Restitution Shockwaves and AI’s Hollywood Heist

New York investigators have returned 59 looted antiquities to Italy, Iraq, and Indonesia, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced on Wednesday. Forty-five of the objects were seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among those returned to Italy was a terracotta vase used for chilling and mixing wine and water, attributed to the Troilos Painter, showing Dionysos and Herakles on one side and Zeus, Athena, and Nike on the other. Investigators say it was smuggled out of Italy by Fritz Burki and consigned for sale at Christie’s London before entering the Met. Also seized was a marble fish plate from Magna Graecia, dating to around 400 B.C.E., which entered the Met through dealer Robert Hecht in 1984.

Staying with restitution, nine antiquities valued at nearly three hundred thousand dollars were returned to Iraq. Among them were two of the earliest known sculptural depictions of the human figure in the round: the Sumerian Gypsum Male Worshipper and the Sumerian Gypsum Female Worshipper, dating to Iraq’s Early Dynastic II period, circa 2750–2600 BCE. At the handover ceremony in Manhattan, Dr. Duraid Abbas, deputy chief of mission of Iraq to the United States, called the return a reflection of the partnership between Iraq and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in protecting “our shared cultural heritage.” Two “carefully preserved and venerated” human skulls from the Dayak—Indigenous groups native to Borneo—are also being returned to Indonesia, amid widening museum moves to remove human remains from display and return them to descendant communities.

Midjourney is pushing back in its copyright fight with Hollywood. The image-generating AI company—sued by Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros—filed a motion to review a mid-June ruling that denied its request to make the studios reveal how they use AI. The studios, which own characters like Superman, Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny, Bart Simpson, Yoda, and Darth Vader, allege Midjourney infringed copyright by training on publicly available images and enabling prompted images of protected characters; they sued in 2025. In a 29 June filing, Midjourney argued that if the studios are training generative-AI models on third-party copyrighted works, it would be evidence the industry views that conduct as fair use.

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III has called a White House report “not a fair characterization” of the Smithsonian’s scholarship at the National Museum of American History. The Trump Administration released the 162-page report on Saturday, July 4, accusing the museum of “institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology.” In an email to staff obtained by the Washington Post and published Wednesday evening, Bunch said the Smithsonian’s work is driven by “scholarship, accuracy, and an uncompromising commitment to tell the fullness of America’s story,” and reaffirmed “nonpartisanship,” “independence,” and “integrity.” The report urges the president to seek reforms and to press Smithsonian leaders, including the Chief Justice as Chancellor, to take action.

Edi Rama, the artist who is also Albania’s prime minister, is defending a Kanye West concert planned for Saturday at a custom-built stadium outside Tirana. Rama’s defense comes as some Jewish groups continue to accuse West of antisemitism, pointing to past statements including denying the Holocaust and posting about going “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” Albanian media previously quoted a prominent Jewish group calling the concert an “amplification” of the rapper’s views and a “moral contradiction,” though West also published an open letter apology in a full-page Wall Street Journal ad in January. Balkan Insight reported that Albanian MP Gazment Bardhi called on Rama to cancel the event, which Rama rejected on Facebook.

Venice arts workers are planning a protest timed to the visit of the United States Ambassador to Italy, Tilman Fertitta. Cultural workers with the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) say they will mobilize on Friday, July 17, when Fertitta—a billionaire Trump ally—is scheduled to park his 384-foot superyacht in Venice as part of a months-long cruise around Italy “in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.” ANGA said the protest will begin in Campo San Zaccaria, arguing that “the United States continues to arm, finance and politically shield Israel’s genocide in Palestine,” and adding that this complicity “docks in Venice” in the form of a Trump ambassador aboard a yacht they cite as costing four hundred fifty dollars million.

Hauser & Wirth has been cleared by a UK judge of breaching Russia sanctions in connection with the sale of a George Condo artwork to Alexander Popov. Judge Tony Baumgardner dismissed the charges on Thursday, saying prosecutors had not proven Popov was a Russian resident at the time of the sale. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs had charged the Swiss-based megagallery in November 2025, in what’s believed to be the first such accusation brought under the law. The case involved Condo’s work on paper Escape from Humanity (2021), reportedly sold in 2022; Marylebone-based shipper Artay Rauchwerger Solomons was also charged. The judge said the failure to prove Popov was “a person connected with Russia” was “fatal to all counts.”

Los Angeles’s Post-Fair is expanding to Paris during the week of Art Basel Paris. The fair will run from 19 October to 25 October, staged across two buildings in the Marais at 74 Rue du Temple and 79 Rue du Temple—one a traditional hôtel particulier sharing a courtyard with Marian Goodman Gallery’s Paris space, and the other a French Art Deco building. Founder Chris Sharp, who also runs an eponymous Los Angeles gallery and lived in Paris for a decade, says the fair will keep its low-cost, curated model, charging exhibitors six thousand dollars for solo or two-person presentations. The invitation-only list will be announced in September and is expected to include around 34 galleries from cities including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Paris, and across the UK.

Icom has adopted a revised code of ethics for museums, aiming to address a “rapidly changing world.” The International Council of Museums approved the new code during its 41st general assembly in Paris on 25 June, with 85.9% of members voting in favor. The original code dates to 1986 and was last revised in 2004; this revision took more than five years. The updated text addresses issues including technology and AI, the climate crisis, and the legacy of colonialism, and warns museums to consider impacts on intellectual property rights and Indigenous rights. The 2026 code reorganizes the prior eight principles into five: Society, Professionalism, Education, Collections, and Governance, and stresses avoiding conflicts of interest.

Les Rencontres d’Arles is taking an unusually open-ended approach in its 57th edition, with director Christoph Wiesner describing the festival as “a space for complexity and attentiveness.” Instead of a single theme, more than 40 exhibitions are grouped into broad constellations like ‘Independence’, ‘Forms of Life’, and ‘The Uncertain Archive.’ A key anchor is Ghana! Dreaming Independence 1957-1976 (until 4 October), curated by Damarice Amao, examining how images across books, magazines, stamps, textiles, postcards, and official publications helped construct national identity after 1957. Another major presentation is Stan Douglas’s Bodies Never Lie at Luma Arles (until 10 January 2027), including his new film Exquisite Corpse (2026) set in the 1950s under General Franco.

A Chicago photographer has sued Mickalene Thomas for alleged copyright infringement. Barbara Karant filed the lawsuit in federal district court in Illinois on May 26, claiming Thomas “appropriated more than a dozen” of her images without consent or proper attribution. The dispute centers on Karant’s 820 Ebony/Jet (2013–15) series—250 photographs made inside the vacant former Johnson Publishing Company headquarters, a South Michigan Avenue high-rise commissioned by a Black-owned corporation and known for interiors envisioned by designers Arthur Elrod and William Raiser. Karant alleges an installation in Thomas’s 2024 exhibition All About Love at The Broad incorporated her photographs, and also cites “Nus Exotiques #10” (2025) as allegedly using a window fragment from her work.

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, and until then, Chinga la migra.

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