News
Repatriation Activists Acquitted for Removing Ceremonial Spear From French Museum
The lawyers for the defense made a successful case for the action as an act of free speech, not theft.
France
News
After Years of Repatriation Debates, France’s Benin Restitution Bill Approved
Meanwhile, a new report commissioned by the Dutch culture minister suggests the return of “any cultural objects looted in former Dutch colonies if the source country so requests.”
News
French Teacher Beheaded After Showing Muhammad Cartoons in Class
The killing happened amid controversial trials of suspected accomplices in the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo’s Paris headquarters in 2015.
In Brief
Activists Fined After Anti-colonial Protest at Quai Branly Museum
Four activists were fined for their live-streamed protest at the Paris museum, in which Mwazulu Diyabanza removed a 19th-century funerary post from its display.
In Brief
French Museum Postpones Genghis Khan Exhibition, Accusing Chinese Authorities of Censorship
A museum in Nantes says that it decided to pause the exhibition after Chinese authorities asked that names and terms like “Genghis Khan,” “empire,” and “Mongol” not be used in the exhibition.
News
Activists Stand Trial for Protest in French Museum Over Plundered Artifacts
Members of a Pan-African group stood trial in Paris on charges of attempted theft for an action staged at the city’s Quai Branly Museum.
Art
A Timely Look at the Escape From Paris After Nazi Invasion
The intriguing exhibition Parisian Exodus demonstrates the importance of documenting such moments of upheaval with nuance.
Art
The Surrealist Roots of the "Vaporwave" Genre
The aesthetic niche combining electronic music and digital art finds an ancestor in Surrealism, particularly in the self-taught French painter Yves Tanguy.
News
A Bill Offers California’s Indigenous Tribes Ownership of Ancestral Objects
Also, a work by Paolo Uccello, sold in a Sotheby’s sale this July for $3.1 million, was revealed to be looted by Nazis.
News
Charlie Hebdo Reprints Controversial Cartoons of Prophet Mohammad
Coinciding with today’s trial for the alleged accomplices in the 2015 terrorist attack which killed 11 employees, the satirical paper reprinted the drawings.
Art
The Charm and Conviction of a Christo and Jeanne-Claude Exhibition
The show at the Pompidou Center demonstrates that the artists’ reputation as “ephemeral architects” or “temporary monument” makers is incomplete, if not altogether incorrect.
In Brief
Researchers Used a Century-old Postcard to Determine Where van Gogh Made His Last Painting
Wouter van der Veen, scientific director of the Institut van Gogh, noticed a striking resemblance between van Gogh’s “Tree Roots” (1890) and a postcard from Auvers-sur-Oise, where the painter took his life.