Monuments at Risk, Museums Under Fire

A sponsorship story is landing right inside the gallery space at the British Museum. The Art Newspaper reports that a portrait of billionaire entrepreneur Igor Tulchinsky has gone on public view in the museum’s Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, amid scrutiny over his ties to the Israel Defense Forces. The portrait was painted by British artist Jonathan Yeo, who wrote on Instagram that he was “honoured” the work was commissioned to mark Tulchinsky’s sponsorship and that it will hang for the duration of the exhibition. Charlotte Appleyard, the museum’s director of development, replied: “You’re brilliant and we’re very grateful.” The museum declined to say how it was commissioned or what it cost, and The Art Newspaper understands it was not commissioned as part of the sponsorship.

Concurrent with the Republican party’s unusual midterm convention in Dallas this week, a pop-up “Epstein files” Reading Room and a bookmobile began a national tour there. The project carries millions of publicly released files related to Jeffrey Epstein and is framed as a push to release the full government record and hold accountable high-powered figures linked to him. Organised by the Institute for Primary Facts with Defiance.org, it includes paintings by artist Maria Farmer, a survivor who was among the first to inform federal law enforcement about Epstein. In the Reading Room, the files have been printed and bound into more than three thousand volumes on racks. Programming includes talks and performances by artists, politicians, and survivors, including Maria’s sister Annie Farmer, who says being surrounded by the volumes helps people grasp the scale of what happened.

Still in London, Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth has a new commission. The Art Newspaper says the 16th Fourth Plinth artwork—Tschabalala Self’s Lady in Blue—was unveiled on 10 September. The New York-based artist’s bronze sculpture shows a Black woman walking, and Justine Simons, London’s deputy mayor for culture and the creative industries, called it “not a remote historic figurehead but a tribute to everyday women.” Self told The Art Newspaper, “The work needs to be shown in public for it to be completed,” adding she hopes it serves as a contemporary representation of personhood. The display lasts two years, after which the sculpture will move permanently to Fornebu in Norway. It has been sold to a private foundation that will keep it publicly accessible.

Across the Gulf, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is again in the spotlight as it prepares to open on December 11 after two decades of delays. In an interview with the German culture magazine Monopol, Noura bint Mohammed Al Kaabi, minister of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates, said she’s proud that artists from the region and the Emirates are not “merely featured as supporting actors, but are at the heart of the exhibition.” The museum—opening on Saadiyat Island—has a cost that has neared one dollars billion, and just last month it named Valerie Hillings as its inaugural director. Despite the region being shaped by the Iran war and its aftermath, Al Kaabi said the opening is confirmed and that “we’re telling a new story.”

Artist Stanya Kahn is debuting a new work that treats social media as both document and chorus. ARTnews reports that her 30-minute video Deny, Defend, Depose (2026) is built from social media posts reacting to the killing of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson outside an investor conference in New York on December 4, 2024. The alleged shooter, Luigi Mangione, is at the center of that online outpouring, and Kahn began screen-grabbing posts in the first hours after the news broke. In the video, she includes the surveillance footage and then a fast-moving sequence of posts, with names and avatars scratched out. The soundtrack features Acid Arab, Baseck, Caterina Barbieri, Cameron Outlaw, Unknown Origin, and Kahn herself. A first screening happened September 6 at Human Resources in LA, with more scheduled at Now Instant on September 11 and Leroy’s on October 13.

Staying in Berlin, ARTnews takes us inside Maurizio Cattelan’s highly anticipated Neue Nationalgalerie exhibition, titled “NIGHT.” It’s curated by Lisa Botti in collaboration with the museum’s director Klaus Biesenbach and Cattelan himself, and it arrives as Cattelan is this year’s winner of the Preis der Nationalgalerie—an award typically linked to Berlin, which the museum connects to him by noting he co-curated the 2006 Berlin Biennale. The show includes well-known works like Him (2001), a kneeling Hitler figure that has long drawn controversy, alongside new pieces. One new work, Dust (2026), is a fire extinguisher filled with human ashes. Cattelan described the museum’s architecture as “ritualistic” and said he imagined the space “like a contemporary church,” with a central nave and side aisles.

In Chicago, an immersive project is taking Willem de Kooning’s mark-making and asking what it looks like when brushstrokes become bodies in motion. “Excavation of Movement” is a collaboration between The Canopy at 900 North Michigan Shops, the Art Institute of Chicago, and The Joffrey Ballet. Dancers performed choreography inspired by de Kooning’s expressive line work and physicality in front of his artwork at the Art Institute, and the performance was filmed and transformed into a ten-panel digital work designed for The Canopy’s 190 feet of LED screens. Adrian Stein, resident artist of The Canopy and co-founder of Haze Labs, said the “only right way” to interpret de Kooning this way was through dance. The project connects directly to the Art Institute’s exhibition Willem de Kooning Drawing, on view through September 20, 2026.

Across the Gulf again, Qatar is building a permanent pavilion devoted to Gerhard Richter, set to open on November 20 in MIA Park outside Doha’s Museum of Islamic Art. The pavilion was designed by Richter himself and is being constructed in collaboration with Selldorf Architects, led by Annabelle Selldorf. According to Qatar Museums, it’s a “free-standing work of art and architecture” housing a distinct body of Richter’s paintings and sculpture, and it will open as part of Rubaiya Qatar, a new quadrennial for contemporary art. Richter said his 2013 trip to Doha helped spark the pavilion idea during his work on the Strip paintings. The exterior features decorative tiles based on the Patterns that led to the Strips, while inside, Strip paintings hang alongside Mirrors and the Strip Tower.

Turning to cultural heritage under threat, a UNESCO-led study is calling for “urgent action” to protect Cambodia’s World Heritage-listed Temple of Preah Vihear after the 2025 border war between Thailand and Cambodia. The mission report says the site suffered extensive damage from “direct hits,” with “a profound and detrimental impact on the integrity of the property,” and states that “every part of the monument, recent touristic infrastructures and equipment were targeted.” The report identifies 562 damaged areas tied to strikes in July and December, and warns the 11th-century complex remains at risk amid fears of new incidents in Preah Vihear province. It recommends interventions including anti-landmine operations and safeguarding broken and unstable structures, and urges both countries to revive the Joint Boundary Commission.

And finally, Canada’s pavilion at the 2026 Gwangju Biennale is in place under the banner of OCAD University. The exhibition is titled Skennen'kó:wa ken? (Do You Carry Great Peace?) and it opened September 5, running until November 15, 2026. It’s curated by Ryan Rice—executive director and curator, Indigenous Art, at Onsite Gallery—with Lee Sun, chief curator of the Lee KangHa Art Museum, as Korean partner curator. The project is presented in collaboration with the Lee KangHa Art Museum, with support from Onsite Gallery and the Embassy of Canada to the Republic of Korea, and sponsorship by David Binet. It centers three Kanien'kehá:ka artists—Hannah Claus, Melissa General, and Shelley Niro—grounded in a daily greeting about peace, and emphasizes rematriation and the roles of Haudenosaunee women.

That’s today’s Daily Art Download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for the next round of headlines and hard opinions.

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