Restitution Wins, Biennale Battles, and Art World Fallout

France has taken a major procedural step on restitution. The Art Newspaper reports that on 13 April the French parliament adopted a new framework law allowing the deaccession of cultural items plundered from former colonies. Culture minister Catherine Pégard presented the bill as having a “universal character” meant to “promote a dialogue between the peoples,” while reaffirming the principle of “inalienability” of French public collections and insisting restitutions will be “strictly supervised.” The law applies to items taken between the Vienna Congress of June 1815 and April 1972, when Unesco’s heritage convention took effect. Requests must be introduced by a state and examined by a bilateral scientific committee, with military items, public archives, and shares of archaeological digs excluded.

Staying with Venice, the Holy See is going all-in on listening. The Art Newspaper says the Vatican City pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, running 9 May to 22 November, will include works by artists, poets, and musicians such as Brian Eno, FKA Twigs, Precious Okoyomon, and Otobong Nkanga, alongside Patti Smith, Jim Jarmusch, and organist Kali Malone. Titled The Ear is the Eye of the Soul, the exhibition draws on the life and legacy of Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), the Benedictine abbess, poet, healer, and composer. It spans two sites—the Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelite in Cannaregio and the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Complex in Castello—and is co-organised by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers, collaborating with Soundwalk Collective.

Across the Atlantic, a museum finance case is now squarely in federal court. ARTnews reports that Brady Lum, the former chief operating officer of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, entered a not guilty plea Tuesday to a federal theft charge. The US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia accused Lum of manipulating financial records and authorizing illegitimate purchases for personal benefit, including high-end musical instruments, private lessons, and workshop equipment. US Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said Lum allegedly used museum money as a “personal slush fund.” According to the indictment, Lum submitted “altered invoices,” used delegated expense approval authority, and made “accounting adjustments” across different cost centers. During the hearing, Lum said he is unemployed and was ordered to seek work while on bond. No trial date has been scheduled.

In New York, an artist-led program built for social justice work is winding down. Hyperallergic reports that Social Practice City University of New York—SPCUNY—will shutter in February 2027 as co-directors Chloë Bass and Gregory Sholette depart their academic posts. Founded in 2021, the five-year-old project offered fellowships and support to artists across CUNY’s 25 campuses, backed by the Mellon Foundation. Over its run, SPCUNY matriculated 129 fellows and distributed five hundred thirty five thousand dollars in project awards, funding work confronting climate change, racial inequality, and immigration crackdowns. Bass, who left her Queens College position last year, described it as “an artist-run project that looked like an institution,” and said there was no clear pathway to transfer leadership. Sholette, retiring from Queens College, framed the effort as honoring CUNY’s roots in accessible critical education.

A dispute over authorship is unfolding around a widely recognized anti-violence symbol. Hyperallergic reports that Mexican artist Elina Chauvet alleges her long-running installation Zapatos Rojos (Red Shoes) (2009–) was reproduced in Bucharest last month without her knowledge or name. Chauvet’s work displays dozens or hundreds of pairs of red shoes in public, each pair signaling the absence of a femicide victim or a disappeared woman or girl. On March 31, Romanian news anchor Alessandra Stoicescu hosted an intervention called “Dragostea poartă pantofii roșii” outside the Romanian Athenaeum, through her platform Shero, in collaboration with the Mereu Aproape Foundation. Chauvet says she requested acknowledgment in Instagram comments and stated on April 6 that Zapatos Rojos is copyrighted and recreated only under her authorization and guidelines.

In Houston, FotoFest is celebrating its history at full scale. Hyperallergic reports that the biennial opened March 7 with a 40th anniversary retrospective featuring over 450 artists from 58 countries. Co-founder Wendy Watriss said the aim was to show FotoFest’s breadth “from China to Argentina, from Russia to England, from Canada to Africa.” Watriss and her husband, photographer Frederick Baldwin, founded FotoFest after visiting Rencontres d’Arles in 1983 and encountering photography not shown in the US; their values, she said, were “internationalism” and pushing against American parochialism. The main exhibition, Global Visions: FotoFest at 40, spans two Sawyer Yards buildings and samples each of FotoFest’s 20 biennials since 1986, with additional commissions at Project Row Houses and extensive public programming across the city.

The Guggenheim Fellowship list is out, and the cohort is huge. Hyperallergic reports that the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced 223 recipients of its annual fellowship, including 76 artists, fine arts researchers, architects, designers, and photographers. Among the fellows named are Iranian-American artist and fine arts professor Sheida Soleimani; Leeza Meksin, co-founder of the Brooklyn artist-run gallery Ortega y Gasset Projects; New York-based sculptor American Artist; Kenneth Tam; and Ukrainian-born sculptor Alina Tenser, as well as Sonya Clark. The cohort spans 55 disciplines selected from a five thousand-person applicant pool, and the foundation says Creative Arts and Humanities applications rose 50% this year. The foundation does not specify award amounts, noting grants vary by budget, and recipients range from age 28 to 76.

A small college with an outsized arts footprint is preparing to close. ARTnews reports that Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, will shut down after 51 years, officially closing after the fall 2026 semester amid financial difficulties. A 2025 audit cited in the report said the school faced debt that reached twenty dollars million and had reportedly failed to meet enrollment goals in recent years. Hampshire’s alumni include artists Christina Quarles, Math Bass, and Every Ocean Hughes, and non-artist alumni including filmmaker Ken Burns, actress Lupita Nyong’o, and writer Eula Biss. President Jennifer Chrisler called it “an incredibly painful moment” and said the school will support students in finishing their studies. Students will be able to complete their education at other regional schools, including Smith College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Bennington College.

At the Venice Biennale, Somalia’s debut pavilion is drawing sharp criticism from Somali art spaces and artists. ARTnews reports that four Somali art spaces—the Somali Arts Foundation, Arlo Artspace, Shaneema Banaadir, and Baciid Center—said organizers “neither meaningfully consulted nor included” representatives of Somalia’s art scene, emphasizing that none of the pavilion’s three artists are based in Somalia. The pavilion, titled “SADDEXLEEY,” includes Ayan Farah, Asmaa Jama, and Warsan Shire—artists with ties to Somalia who work in Stockholm, Bristol, and London. It is jointly curated by Mohamed Mire and Fabio Scrivanti, with Abdirahman Yusuf as commissioner. The statement called it a “private opportunity” and questioned funding, saying, “This pavilion does not speak for us.” Somali-born, New York–based Ladan Osman also said she declined to participate.

Finally, Hyperallergic’s latest roundup spotlights Ai Weiwei’s new book On Censorship. In a piece by editor-in-chief Hakim Bishara, the newsletter highlights a review describing the book as “thought-provoking,” framed around the dissident artist’s life and career being marked by state persecution. The same roundup also points readers to Emma Cieslik’s opinion column about President Donald Trump posting memes that present him in religious terms, and to Aaron Short’s obituary of artist and activist Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, who died at 46. It also includes a note about a virtual conversation scheduled for Wednesday from 3–4pm ET with photographer Tonika Lewis Johnson and Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia, following Johnson’s 2025 MacArthur “Genius Grant.”

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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