Museums Under Fire, Heritage and Heists Collide

Spain has a brand-new museum on the map: Faro Santander, and it opens September 8 as a new art museum and cultural hub on Spain’s northern coast. Its debut slate includes “Masterpieces from the Banco Santander Collection,” curated by Spanish art historian María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, tracing art’s evolution through spiritual works, landscapes, still lifes, and portraiture—ranging from El Greco and Titian to Canaletto, Soledad Sevilla, Francisco de Goya, and Niki de Saint Phalle. Another inaugural show, “Modern Mexico in the Gelman Santander Collection,” draws from the controversial 300-piece Gelman Collection, including works like Frida Kahlo’s Self Portrait as a Tehuana (1943) and Diego Rivera’s Calla Lily Vendor (1943). Faro Santander also hosts “Leonora Carrington: The Symptomatic Surreal,” which opened at London’s Freud Museum in March.

Staying in Europe, more than 300 workers across London’s Victoria and Albert Museum are voting on whether to strike over pay and working conditions, with unions also pointing to what they describe as unsafe heatwave policies. The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union launched a ballot on July 23 covering staff at the V&A South Kensington, Young V&A in Bethnal Green, and the V&A East Museum and Storehouse in Stratford. PCS is calling for a minimum 4 percent pay increase, public-area closures when indoor temperatures exceed 86 degrees, and additional protections for behind-the-scenes staff working in heat. The union also wants staff at V&A East Storehouse to be allowed to carry water while working around objects; it says currently workers must be relieved before leaving to get a drink.

Across the Channel, France is responding to a headline-grabbing museum theft with a broader security push. After investigators arrested and detained a suspect connected to the July 24 robbery of a two thousand five hundred-year-old, 24-karat golden torque from the Vix Treasure site, France announced a national museum and monument security plan. The theft happened around 10:30 a.m. at the Musée du Pays Châtillonnais—Trésor de Vix in Châtillon-sur-Seine, and the perpetrators reportedly entered with purchased tickets and left the same way, acting like tourists. Culture minister Catherine Pégard announced the arrest, without sharing the suspect’s identity or alleged role. The new plan aims to protect more than three thousand at-risk museums, monuments, and churches with 33 measures, including audits, specialized training, and temporarily removing the most vulnerable objects from display.

From Europe to global heritage politics: UNESCO voted to add an archaeological site in the occupied West Bank and a complex of castles in southern Lebanon to its World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger, despite objections from Israel. The vote took place in Busan, South Korea, as Israel’s Foreign Ministry urged rejection and called the nominations a “weaponization of cultural heritage.” The West Bank site is Sebastia, a hilltop town about 6 miles northwest of Nablus, with remains spanning the Iron Age, Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods. UNESCO cited threats including planned expropriation and the creation of a “Samaria” (Shomron) national park that could divide the property. UNESCO also inscribed five Crusader castles in Lebanon’s Mount Amel area; Beaufort Castle, originally constructed in 1137, was reported struck directly in May.

Now to Australia: Low Kee Hong has been named artistic director of the 26th Biennale of Sydney, due to take place in 2028. Low is the creative director of Factory International in Manchester, where Ai Weiwei: Button Up! runs until 6 September, and he told The Art Newspaper that connecting with Indigenous communities in Australia will be key to how he shapes the biennale. Low described thinking about time spans far beyond the event itself, and he also spoke about art as a place for “deep listening and nuanced conversations” at a moment when social media can flatten debate into quick reactions. Organizers called him “one of the most distinctive voices” in contemporary multi-artform curation, while CEO Barbara Moore said his vision will offer “warmth and kindness.” Low also said he isn’t deterred by large venues, pointing to his experience working in industrial-scale spaces in Manchester.

Back in the United States, American artist Betye Saar—celebrated for assemblages that alchemized race, memory, and spirituality—died peacefully in her sleep yesterday morning, four days shy of her 100th birthday. Roberts Projects, which represents her, said her practice transformed everyday items into groundbreaking artworks and installations. Saar was born in Los Angeles in 1926, and her first assemblage, Black Girl’s Window, arrived in 1969. After Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, her work grew more political, including her best-known piece, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972), which repurposed a “mammy” figure into a confrontation with prejudice. Saar is survived by her three daughters—Lezley, Alison, and Tracye—six grandchildren, and a pet tortoise. Her studio stewardship now falls to the Betye Saar Legacy Group, established with Roberts Projects.

On the museum beat, the Detroit Institute of Arts has received one of the largest gifts in its history: more than two thousand modern and contemporary artworks from the estate of Detroit collectors Gilbert B. and Lila Silverman. The donation spans nearly 500 artists and expands holdings across six curatorial departments, from modern and contemporary art to African American art, Native American art, and prints, drawings, and photographs. Media range from artists’ books and sculpture to performance documentation and time-based work. A major highlight is the Silvermans’ renowned Fluxus material, building on 130 works donated in 2008 through the Gilbert B. and Lila Silverman Fluxus Foundation. The gift also brings first-time additions by artists including Vito Acconci, Diane Arbus, Jenny Holzer, Antony Gormley, Rachel Whiteread, and Christopher Wool. Works begin going on view in November with the reopening of renovated galleries.

In Washington, President Trump has ordered federal officials to install content warning labels outside the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The order, issued Friday, July 24, directs the Department of the Interior to place temporary signage along National Park Service–maintained sidewalks and walkways used by the public to access the museum. The signs would display findings from the administration’s 162-page report accusing the museum of “extreme political activism” and “anti-white” practices. Trump’s order also threatens consequences by directing officials to evaluate the institution’s compliance with “funding or contract conditions,” as the Smithsonian receives over one dollars billion in federal appropriations annually. The move came days after NMAH director Anthea Hartig testified before the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency on July 21, where she defended the museum’s mission and denied partisanship.

Switching gears to books, a Hyperallergic roundup highlights Benjamin Moser’s take on a new biography of Hudson River painter Frederic Edwin Church. Moser considers Victoria Johnson’s portrait of the artist and argues Church “managed to convey all the nation’s fears — of slavery, war, and disunion — through moody images of clouds and trees.” The same edition also points readers to a comprehensive new book on photographer Helen Levitt, edited by Joshua Chuang, spanning her early Leica work, a 1941 trip to Mexico, experiments with color photography, two New York subway series, and photographs from the 1980s. The roundup frames these as mid-summer reading fuel—art history not as dusty background, but as a living way to revisit how images shape public feeling, everyday life, and the stories nations tell about themselves.

Finally, one of the biggest identity turns in art activism in decades: artist and activist Joyce Kozloff has revealed she was among the founding members of the Guerrilla Girls. In a new interview with Art Journal Open, Kozloff disclosed her role after 41 years of anonymity, and shared that “Liubov Popova” was her assigned pseudonym inside the collective—part of the Guerrilla Girls’ long-running practice of adopting names of late women artists. She also pointed back to a 2016 biographical essay she published in Hyperallergic that examined and praised Popova’s creative evolution and career milestones. In the same news roundup: President Donald Trump added a bronze of Thomas Jefferson to the White House Rose Garden, and Vanderbilt University’s new San Francisco arts and design campus will bear the name of Nvidia co-founder Jensen (Jen-Hsun) Huang after he committed millions.

That’s the download for today—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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