Restitution Reckonings and Censorship Flashpoints

The Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum is stepping onto the National Mall—virtually. A month after the US House of Representatives rejected a bill that would have designated a site for the museum in Washington, DC, the museum has launched its first augmented reality project, “Unhidden Heroines,” running through 31 December. The Art Newspaper says it spotlights five under-recognised women through four-part interactive stories that you access for free on a phone or tablet at specific monuments. Melanie Adams, the museum’s interim director, calls it a way of “meeting people where they are” while the museum waits for a location. The experience was designed by Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, with monument-sized 3D figures meant to match the presence of nearby memorials.

Staying in New York, several historic murals inside a recently closed Manhattan shelter could be lost, depending on what happens to the building. The Art Newspaper reports the Bellevue Men’s Shelter closed earlier this year as mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration announced a long-term redevelopment plan and temporarily relocated residents. The building opened in 1933 as the Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital and later became a men’s shelter in the mid-1980s. Archival records show multiple Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project murals painted starting in the mid-1930s, but they’ve since been painted over. Archival photographs from the Public Design Commission show at least six projects by Emilio Amero, Luis Arenal, Agnes Tait, Ryah Ludins, Lily Furedi, and Nunzio LaSpina. NYC Health + Hospitals says it’s working with conservationists to determine what can be salvaged.

Across the Atlantic, Ghana is preparing for a major restitution effort from Europe. The Art Newspaper reports that the Netherlands and Germany intend to return more than two thousand cultural objects belonging to Ghana that were taken unlawfully during colonial conquests, according to Ghana’s foreign affairs minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa. At the Next Steps Conference in Accra from 17 to 19 June, Jeroen Verheul, the Netherlands’ ambassador, handed over a catalogue of two thousand objects to be returned to Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama. Ablakwa also said Germany has identified items linked to the Kpando traditional area for return, with more details still to come. Verheul described Dutch restitution policy as “demand driven” and tied to addressing historical injustices through transparency and cooperation.

Across the Pacific—at least in institutional terms—the New Museum and Korea’s Ulsan Art Museum are linking up through a new partnership. ARTnews reports the two institutions announced a multi-year collaboration as part of the Hyundai Translocal Series, an initiative by the Hyundai Motor Company. It begins with a new commission by Singaporean multimedia artist and writer Ho Tzu Nyen, to be installed in the glass elevators of the New Museum’s recently inaugurated OMA redesign, and also in Ulsan, a coastal city north of Busan. Ho represented Singapore at the 2011 Venice Biennale with “The Cloud of Unknowing,” and in 2024 he received the Chanel Next Prize and had a mid-career survey at the Singapore Art Museum. Regan Grusy and Changsub Lim said the partnership will explore the push and pull of the global and local in contemporary art.

Now to the wreck of the Titanic, where an auction plan is still meeting resistance. ARTnews reports that in May, a proposal became public to sell 100 artifacts recovered from the shipwreck, and that R.M.S. Titanic—the company with exclusive sales rights to the wreck—has faced objections from government entities in the US and France during prior attempts to sell items. The New York Times reported the company asked that court documents stay sealed, but a U.S. District Court judge in Norfolk, Virginia, made the petition public. The Washington Post later reported, based on newly unsealed court documents, that the proposed sale still requires approval by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and would include personal belongings, currency, kitchen items, and décor, plus a four-city global tour. Items referenced include a bronze cherub, a necklace of gold nuggets, and a heart-shaped pendant.

On the censorship front, The Art Newspaper spotlights a new tool meant to be practical, not abstract. The National Coalition Against Censorship has released “The Artist’s Guide to Defending Artistic Freedom,” outlining strategies for canceled exhibitions, demands to alter works, and contract negotiations. The guide defines censorship broadly, including when institutional leadership or government actors withdraw invitations over a work’s perceived message or fear of backlash. The article points to recent controversies, including Amy Sherald canceling her Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery retrospective “American Sublime” after alleged pressure to change a painting of a Black transgender woman as the Statue of Liberty, and artists Nicholas Galanin and Margarita Cabrera withdrawing from a Smithsonian American Art Museum symposium. NCAC’s Elizabeth Larison told The Art Newspaper artists may need to publicly advocate for their own work.

Inside the art market, Hyperallergic reports that Pace Gallery’s downsizing has rattled staff and artists—and raised questions about how the news was handled. The article centers on June 4, when CEO Marc Glimcher announced Pace would cut 50 artists from its roster and lay off 50 employees, calling the gallery model “unfixable.” Staff told Hyperallergic that in a surprise Zoom town hall later that day, Glimcher took personal responsibility for decisions that led to the situation, but workers said the cuts felt fast and unclear, with one employee saying, “To my knowledge, there have been zero executives laid off.” Another longtime employee said he learned of layoffs through the New York Times before a meeting, then received an email to meet with an executive director. Pace didn’t answer Hyperallergic’s questions about which roles were affected.

A different kind of pressure point is playing out in Washington: resale royalties, and who will keep pushing for them. Hyperallergic reports that Representative Jerrold (Jerry) Nadler—who has represented New York’s 12th District since 1992—is retiring, and with him may go a key champion for artists’ rights in Congress. The article explains how resale royalties address an art-market imbalance: artists are paid once at first sale, while later value often goes to collectors and intermediaries. Nadler introduced multiple efforts, including the 2011 Equity for Visual Artists Act proposing a 7% royalty on auction sales, and the American Royalties Too Act of 2025, which would grant artists or heirs 5% of resale prices capped at fifty thousand dollars and expand coverage to dealer sales. The piece also notes such royalties exist in more than 100 countries, but not in the US.

Back in New York, nearly 500 artists, writers, and actors are urging City Hall to slow down on classroom AI. Hyperallergic reports that a letter published by the AI Moratorium Coalition asks Mayor Zohran Mamdani to implement a two-year moratorium on artificial intelligence in public schools. Visual artist signatories include Nan Goldin, Molly Crabapple, and Laurie Simmons, and the letter argues AI could dampen creativity while raising privacy and equity concerns. The push comes ahead of a City Council oversight hearing on AI and data privacy in schools. Kelly Clancy of Parents for AI Caution in Educational Spaces said the timing was meant as an urgent end-of-school-year message, and a New York City Public Schools spokesperson said the system has instituted initial AI “guardrails” while it develops a broader policy. The letter also warns about student data being stored and sold and cites reports of racial bias in AI tools.

Finally, a Paris drug raid turned into an art recovery. ARTnews reports that police raiding a house in Champigny-sur-Marne on June 15 found a stolen Pablo Picasso painting. The canvas hasn’t been specifically identified, but Le Parisien reported it depicts Picasso’s lover and muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, is valued between about thirteen dollars million and seventeen dollars million, and belongs to a collector from Singapore. The outlet said it was allegedly stolen by a worker at an art storage facility in Paris, who claimed he did it to highlight security flaws. Police also found 40 pounds of cannabis resin, thousands of euros in cash, and several hundred thousand euros’ worth of luxury clothing. Four people had an initial court hearing on Friday, and the trial is tentatively set for August.

That’s today’s Daily Art Download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for more, and until then, Chinga la migra.

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