Boasting the shark from Jaws, the robe from the Big Lebowski, and the slippers from Oz, the Academy museum is finally open. But the real story is its exposé of Hollywood’s racist, sexist pastIn 1939, the Academy of Motion Pictures published its first “…
Sci-fi script and a cage-shaped mosque: Islamic art gets subversive
From subtle riffs on traditional script-based decoration to a late father’s letters to his lover, the artists vying for the Jameel prize generate deep emotion from meticulousnessWords have had outsize importance in Muslim culture since the beginning. T…
Mary Beard: ‘If we want to understand the pandemic, we need the arts’
The Cambridge classicist on owning her TV image, dealing with internet trolls, and why her new book on Roman emperors sheds light on our preoccupation with statuesIn her new book, Twelve Caesars, Mary Beard touches enticingly on the life of Elagabalus,…
Berlin’s bizarre new museum: a Prussian palace rebuilt for €680m
A cross between a Disneyland castle and a chilling concrete block, the Humboldt Forum is set to teach visitors about Germany’s colonial era. But is the past being examined – or exalted?A museum gift shop has never been such an ideological battleground….
Brussels doctors to prescribe museum visits for Covid stress
Initiative may be rolled out further if successful in alleviating symptoms of burnout and psychiatric distressCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageDoctors in Brussels will be able to prescribe museum visits as part a three-month …
An electric Faust outfit and a pair of kinky boots in V&A’s ‘major refresh’
Most items in the museum’s new theatre and performing arts galleries going on display for the first timeA fabulous red dress and thigh-high leather boots worn by Lola the drag queen in the musical Kinky Boots are to go on display near to what many woul…
The Guardian view on the Art Fund Museums Prize: serving communities | Editorial
The past year has rightly shifted the way that cultural value is estimatedIn living memory, there has been no worse year for museums and galleries, along with many other arts organisations. With closure forced on them by the pandemic, they were unable …
The row between art galleries and donors is bigger than bringing home the Bacon | Oliver Basciano
As Tate faces potential legal action from a Francis Bacon donor, British galleries’ relationships with private collectors need more scrutinyWith squeezed budgets, British museums are increasingly relying on private patronage, for financial support and …
‘Flying feminist’ Lilian Bland celebrated in new exhibition
Northern Irish museum celebrates car-dealing, trouser-wearing, jiu-jitsu fighting aviation pioneerIn an era that stifled women, Lilian Bland blazed with a life force that defied all convention, including gravity.She worked as a press photographer, smok…
Tate donor warns: ‘I’ll take back my £20m Francis Bacon collection’
Barry Joule, a close friend of the artist, says the gallery has not kept to a pledge to stage exhibitions of the worksWhen more than 1,200 sketches, photographs and documents from the studio of Francis Bacon were donated to the Tate in 2004, it was des…