Monuments, Money, and Museums on the Brink

A major swap is coming to London’s marquee auction address—without a single lot for sale. The Art Newspaper reports that the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi will take over Christie’s London headquarters in St James’s this summer for a month-long, free, non-selling exhibition of South Asian Modern and contemporary art. It’s titled The Meeting Ground: Scenes from the KNMA Collection, running 16 July to 21 August. Kiran Nadar says the show is “the perfect stage” to demonstrate “institutional openness.” The exhibition will present 180 works by 60 Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi artists from the 1950s to the present, organized into five curatorial strands—including one featuring Nalini Malani and others focused on Indian tribal art and mid-20th-century Modernists.

Behind that London takeover is a museum in transition back home. The Art Newspaper says the Christie’s exhibition also anticipates the long-delayed relocation of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art to a new one hundred thousand sq. m space near Delhi’s airport in the first half of 2028. The building was designed by British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye and is now “about 60%” finished, according to Nadar. In February, Manuel Rabaté, the former director of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, was appointed to run the museum. Nadar also describes London’s display as “just a glimpse” of the collection’s depth and says KNMA is gathering photographic and documentary material—like items from families and estates connected to artists such as M. F. Husain and the late photographer Raghu Rai—to create a digitised resource free to access.

Staying in Washington, a controversial monument plan just got a powerful green light. The Art Newspaper reports that the US Commission of Fine Arts approved President Donald Trump’s proposal to build a 250ft-tall arch on Memorial Circle on Thursday, 21 May—an approval that staff said moved unusually fast and largely disregarded public comments that were “99.5%” opposed. The design still lacks key details, including planned “narrative sculptures” and reliefs for niches. CFA chairman Rodney Mims Cook, Jr put forward the motion for final approval, passed by the four commissioners present. National Endowment for the Arts chair Mary Anne Carter attended the first part of the meeting but did not return after a break before the vote.

The Art Newspaper also details what changed in the updated design—and what didn’t. The presentation said earlier conceptual reviews urged cutting gold statuary to reduce the height from 250ft to 166ft, but Trump rejected that suggestion, according to Nicolas Charbonneau of Harrison Design. The latest version removes an eight-foot platform and eliminates proposed gold lions on plinths, and it drops a tunnel plan in favor of traffic lights and pedestrian walkways across the circle. Despite past concerns, some panellists insisted the main structure was actually 166ft high. Carter was the only one suggesting further simplification, comparing the arch’s setting near Arlington National Cemetery to the simplicity of its gravestones, where she said both her parents are buried.

ARTnews adds the legislative fight now wrapped around that arch. Trump officials are arguing he doesn’t need congressional approval to build the proposed 250-foot structure on Memorial Circle on Columbia Island, because a 1924 report once called for a pair of 166-foot columns topped by statues there—columns that were never built. Justice Department lawyers wrote in a filing last month, the Washington Post reports, that Congress authorized today’s project when it approved the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission’s report. Interior secretary Doug Burgum cited that report at a Commission of Fine Arts meeting in April, saying Trump sees the 250-year independence celebration as the moment to realize an “over-century-old vision.” Critics, including Public Citizen lawyer Wendy Liu and California representative Jared Huffman, called the argument “absurd,” “tortured,” and “laughable,” and Democrats have mounted legal and oversight pressure.

Across the Atlantic, one of Europe’s biggest museums is getting fashion money—again. ARTnews reports that Paris’s Centre Pompidou has announced another five-year partnership with Chanel as the museum remains closed until 2030 for an over five hundred dollars million renovation. Pompidou and Chanel began working together in 2019, and in 2024 Chanel sponsored the acquisition of 21 artworks by 15 contemporary Chinese artists, including Alice Chen, Chen Wei, Cui Jie, Hu Xioyuan, and Lu Yang, alongside the related exhibition “目 China: A New Generation of Artists.” Chanel’s expanded investment will support work across “access, scholarship, and the preservation of public knowledge,” with Chanel’s Yana Peel calling the Pompidou “a defining institution in France and a global platform for the exchange of ideas.”

ARTnews also lays out what the Pompidou’s renovation includes, and how the museum is operating in the meantime. The closure plan was announced in spring 2023 as a five-year shutdown beginning in 20245, when the renovation budget was stated as two hundred eighty three dollars million. The project involves upkeep on the “inside out” building designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, moving Constantin Brancusi’s former studio from its off-site location—now known as the Brancusi Pavilion—into the main museum building, and a complete rehang of the collection. The pavilion is slated to eventually house the Kandinsky Library and the museum’s archives department. Despite the closure, the Pompidou has continued building collaborations and satellite museums, including in Seoul, Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, and Brussels.

Still in Spain, ARTnews reports that lawmakers are escalating pressure on the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía over longstanding problems with its collection inventory and finances—pressure that could ultimately cost director Manuel Segade his job. A parliamentary oversight committee passed a resolution demanding a full, updated inventory by December 31, 2026, according to Le Journal des Arts. The measure was backed by the conservative Popular Party, supported by the far-right, and passed 20 to 13, while the ruling Socialist Party abstained. The resolution says that if the museum fails to comply, Spain’s Ministry of Culture should remove Segade. It also calls for a “total and absolute” audit, covering loans, deposits, and works whose whereabouts remain unclear, plus updated financial valuations aligned with public accounting rules.

Back in the United States, a campus art center’s name is under intense pressure—and the argument is reputational and ethical. ARTnews reports that members of the Wexner Center for the Arts union, Wexner Workers United, have demanded Ohio State University leadership remove the Wexner name from the building and begin the renaming process, citing Leslie Wexner’s documented ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The union’s letter says Wexner’s name appears more than one thousand three hundred times in the Department of Justice’s Epstein files, and argues this meets the university’s criteria for requesting a building name change, including “substantial evidence of misconduct or other inappropriate behavior.” The letter also says staff are “being harassed on a daily basis” and that artists are choosing not to work with the center because of the association. Wexner has denied wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity.

New York now, where preservation politics and queer history collide. Hyperallergic reports that the Stonewall National Monument has been named one of the most endangered places in the United States by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in its 2026 list released ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary. The National Trust said the monument faces federal actions and policy changes that endanger “historically accurate interpretation” and “community representation,” including recognition of the full range of LGBTQ+ people involved in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. The article says that last February the National Park Service scrubbed all references to transgender individuals from the official website entry for the Christopher Park monument. Earlier this year, the rainbow pride flag was removed under a mandate allowing only the US flag—then restored within days by local activists with city support.

Hyperallergic also reports that the Gilbert Baker Foundation filed a lawsuit after the pride flag’s removal, arguing the move contradicted the National Park Service’s commitment to protect and preserve Christopher Park as outlined in the 2016 founding document for the monument’s designation. The Trump administration settled with the Foundation in mid-April, allowing the pride flag to fly beneath the US flag in Christopher Park. However, the National Park Service has not reversed the changes to the website entry that removed transgender and queer references. The National Trust said “sustained advocacy is necessary” to keep Stonewall’s full history publicly visible. The Trust is also issuing a one-time twenty five thousand dollars grant to each of the 11 sites on its 2026 endangered list.

Also in New York, public art is going big, bright, and deeply personal. Hyperallergic reports that Roberto Lugo unveiled a two-part public monument to Puerto Rican culture in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park on Wednesday, May 20, commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy. The project is titled Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter). Lugo’s colossal urn, Capicú de Cariño (I Heard It Both Ways), features hand-painted portraits of his parents, Maribel and Gilberto Lugo, alongside Puerto Rican luminaries including Bad Bunny, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Across the park, a 15-foot-tall orange fire hydrant, Para Los Días Caliente (This Is For The Hot Ones ), references childhood summers in Philadelphia, when he’d release hydrant water to cool down.

Hyperallergic notes that both sculptures are timed to the United States’s 250th birthday and will remain in Madison Square Park through December 6. Lugo told Hyperallergic he wanted to flip the social script of historical pottery—placing everyday people and immigrant experience where aristocracy once dominated: “this pot is egalitarian.” The larger scale also changes how viewers engage: visitors can walk through a gap in Capicú de Cariño and become part of the monument. Maribel Lugo, who moved from Puerto Rico to the United States when she was four, described seeing her portrait in the work and told Hyperallergic she felt proud, recalling the moment the reference photo was taken while she was buying guineos—bananas—at a Spanish store.

Switching to media criticism, the review of Ron Howard’s documentary Avedon says the film is a conventional tour of Richard Avedon’s life rather than a deeper engagement with how the photographer’s images function as autobiography. The piece opens with Avedon in archival interview describing his work as “writing an autobiography with the faces of the people I photograph,” but argues the documentary mainly offers straightforward behind-the-scenes anecdotes and talking-head testimonials. It notes a rare moment where technique meets aesthetics: the film explains Avedon switching from a Rolleiflex to a large-format 8x10 camera so he could stand beside, not behind, the equipment while working. The review says the documentary leans on celebrity appearances, including Isabella Rossellini, and treats potentially rich ideas—like Avedon’s influence from Fred Astaire films—as cute asides.

The review also points to what it sees as missed opportunities in Avedon’s own thinking. It quotes his belief that photography is “the marriage of imagination and the reality of a situation,” and his line, “every photograph is accurate and none of them is the truth.” It also highlights Avedon’s late-life prediction about technology changing image-making: “I don’t think there will be photographers in the future …. I think there will only be machines, information funneled into the information place.” Ultimately, the review argues the documentary is “fatally safe,” suggesting closeness to Avedon’s estate shapes what it avoids—saying it does not mention questions about Avedon’s sexuality, and that the Richard Avedon Foundation seems to prefer a reverent, non-controversial film. The documentary is listed as Avedon (2026) and played at Cannes through May 23.

Finally, a thorny curatorial decision is sparking debate about icons, context, and accountability. In a first-person essay, a Chicana curator explains why she removed a photograph of Cesar Chavez from Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966 to 2026 at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture in Riverside, California, which opened February 7. She writes that the show includes around 150 works by 45 photographers across the United States and spans six decades. On March 17, after news emerged that United Farm Workers leader Chavez had assaulted multiple women and girls, interim director Valerie Found called to discuss a 1969 Chavez portrait by George Rodriguez. The next morning, the New York Times reported accusations including abuse of girls as young as 12 and rape of UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta; the curator decided immediately the image no longer belonged and staff removed it that day.

The essay continues by emphasizing that removing the Chavez portrait was not meant to erase George Rodriguez, described as a highly respected documentarian nearing 90. In conversations about how to respond, Rodriguez shared a different 1969 photograph taken in Delano, California, depicting a group of African-American farmworkers holding protest signs, including “Viva Cesar Chavez” and “Viva La Union.” Chavez isn’t pictured; the workers are the focus, reframing the movement around collective struggle. The curator notes the vital participation of African Americans and mentions Mack Lyons, identified as the sole African-American member of the UFW executive board, as well as UFW allies including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the NAACP, and the Black Panther Party. Huerta is represented in the exhibition in a photograph by Rodriguez’s late brother, Rudy.

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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