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The Headlines
FIRST AMENDMENT CHALLENGED. Jimmy Kimmel is the latest high-profile figure whose job has been suspended due to right-wing criticism of his remarks about murdered activist Charlie Kirk. He is certainly not alone and is joined by less famous figures, including, most recently, an art history professor at Florida Atlantic University. According to Artnet News, Karen Leader, a tenured art history professor at the school in Boca Raton, has been placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation following her social media posts about Kirk. Leader’s posts in fact address Kirk’s past statements and viewpoints, rather than his killing, notes writer Brian Boucher. “This is about freedom of speech and freedom of expression and how much it is being crushed,” Leader said in a phone interview.
DELAYED BAYEUX TAPESTRY RESTORATION. The Bayeux Tapestry will not be making a high-stakes trip to an undisclosed location today, for planned restoration work ahead of its loan to the British Museum, because of a new wave of national strikes over budget cuts, reports Le Monde and AFP. Experts have said the painstaking restoration was an essential prerequisite to loaning the artifact, which depicts the 1066 Norman conquest of England, in order to ensure it is not damaged in the process. However, a spokesperson for the French presidency said local authorities do not feel they are “able to ensure the security of such a high-profile transfer,” due to strikes and it will instead take place “in the coming days.” The historic loan proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron in a celebration of bilateral relations has become a controversial topic, with many experts fearing the tapestry is too fragile to be moved at all. In other fallout from the protest movement, some museums have had to close galleries, including the Louvre, which announced on its website that the museum remains open today, but some rooms would have to be shuttered.
The Digest
Archaeologists and museum workers have been racing to save artifacts stored in Gaza City, where the Israeli military is currently leading a ground invasion launched this week. The Geneva Museum of Art and History (MAH) participated in an evacuation operation from Gaza’s main storage facility, the Al-Kawthar residential tower, ahead of an airstrike that destroyed the building. However, about 30 percent of the artifacts could not be evacuated in time, including ceramics and lapidary objects. [The Art Newspaper and BBC]
A 3,000-year-old gold bracelet with a lapis lazuli bead, once worn by a pharaoh, has disappeared from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The ancient bangle was last seen in the museum’s restoration laboratory, according to Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism. Now museum workers are reviewing all the inventory in the lab, added the ministry. [CNN]
Christie’s will sell a rare double portrait made by David Hockney in 1968 of the English novelist Christopher Isherwood and his partner, artist Don Bachardy. The painting is Hockney’s first in a series of seven double portraits and is expected to fetch over $50 million when it heads to auction in November. [Financial Times]
French artist Martial Raysse, 89, has joined Templon gallery after previously having been represented by Mennour gallery in Paris. Raysse will have an exhibition of recent paintings in January 2026, at the gallery, coinciding with its 60th anniversary, and a 2023 artwork titled La Paix will be presented at Templon’s Art Basel Paris stand next month. [The Art Newspaper, France]
Felix Rödder discusses opening his new namesake gallery in New York City, despite market doomsayers and regular news of other gallery closings. One key takeaway from the former David Zwirner director’s interview is that “above all, only high quality prevails.” Also, “I have chosen to be a small business and do not intend to grow exponentially,” he said. “Faster and faster, bigger and bigger — that doesn’t interest me.” [Monopol Magazine]
The Kicker
EARLY REDFORD DREAMS. Hollywood icon Robert Redford, who just passed away at age 89,had early dreams of becoming a visual artist, and even pursued an art career “with a vengeance,” studying in Paris, Italy, Spain, and New York’s Pratt Institute, according to a 1994 interview with CBS. But that all changed after an art teacher expressed criticism of the then-19-year-old’s artwork. “I held some fantasy out in my head that I would return to art, and I carried that maybe five years into my acting career, and then finally one day I just looked at myself in the mirror, and I said, ‘Who are we kidding? This is what you do. This is what you do well and like it. Give up the idea that you’re going to maintain this career in art.’”
