Museum Power Shifts and Art Crime Crackdowns

One of the art world’s biggest leadership shifts is now official: Melissa Chiu has been appointed the next director of the Guggenheim in New York, and Artnet’s Katya Kazakina lays out how it happened. Mariët Westermann—director and CEO of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation since 2023—said the expanding “constellation” of sites made it too much for one person, especially with Guggenheim Abu Dhabi poised to open next January. Westermann told Kazakina she kept the search quiet and didn’t use a search firm, meeting multiple candidates herself. Chiu, 54, has led the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden since 2014. She described telling staff at an all-hands town hall in the museum’s “learner room,” calling the move bittersweet after 12 years.

The Getty Center in Los Angeles is heading for a major shutdown. The Art Newspaper reports it will close for a full year starting 15 March 2027 for the most significant upgrades since it opened in 1997. Getty welcomed 1.3 million visitors last year, and the work is timed ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The project includes replacing the iconic tram from the parking structure—Katherine E. Fleming, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, told The New York Times it breaks down “with much greater frequency than it should.” The new tram will carry 400 more people per hour, add a musical soundtrack, and redesign arrival and departure areas. The Getty Villa will stay open, and Getty will also open a new permanent space on Sepulveda Boulevard.

Spain’s culture ministry has shut down a high-profile loan request involving Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937). The Art Newspaper reports the ministry refused the Basque government’s proposal to show the painting at Guggenheim Bilbao from 1 October 2026 to 30 June 2027. The work is housed at the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid. On 7 April, culture minister Ernest Urtasun told parliament that experts who have preserved the work for 30 years advise against moving it because of risks, adding that celebrating the anniversary should also mean ensuring the painting can last “another 90 years.” A conservation report from Reina Sofía warns that moving it could cause “new cracks, lifting, and loss of the paint layer, as well as tears.” Basque leader Imanol Pradales warned it would be a “serious political mistake” to close the door on the issue.

A federal cultural agency at the center of library and museum funding has been protected through a settlement. According to an April 9 press release from the American Library Association, the ALA and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees reached a favorable settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice that blocks the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The agreement ensures IMLS will keep awarding grants, conducting research, and supporting libraries and museums, while requiring reinstatement of previously terminated grants and reversal of staff reductions. ALA President Sam Helmick said that when IMLS began being shuttered last year, libraries cut hours, staff, and services, including after-school programs and support for jobseekers and older adults. AFSCME President Lee Saunders said members fought to protect funding “in every state.”

The lawsuit between Yuga Labs and artist Ryder Ripps and his business partner Jeremy Cahen has ended in a settlement. The parties disclosed that they agreed to a permanent injunction barring Ripps and Cahen from using any trademarks or images owned by Yuga Labs; the settlement terms are confidential. The dispute began during the 2022 NFT boom, when Ripps argued that Bored Ape Yacht Club imagery threaded racist symbolism into the series, including accessories like Prussian helmets and safari hats, and claimed the BAYC skull resembled a Nazi Totenkopf emblem. Yuga Labs denied the allegations and pointed to the diverse backgrounds of its founders and primary funder Guy Oseary. Ripps then launched RR/BAYC NFTs using the same URL embedded in BAYC smart contracts and identical images, saying he sold nine thousand five hundred for one dollars million in 2022. Yuga sued for false advertising, trademark infringement, and cybersquatting.

The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago has announced its final round of artist commissions ahead of its June opening on the city’s South Side. The new commissions will be realized by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Jeffrey Gibson, Rashid Johnson, Hugo McCloud, Martin Puryear, Lorna Simpson, and Norman Teague. Several works directly reference Barack and Michelle Obama: Crosby will make a portrait incorporating “archival imagery, family albums, historical ephemera, and cultural touchstones,” to be shown in the Main Hall, and Gibson has created 17 prints referencing political buttons from the Obama campaigns. Campos-Pons’s Still Holding the Scent of Flowers will re-create the now destroyed White House Rose Garden near an Oval Office exhibit. The eight artists join 22 previously announced ones, bringing the total new works for the 19.3-acre campus to 30.

The Trump administration has submitted a design for a 250-foot triumphal arch intended to face the Lincoln Memorial. The New York Times reported the proposal was sent to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which will deliberate next week; the federal design panel is composed of members appointed during the Trump administration. The arch would rise at one end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River and is framed by proponents as a way to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. Trump introduced the idea last October at a White House dinner for donors to another planned addition: a four hundred dollars million ballroom attached to the East Wing. Guests saw models with two eagles and a golden angel with outstretched wings, which Trump said represented Lady Liberty. He described the site’s circle and columns and said the Civil War “interfered” with plans to build there, adding that the larger model looked best.

Ukraine has imposed sanctions on five Russian cultural figures involved with organizing the Russian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale. ARTnews reports President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the decree on Friday, with the news first reported by UA News. Those sanctioned include Anastasia Karneeva, commissioner of the pavilion, and Mikhail Shvydkoy, Russia’s delegate for international cultural exchanges and a former culture minister. The sanctions also cover violinist Valeria Oleinik, singer Ilya Tatakov, and vocalist Artem Nikolaev, who are listed as participants via the Intrada Ensemble; the pavilion’s artist list includes “Valerie Oleynik,” likely a different spelling. Ukraine’s release alleged Oleinik visited Crimea since 2014 in support of the occupation, Nikolaev participated in propaganda events in Crimea in 2025, and Tatakov took part in creating a propaganda film in occupied Donetsk. The Biennale said in March no sanctions had been broken.

A Dutch museum is putting a forgery on display—and telling the full backstory. The Art Newspaper reports the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo has placed its fake Van Gogh, Seascape at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (1925–27), on view until 21 June, alongside a Dutch-language podcast about how founder Helene Kröller-Müller acquired it. She bought the painting in December 1928 on the recommendation of her adviser H.P. Bremmer; it came via a gallery in The Hague from Berlin dealer Otto Wacker, apparently for the equivalent of eighteen thousand dollars. Doubts emerged early: in January 1930 Jacob-Baart de la Faille wrote, “It is a very beautiful work, but not by Van Gogh.” Wacker was later convicted of fraud in 1932 for selling a large group of fake Van Goghs. The museum now believes the picture was painted by Wacker’s younger brother, Leonhard.

Greece is tightening its approach to forgery and trafficking with a new specialized unit and steeper penalties. A new law approved in January establishes a special department within Greece’s Ministry of Culture to tackle offenses including fake artworks and antiquities trafficking. Under the law, the worst offenses can bring fines up to three hundred fifty thousand dollars and prison terms from six months to up to 10 years. The ministry said art crimes had previously been addressed under general criminal-code provisions on forgery and fraud, and the new penalties apply to “creating, counterfeiting, displaying, trafficking, and selling” forged works, including possession with “intent to distribute.” The rules also cover works with falsified documentation about provenance, date, or condition. The law follows recent cases including a 2024 bust of a forgery ring in Thessaloniki and the arrest last month of dealer and TV personality Giorgos Tsagarakis on suspicion of selling fakes live on television.

Today's Stories