired Shawn Jones for legitimate reasons after co-workers accused him of threatening behavior.

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who spent much of her tenure defending the Trump administration’s overhaul of the country’s leading arts institutions, will leave her post at the end of August. www.urgentmatter.press/karoline-lea...

Karoline Leavitt, who defended Trump’s arts overhaul, resigns

The White House press secretary defended Trump's overhaul of the Kennedy Center, his ballroom project and the EPA museum's closure.

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A federal labor board has dismissed an unfair labor practice charge brought by the newly unionized workers of the South Street Seaport Museum, who accused the museum of stalling their first contract by withholding bargaining information and refusing to schedule negotiating sessions.

NLRB dismisses South Street Seaport Museum charge

The case was one of nearly 400 the labor board's general counsel pulled out of its New York region weeks before it was dismissed.

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The Grammy Award-winning Experiential Orchestra will devote a February concert to music written in wartime and invite audience members to write down how war has touched their lives. www.urgentmatter.press/experiential...

EXO asks audiences to share how war has touched their lives

The concert, Music in a Time of War, is one of four programs in the orchestra's 2026-2027 New York season.

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Ty Warner has asked a federal appeals court to revive his lawsuit against the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. In a brief filed August 10, he argued that the museum, which stripped his name from its Sea Center in 2014, solicited a $50 million gift from him a decade later.

Ty Warner lays out strategy in Santa Barbara museum suit appeal

A new brief argued that the museum that removed his name in 2014 later asked him for a $50 million estate gift.

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A lawyer for Libbie Mugrabi has asked to withdraw from two of her lawsuits within a day of each other, telling judges that his relationship with the New York art collector has hit a “total breakdown” and that she has not paid her legal bills.

Libbie Mugrabi's lawyer moves to quit two of her suits

Michael Regan asked to drop Mugrabi from two cases, saying she stopped paying and stopped cooperating.

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The play revisits the medieval story of Adam’s first wife, recasting Lilith as a woman navigating religious authority, sexual violence and freedom. www.urgentmatter.press/new-play-tur...

New play turns Lilith’s Eden into art at The Tank

The play revisits the medieval story of Adam’s first wife, recasting Lilith as a woman navigating religious authority, sexual violence and freedom.

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Syria’s antiquities directorate responded to backlash over restaurants and cafes at the Damascus Citadel by framing the state’s new heritage approach as a break from the Baathist regime of former President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria denies turning Damascus Citadel into restaurants

A former head of the antiquities directorate said the festival's commercial fixtures damaged the UNESCO-listed fortress.

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The Cartoon Art Museum closed its gallery in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf on August 2. Andrew Farago, the museum’s former curator, was arrested weeks earlier for secretly recording guests — among them children — in his home bathroom.

Cartoon Art Museum closes after curator's arrest

Andrew Farago, the museum’s former curator, was arrested for secretly recording guests — among them children — in his home bathroom.

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The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has put its New York headquarters up for sale less than a year after naming the same building as the continuing home of its archives residency when it announced the sale of its Florida property. www.urgentmatter.press/rauschenberg...

Rauschenberg Foundation lists NYC headquarters for sale

The building would be delivered fully vacant, a year after the foundation named it the continuing home of its archives residency.

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Marlborough Gallery’s former Chelsea flagship has sold for $7.5 million to Gazelli Art House, a gallery based in London and Baku, Azerbaijan. www.urgentmatter.press/marlborough-...

Marlborough's Chelsea flagship sells to Gazelli for $7.5M

Gazelli Art House paid $3.4 million below the asking price and says it will make the two-floor space its permanent New York base.

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Yemen’s antiquities authority has identified 28 objects — 20 held by the British Museum and eight offered for sale in early July at two London auction houses — as looted pieces of the country’s cultural heritage, the latest entry in a rolling series of public lists tracking Yemeni artifacts abroad.

Yemen names looted antiquities at British Museum, auctions

The General Authority for Antiquities and Museums said it had notified relevant international bodies about the pieces.

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