Blue Pools, Stolen Jewels, and Museum Power Plays

A very Washington story to start: a Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy nonprofit is suing the U.S. Department of the Interior over renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The Cultural Landscape Foundation backed a lawsuit filed April 12 in U.S. District Court in Washington, arguing that painting the basin “American flag blue” violates federal law, including review requirements under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Interior Department awarded a no-bid contract in early April to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, and details surfaced at an April 23 Oval Office event where President Donald Trump said he helped drive the overhaul and chose the shade. Public records show the contract costs north of thirteen dollars million, up from a proposed two dollars million.

Still in New York, a messy credit dispute is unfolding around a dress at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. On Instagram, London-based sculptor, weaver, and filmmaker Anouska Samms says she helped create a dress connected to a 2023 collaboration with New York-based Israeli designer Yoav Hadari, but the Met has attributed the on-view garment—Corpus Nervina 0.0 (2023–24)—entirely to Hadari. Samms says she learned it was in the exhibition when the Sarabande Foundation tagged her. Samms and Hadari signed an October 2023 contract, reportedly drawn up by Sarabande head Trino Verkade, stating Samms is the sole owner of the fabric’s IP and that the license term is one year. The Met declined to comment, saying the dispute is between the artists.

Also in New York, Performa is taking its fundraising theatrics public with a one-night variety show. The inaugural Performa All-Star Variety Show lands at Manhattan’s Town Hall on June 10, hosted by writer, actor, and comedian Casey Jost. It’s a 90-minute, 12-act program featuring Performa alumni and familiar names, including Barbara Kruger, Julio Torres, Anne Imhoff, and Marcel Dzama. RoseLee Goldberg said the show is meant as an alternative to the traditional gala and a way to share performances with a wider audience. Dzama will perform two songs from his 2023 evening-length Performa work with Flamenco-style dance; Kruger’s contribution is billed as a surprise audience action; and Imhoff will present an excerpt from Doom; House of Hope adapted for a proscenium stage.

Staying in the United States, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden used its 50th anniversary year to expand its collection, announcing 312 new acquisitions in 2025. Director Melissa Chiu said the museum has been deliberately deepening areas including photography and mixed media, and that the anniversary helped spur major gifts. The acquisitions include works by Lorna Simpson, Sarah Sze, and Mickalene Thomas, plus photography by Danny Lyon and Graciela Iturbide. A major addition is the first tranche of a promised multi-year gift from collectors Doug and Toni Gordon: 176 works establishing an archive for Adam Pendleton’s works on paper, including spray-paint studies and screen-printed compositions from 2019 to 2023. The acquisitions bring the museum’s holdings to more than thirteen thousand works.

Across the Atlantic, a small lost painting has resurfaced after decades. A miniature wood panel portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder—depicting Friedrich III, also known as Friedrich the Wise—has been returned to the State Art Collections of Dresden. The work was last documented in May 1945 among objects stored in a limestone quarry at Pockau-Lengefeld as the Red Army approached, then vanished until 2024, when it was consigned to the Paris auction house Artcurial, which investigated its provenance. A key clue was the number 1355 painted in gold on the lower right, matching an inventory number from 1722 to 1728. The modern owners, the Dreyfus family in France, returned it after lengthy negotiations and a financial agreement.

From Los Angeles, a funding boost is expanding what the public can see—and study—for years to come. The Getty Foundation has awarded an additional one dollars million to its Black Visual Arts Archives initiative, which supports processing, digitising, preserving, and activating archival collections related to Black artists and visual arts history in the US. The programme supports access to materials like artist papers, exhibition records, photography, educational materials, home movies, quilt archives, and institutional records, alongside exhibitions, public programming, and digital platforms. Grantees include Afro Charities, the Auburn Avenue Research Library in Atlanta, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Charles H. Wright Museum in Detroit, Morgan State University, the South Side Community Art Center, the University of Chicago’s South Side Home Movie Project, and the David C. Driskell Center.

Continuing in Europe, the Venice Biennale is getting complicated—again. A representative of Iran’s culture ministry has denied that the country has withdrawn from the 2026 Venice Biennale, In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh, which runs 9 May to 22 November. Aydin Mahdizadeh Tehrani, the director-general of visual arts at Iran’s ministry of culture and Islamic guidance and the pavilion commissioner, told the Iran Students News Agency on Tuesday (12 May) that Iran requested more time, and said uncertainty during the US-Israel war with Iran made confirmation difficult. He cited political and economic challenges and a sharp currency shift that tripled projected costs, making seven months unfeasible. Iran proposed two or three months, he said, and later sent a 10 May letter insisting the pavilion be opened.

Shifting to the Middle East, Israel advanced a bill that would expand Israeli civilian authority over antiquities and archaeology in the occupied West Bank. The Likud-backed legislation would create a “Judea and Samaria Heritage Authority” under the Israeli heritage minister, with exclusive responsibility for heritage, antiquities, and archaeology, including excavations and oversight now handled by the IDF-appointed archaeology staff officer in the West Bank Civil Administration. Tuesday’s vote passed 23–14, the first of three required. If enacted, jurisdiction would extend into Area B as well as Area C, while nature reserves would remain under the current military-governed unit—though the new authority would have final say in disputes. Emek Shaveh warned the bill structurally precludes Palestinian participation and would have severe consequences.

Back to France, a parliamentary report is taking aim at the Louvre’s security posture before an audacious jewel theft. Alexis Corbière and Alexandre Portier, the MPs overseeing a government commission, accused the museum of deprioritizing security ahead of the October 19, 2025 heist, when thieves entered in broad daylight and escaped with nine pieces of jewelry worth an estimated one hundred two dollars million in less than eight minutes. The May 13 report draws on more than 20 hearings and roundtables with about 100 insiders over five months. It says security had been “relegated to the background” despite audits in 2017 and 2019, and notes a Security Equipment Master Plan prompted by the 2019 audit that was not implemented in a timely way under director Jean-Luc Martinez.

Finally, a money story that explains a lot about who gets seen in the market. Hyperallergic asked 13 New York art fairs what booths cost, as spring fairs ramp up around Frieze at The Shed, which begins VIP days May 13. At Frieze, main-section booths range from thirty one thousand nine hundred seventy seven dollars to forty two thousand six hundred sixty nine dollars at ninety nine dollars per square foot, up to ninety one thousand seven hundred dollars to one hundred five thousand seven hundred seventeen dollars at one hundred thirty one dollars per square foot, while Focus booths run eleven thousand eight hundred twenty five dollars to fourteen thousand seven hundred ninety five dollars at fifty five dollars per square foot. NADA lists eleven thousand dollars for Galleries booths and three thousand five hundred dollars for NADA Projects. Independent charges one hundred ten dollars per square foot. Future Art Fair starts at three thousand dollars for extra-small project booths, with regular booths nine thousand eight hundred dollars to fifteen thousand three hundred dollars. TEFAF declined to disclose prices.

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. Chinga la migra

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