Oil Money, Restitution Wars, and Biennale Power Plays

A major climate-and-culture dust-up is brewing in London ahead of a Science Museum exhibition focused on the Pantanal, the vast wetland ecosystem spanning Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina. The Art Newspaper reports that Indigenous Brazilian leader Ninawa Huni Kui, of the Huni Kui (Kaxinawá) people from Acre, condemned the museum for taking sponsorship from BP ahead of the show Water, Pantanal, Fire. In his statement, Huni Kui called the money “dirty funds—indeed, stained with blood,” linking it to communities harmed by oil companies. The museum describes the Pantanal as threatened by deforestation, intensive farming and climate change, which contribute to destructive droughts and wildfires. The criticism arrives amid an expanding boycott and renewed pressure on the museum over fossil-fuel sponsorship.

Staying in Washington, the politics-of-portraiture beat is getting weirdly specific. Artnet News reports that Donald Trump is pushing for his own dedicated Smithsonian display at the National Portrait Gallery. The piece frames it around a question: will the museum agree to show Trump fan art, and what would a “dedicated display” even look like in that setting? The article’s focus is on the push itself—Trump seeking a special presentation within the Smithsonian orbit—and on the tension between personal promotion and how a national institution presents portraits in a public-facing context. It’s the kind of request that can quickly become bigger than the art, because it tests how an institution draws boundaries around curatorial decision-making and what kinds of images it is willing to elevate.

Across the Atlantic, Venice Biennale season is already in planning mode, and The Art Newspaper has published a running list of the national pavilion announcements for 2026. The roundup notes the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia opens 9 May and runs through 22 November 2026, with the main exhibition following the curatorial plan set out by the late Koyo Kouoh. Countries have been naming artists and organisers: Australia has Khaled Sabsabi; Austria, Florentina Holzinger; Belgium, Miet Warlop; Brazil, Rosana Paulino and Adriana Varejão with organiser Diane Lima; Canada, Abbas Akhavan; France, Yto Barrada; Great Britain, Lubaina Himid. It’s a practical cheat sheet, but also a snapshot of how nations are positioning themselves in Venice.

Still in the Venice orbit, Ukraine’s pavilion is centering a sculpture that’s been physically displaced by the war. The Art Newspaper reports that Zhanna Kadyrova will represent Ukraine with a project titled Security Guarantees, referencing the 1994 Budapest Memorandum signed by Ukraine, the UK, the US and Russia. At the centre is Kadyrova’s concrete sculpture Origami Deer, first installed in 2019 in a park in Pokrovsk, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. As the Russian frontline approached in 2024, it was deinstalled and moved across the country. In Venice, negotiations are ongoing to suspend it from a crane on a truck along the lagoon embankment; a statement says the suspended state symbolises uncertainty and forced displacement.

From contemporary crisis to historical justice: Cambridge University is returning around 100 Benin bronzes to Nigeria, according to The Art Newspaper, citing the Observer. The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology supported a 2022 claim by Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) for the return of 116 objects taken by British armed forces during the sacking of Benin City in 1897. Director Nicholas Thomas said the university paused because a clearer framework was needed, but that in July last year the university council confirmed the transfer of ownership should proceed and the bronzes “should go back within months.” The remaining 16 bronzes will stay in Cambridge on loan. Thomas also noted Cambridge’s negotiations have been with the NCMM, as European museums generally return artefacts to government agencies.

Staying in France, The Art Newspaper reports that Jack Lang resigned as president of L’Institut du Monde Arabe (Institute of the Arab World, or IMA) on Saturday 7 February over his ties with Jeffrey Epstein. Lang, 86, has led the Paris institution since 2013 and has vigorously denied wrongdoing after his name appeared 673 times in the Epstein files. France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, “took note” of the resignation and said the IMA board—representatives of France and Arab states—will choose a successor within seven days. In a letter published by AFP, Lang criticised “personal attacks, unfounded suspicions and amalgams,” saying he resigned to preserve the institution and to refute accusations. The article also notes the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation against Jack and Caroline Lang for “laundering of aggravated tax fraud.”

Back to the United States, a Renaissance-authenticity fight is turning into a referendum on A.I. in connoisseurship. Artnet News reports on a dispute over Jan van Eyck attributions that pits art historians against an A.I. firm. The article frames it as a clash between traditional expertise and a technology company’s claims about authenticity, with specialists contesting the firm’s conclusions. Rather than treating A.I. as automatically decisive, the story emphasizes how attribution debates still hinge on competing forms of evidence—and on who is considered credible when technical analysis, scholarly judgment, and new computational methods collide. It’s also a reminder that when big names like van Eyck are involved, the argument isn’t only academic: it affects how works are presented to the public and how institutions defend labels that carry enormous cultural weight.

In corporate-arts legal news, ARTnews reports that Michaels has sued an artist who claimed the craft-store giant used his work without permission. The headline identifies the artist as the one who made that allegation, and the key point here is the unusual posture: instead of the artist initiating the suit against the retailer, Michaels is the party taking legal action. The story is built around the dispute over alleged unauthorized use and the pushback from the company in court. Cases like this tend to revolve around what, exactly, was used, where it appeared, and what rights or permissions were in place—if any—before a design or image ended up in a mass-market context. ARTnews positions it as a notable escalation in the ongoing friction between individual creators and large retailers.

Staying with ARTnews, Judy Chicago has thoughts about what happens when an artist tries to build a giant public artwork with a tech behemoth. In a piece framed as advice, Chicago says she doesn’t recommend it, and the headline points to her view that a massive Google artwork failed due to a “moratorium.” The thrust is cautionary: the scale and visibility of a corporate-backed public project can sound like a dream, but it can also run headlong into corporate decision-making that’s outside the artist’s control. Chicago’s warning, as presented by ARTnews, is rooted in her experience of a stalled effort, and it reads as a reminder that even celebrated artists can find projects derailed when an institution or company changes direction.

And finally, Hyperallergic argues that “liminalism” has become a defining aesthetic of our time. In an article by Ed Simon, the site calls it a “crowd-curated digital movement” and frames it as “one of the most pertinent and explicit reactions” to “our particular slice of dystopian late capitalism.” The emphasis is on how this aesthetic spreads as a participatory, online phenomenon rather than a single artist’s style—shaped by collective posting and the circulation dynamics of the internet. The piece situates liminalism as a way of seeing and sharing the uncanny atmosphere of in-between spaces and states, presented not as a niche trend but as a broader cultural signal about the moment we’re living through—and how people are processing it visually.

That’s today’s download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for more art world news you can actually use.

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