International

The four arts councils of the UK, alongside the British Council, Fonds Soziokultur and Goethe-Institut London, have announced they will continue to fund Cultural Bridge, an artist exchange programme between the UK and Germany, through to 2027.

Cultural Bridge invests in partnerships between cultural organisations across the UK and Germany. Since 2021, the programme has supported 73 cultural organisations to work together through 35 partnerships, which have worked with nearly 600 artists across the two countries.

Previously supported partnerships have explored themes and artforms including prison theatre, youth-led and disability work, climate change, migrant activism, feminism, rural arts and environment-based art.

Mechthild Eickhoff, Managing Director at Fonds Soziokultur, called the funding programme a “role model for how funding can be delivered in a collaborative way both on the level of funding bodies and together with cultural practitioners”.

“The enthusiasm and knowledge of everyone involved is outstanding,” Eickhoff said. “[Cultural Bridge] is now on the next level of development thanks to every partner´s contribution, a growing network of smart practitioners and the new funding from the Arts Council England. More opportunities to learn, share and improve are ahead.”

Applications for the 2025-2026 edition of the programme will open in October.

A museum in Switzerland will take down five paintings suspected of being looted by Nazis after new international guidelines were laid out earlier this year to aid restitution of art that was previously stolen or forcibly sold. 

Kunsthaus Zurich Museum said the paintings - by Monet, Courbet, Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh and Gauguin - will be removed from display while an investigation is conducted.

The works form part of the Emil Bührle Collection, which has previously been the subject of provenance questions. 

Bührle was an arms dealer who sold weapons to the Nazis in World War Two. When he died in 1956, he had built a collection of some 600 artworks, many of which are on display at the Kunsthaus as part of a 20-year loan.

Switzerland is one of more than 20 countries that signed up to the US State Department’s Best Practices for Restitution of Nazi-Confiscated Art in March. 

Stuart Eizenstat, the US secretary of State's special advisor on Holocaust issues, said the guidance sought to address "over 100,000 of the 600,000 paintings and many more of the millions of books, manuscripts, ritual religious items and other cultural objects stolen that have never been returned".

Under existing Swiss law, descendants seeking to recover artworks from the Bührle collection have no legal claims for restitution or compensation due to statutes of limitations.

The Emil Buhrle Collection board said it is "committed to seeking a fair and equitable solution for these works with the legal successors of the former owners, following best practices".

The British Museum has said it is seeking “realistic solutions” for the future of the Parthenon Sculptures, recognising that "deep emotions" are involved in the question of repatriating the ancient Greek artefacts.

“The British Museum acknowledges Greece’s strong desire for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures to Athens. We understand and respect the deep emotions involved,” a museum spokesperson told SKAI TV.

The museum added that it hopes to develop a “collaboration for the Parthenon” and explore innovative cooperation with Greece to enhance the global understanding and appreciation of the sculptures.

The announcement came after Turkey's representative at the 24th UNESCO ICPRCP session - Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation - rejected the existence of an Ottoman document that authorised Lord Elgin’s removal of the sculptures.

The British Museum maintains the position that Lord Elgin was granted a permit (firman) from the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Athens at the time, to draw, measure and remove around half of the remaining sculptures from the ruins of the Parthenon.

Following Turkey's comments, Greece’s Culture Minister, Lina Mendoni, also declared that no such Ottoman firman existed, according to a report in Athens-Macedonian News Agency.

“I put this in quotes because this is an argument of the British side that has never, however, been proved to be genuine. There was never any Ottoman firman that allowed Elgin to treat the Parthenon Sculptures with the barbarity with which he treated them. At the session, the representative of Turkiye confirmed what the Greek side has argued for years – that there was no firman,” said Mendoni.

“Greece is always open to dialogue. It has tried and will continue to try so that the great national goal – which is to satisfy the national demand for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures in Athens, in the Acropolis Museum – becomes a reality.” 

Nearly 200 artists, curators, and critics have voiced their support of Palais de Tokyo after a longtime patron resigned from the Paris museum, accusing it of promoting “wokeism, anti-capitalism, pro-Palestine, etc.”

In an open letter, Collector Sandra Hegedüs said she withdrew from the museum's patron group, Amis du Palais de Tokyo, after 15 years because a current show contains references to efforts toward Palestinian liberation.

Hegedüs wrote that the exhibition “proposes, without perspective, some biased views and lies about the history of this conflict.” 

In an open letter first published in Le Monde, nearly 200 signatories, including artists Éric Baudelaire, Camille Henrot, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Pierre Huyghe, said the situation posed a potential threat to “institutional freedom” in France.

The letter said: “Like art and artists, our cultural institutions must remain free, or else risk disappearing.

“To remain free, they must be able to work with the professionalism and peace of mind that allow them to provide the conditions for the confrontation of ideas that is at the heart of their mission.”

A women-only exhibition at a Tasmanian museum that received a court order forcing it to admit men has announced it will install a toilet to sidestep the ruling.

The Ladies Lounge at Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art has been open since 2020 and houses some of the museum's most acclaimed works. Playing on the concept of Australian pubs, which were historically male-only spaces, the exhibit only offered women admittance. 

In April, a court ordered men to be allowed entry following a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by Jason Lau, a New South Wales resident.

Kirsha Kaechele, the artist behind the lounge, which has been closed since the ruling, said she plans to install a toilet and a church in the space, which she claims will allow it to continue operating as a women-only space under legal exemptions.

“There is a fabulous toilet coming to the Ladies Lounge and so, in that sense, the Ladies Lounge will operate as a ladies’ room,” said Kaechele.

There are plans to admit men to the exhibit on Sundays to learn ironing and laundry folding.

Despite losing the discrimination case, Kaechele said the outcome had been positive. "Thanks to the ruling,” she said, “We have no choice but to open ourselves to a whole range of enriching experiences - spiritual, educational... to discover fascinating new possibilities, and to become better."