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The Headlines
STITCHED UP. UK ministers will underwrite up to £800 million ($1 billion) of potential damage to the Bayeux Tapestry during its loan to the British Museum next year, making the British taxpayer the ultimate guarantor, the Financial Times reported. The indemnity values the 230-foot-long, nearly 1,000-year-old embroidery at more than twice the price paid for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450 million in 2017. The loan was agreed during President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to the UK earlier this year, and the show is expected to be the British Museum’s largest-ever. Government backing is required because private insurance would be prohibitively expensive, ministers said. Some conservators have criticized the decision to move the fragile tapestry from Bayeux, fearing damage during transport. The tapestry will travel by truck through the Channel Tunnel and remain in London until July 2027, while its home museum undergoes renovation. In exchange, British treasures such as the Sutton Hoo artifacts will be loaned to France.
LGBTQ+ IN TIMES OF CONFLICT. London’s Imperial War Museum has been accused of sidelining Victoria Cross recipients in favor of highlighting transgender and wider LGBTQ+ history, the Telegraph reported. Its upper floor previously housed the world’s largest public display of Victoria Cross medals, Britain’s highest military honor, on loan from Lord Ashcroft. Earlier this year, however, the museum closed the gallery and returned the medals, prompting criticism that curators were shifting priorities. The museum has since launched a virtual, self-guided trail titled “Refracted Histories: Exploring LGBTQ+ Stories in Times of Conflict,” which examines LGBTQ+ experiences during wartime. Lord Ashcroft, who donated £5 million ($6.7 million) to open the gallery in 2010, said he was not warned of its closure and described the decision as “beyond parody.”
The Digest
Two exhibitions in Germany are showing olfaction’s growing presence in the art world, with Artnet News asking, “Is smell the next big thing in art?” [Artnet News]
The Natural History Museum, one of London’s oldest museums, is planning to open two spaces, one of which has been closed to the public since World War II. [Time Out]
Here’s a look at the art fairs slated for 2026, with the Gulf taking center stage. [The Art Newspaper]
The Kicker
VACATED, THEN CURATED. Ireland has reportedly turned the former Israeli embassy in Dublin into a museum for Palestine. Israel closed its embassy in Ireland in December last year due to what its foreign minister called “the extreme anti-Israel policies of the Irish government.” The closure came after Ireland announcement its support for South Africa‘s legal action against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the country of “genocide” during the ongoing war in Gaza. Palestinian American entrepreneur and art curator Faisal Saleh, who founded the Palestine Museum US in Connecticut in 2018 to showcase Palestinian art and highlight Palestinian struggles, is behind the new museum.
