Museum Power Shifts and Restitution Reckonings

Big leadership news: Melissa Chiu is leaving the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, to lead New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She won’t be taking a break between roles: her final day at the Hirshhorn is 31 August, and she starts at the Guggenheim on 1 September. Chiu, an Australian native and an expert in contemporary Asian and Asian American art, has directed the Hirshhorn since 2014 after 13 years at New York’s Asia Society. The Smithsonian’s secretary, Lonnie G. Bunch III, credited her with strengthening the museum’s national role. The Hirshhorn’s deputy director, Aaron Seeto, will serve as interim director as the search begins.

Staying with institutional accountability, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum has launched a new webpage focused on provenance research, titled “How have objects come to be in the V&A?” The museum says the page highlights that some objects have “known histories of violence, coercion or injustice,” while for others “there remains uncertainty” about how they arrived. Director Tristram Hunt called it a commitment to accountability and transparency, noting the V&A operates under the 1983 National Heritage Act, which restricts deaccessioning. The page launched on International Provenance Research Day (8 April), organized by the Research Association for Provenance Research. A V&A spokesperson said the hub compiles existing articles and adds a new piece on the museum’s Ethiopian collections, plus a selection of objects reflecting different provenance themes.

One of the most detailed parts of the V&A’s new provenance material digs into its Ethiopian collections, written by provenance research curator Alexandra Watson Jones. She says the museum holds around 90 objects from Ethiopia, and that “the majority” are linked to the British military expedition of 1867–68. That campaign ended with the death of Emperor Tewodros II, the destruction of his fortress at Maqdala, and the British Army’s looting of “vast quantities” of cultural material. Jones notes that Maqdala-related objects, along with photographs, drawings, and archival records, are now in the V&A. She identifies two especially famous looted items in the collection: a solid gold chalice and a gold crown from the Ethiopian Orthodox church. Ethiopia formally requested their restitution in 2007, and discussions about a long-term loan appear to have stalled.

In New York, the Museum of Modern Art is opening a major Marcel Duchamp survey—53 years after the last big US show. Organized with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it’s co-curated by Ann Temkin with MoMA’s Michelle Kuo and the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Matthew Affron. The exhibition leans into a deceptively simple structure: chronology—so viewers encounter works only when they were physically made, including later replicas and remakes. Kuo notes Duchamp “not only made works, but remade them,” and some early readymades were even thrown away after being mistaken for ordinary objects. The show spans around 300 works, from Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) to Fountain (1917) and Étant donnés (1946–66).

Across the Channel and into policy, Greece has introduced a new law aimed at tackling art forgery and preventing damage to works of art and collectibles. The bill, No. 5271/2026, introduced in January, targets the “manufacture and circulation” of fakes and proposes an independent Department of Works of Art within the culture ministry, plus a registry of expert art appraisers. It sets clearer penalties: at least six months’ imprisonment and a minimum €five thousand fine, rising to possible ten years and fines between €ten thousand and €three hundred thousand for serious cases, and it allows for the destruction of counterfeit works. Consultant Aliki Tsirliagkou said earlier cases fell under general fraud and forgery provisions that required proof of a financial transaction; now authorities need only show manufacture or alteration, or possession with intent to distribute.

Crossing to France, a proposed restitution law has advanced in the National Assembly. The National Assembly’s Cultural Affairs Committee approved a bill that had been unanimously passed by the Senate’s Cultural Affairs Committee in January, setting up a plenary session debate on April 13. As reported by Le Monde, historian Bénédicte Savoy—who co-authored the 2018 restitution report with Felwine Sarr—called it “a decisive step” and said she was “truly very moved.” The bill would allow restitution to be ordered by decree of the Minister of Culture, instead of requiring a separate law for each return. The policy covers the period from 1815 to 1972, the year the UNESCO Convention on the Restitution of Cultural Property entered into force, and it avoids explicitly referencing the colonial context.

Now to the market: Christie’s will offer works from Marian Goodman’s personal collection during its May marquee sales in New York, just months after her death in January at 97. The group is led by paintings by Gerhard Richter, with one estimate reaching as high as fifty dollars million; Christie’s expects the material to total around sixty five dollars million. Seven Richter paintings from 1982 to 2009 will open the 21st Century Evening Sale on May 20. The highlight is Kerze (Candle) (1982), estimated at thirty five dollars million to fifty dollars million. Goodman began representing Richter in 1985 and placed his work with major institutions while holding back key examples; he left for David Zwirner in 2022. Additional lots will appear in a day sale and an online auction, excluding artists currently represented by her gallery.

Thinking about art and media theory, Artnet News has a piece titled “The Philosopher Who Predicted Our Post-Literate Art Moment.” Beyond the headline and publishing details, the focus is on Vilém Flusser and how his ideas are being revisited as culture becomes increasingly organized around images, interfaces, and screens. The framing suggests Flusser’s writing anticipated a shift away from text-centered life toward visual communication—an “art moment” shaped by the way people now encounter meaning through media systems rather than pages. It’s a timely prompt for anyone watching contemporary art move through digital channels, where context can be condensed into a swipe and the image itself becomes the primary argument. The piece positions Flusser as “radically prescient” for our current conditions.

Back in the United States, Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center is set to open on Juneteenth, 19 June, as an eight-storey museum focused on the legacy of former US president Barack Obama—and it’s putting contemporary art at the core. The eight hundred fifty dollarsm institution, designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects with Interactive Design Architects, sits within a 19.3-acre Jackson Park campus that also includes the Obama Foundation, a new Chicago Public Library branch, and public spaces. Museum director Louise Bernard says the vertical design minimizes the footprint and acts as a “beacon,” reflecting a metaphor of ascension. The museum has commissioned more than 25 site-specific works, many by artists tied to Chicago, and will keep the commissions “continually activated” through programming, mostly with living artists.

On the West Coast, the Getty Center in Los Angeles will close for renovations from spring 2027 to spring 2028, reopening in time for the Olympics. The last public day will be March 15, 2027. The Getty called the work “modernization initiatives,” the first since it opened in 1997, meant to elevate the visitor experience, enhance accessibility, and strengthen energy resilience. Renovations will update galleries, the Welcome Hall, and the tram; the Welcome Hall will gain a café and a reformatted retail shop, and the campus will also see new artist commissions. Some upgrades are already underway, with certain galleries closed to update the HVAC system. During the closure, the Getty will emphasize the Getty Villa and also rent a space on Sepulveda Boulevard for programming.

Finally, a roundup titled “Jasper Johns Marks Time” spotlights several threads at once. It highlights John Yau’s piece “Jasper Johns Keeps Looking,” timed to a Gagosian exhibition focusing on Johns’s work from the 1970s, including an exchange where Yau jokes that Johns’s materials—newsprint, hot wax, bedsheets—must be a conservator’s nightmare, and Johns replies, “Yes… It’s falling apart, just like me.” The same roundup also points to Naib Mian’s story about Saad Khan’s Khajistan, a digital and physical archive of censored mass media spanning South Asia to the Maghreb. In additional news items, it notes the Hispanic Society Museum and Library acquired a rare Wifredo Lam portrait from his early career, and reports that two board members of California’s Djerassi Resident Artists Program visited Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Saint James in 2011.

That’s your Daily Art Download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for the next dispatch from the museums, markets, and messes that shape culture. Chinga la migra

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