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The Headlines
BUNGLED BIRTHDAY. President Donald Trump’s “extraordinary celebration” of America’s 250th anniversary during the summer of 2026 has hit a major snag, and much like the market turmoil he induced by triggering a global tariff war, it is of the president’s own making. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the humanities councils it funds across the country are part of the leading task force planning the anniversary, but through DOGE, Trump’s administration has fired 80 percent of the NEH, in addition to slashing funding to humanities councils. According to a report by Axios, the cuts have directly hit plans for the celebration. “The programs that we have already started to outline are all going to be jeopardized,” said Gabrielle Lyon, the executive director of Illinois Humanities.
PALESTINIAN ARTIST DINA KHALED ZAURUB KILLED. The 22-year-old was reportedly killed by an Israeli army airstrike, according to Quds News Network. She drew portraits of Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war, such as the late journalist Ahmad Abu Al-Roos. On April 12, Israeli Defense Forces struck a displaced persons camp in southern Gaza, hitting the tent where she and her family were sheltered, reports The Art Newspaper. In one of the artist’s last posts on social media, she wrote of her portraits: “it’s all about tenderness.”
The Digest
Italian Art Innovation Gallery allegedly pressured dissident Chinese artist Badiucao to remain silent about his recent Hong Kong billboard artwork that contained a hidden political message. The gallery stated on X that Badiucao “deceived” the gallery about the nature of his artwork shown in a group exhibit titled “Luminance,” coinciding with Art Basel Hong Kong. The piece was Badiucao’s “attempt to circumvent Hong Kong’s expansive and autocratic National Security Law and how it impacts the art world,” he wrote on Instagram. In response, the Index on Censorship has released a letter condemning Art Innovation for their actions. [Artnet News and South China Morning Press]
Iranian artist Kamran Katouzian has died at the age of 83. The renowned artist was known for integrating graphic design elements into his abstract paintings, as well as mixed-media, modernist sculptures. [ArtAsiaPacific]
Contemporary auction sales fell 27 percent in 2024 to $698 million, according to the 2025 edition of the Hiscox Artists Top 100 (HAT 100) report. However, works by women artists, lower-value art, and sales in New York rose, as flipping appears to have fallen out of favor, with “wet paint” pieces made by artists under 45 falling 64 percent to $14.1 million. [ARTnews]
Sotheby’s is selling several works form the estate of late Swiss collectors Rolf and Margit Weinberg in New York at this spring’s May auctions. They span “masterpieces of the late 19th century to pioneering examples of early abstraction and expressionism,” stated the house. [ARTnews]
The Kicker
COUNTER INVESTIGATION. The Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris recently invited African researchers and curators to lead “counter investigations” into the provenance of many of its artifacts obtained through France’s official, Dakar-Djibouti “scientific mission” conducted in the early 1930’s, reports Le Monde. Their conclusions are the subject of an unusual, and worthwhile exhibition according to writer Roxana Azimi, who notes that while some questions remain unanswered about the provenance of works on display, the opportunity to delve into the French museum’s archives also enabled researchers to make strong, evidence-backed claims for the restitution of many of the artworks on view. In an early report, Azimi also brings us up-to-date on France’s all-but abandoned, thorny bill to facilitate the restitution of artifacts in its national collection, which were obtained during the colonial era, largely from the African continent.
