The Trump administration is to launch a review of the Smithsonian Institution, to make sure its practices and aims ‘reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story’. On 12 August, White House officials published a letter addressed to the Smithsonian’s head, Lonnie G. Bunch III, requesting information about current and upcoming exhibitions, wall texts, online contents, organisational charts, visitor surveys and more. The review will begin with eight Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of African American History and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. There will be a particular focus on the plans to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States in 2026. Adjustments in areas found wanting are to be made within 120 days. The Smithsonian is among many US cultural institutions coming under intense scrutiny from the Trump administration. In late July, the artist Amy Sherald cancelled an upcoming exhibition at the Portrait Gallery after an attempt to ‘contextualise’ her painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty; and, in June, the Portrait Gallery’s director, Kim Sajet, resigned after the president tried to fire her. The Smithsonian has issued a statement about its commitment to ‘scholarly excellence, rigorous research and the accurate, factual presentation of history’.
The government of Niger has launched an investigation into the ‘illicit international trafficking’ of a Martian meteorite that was sold at Sotheby’s in July, the BBC reports. The 24.7kg rock, which is the largest from Mars ever discovered, was found by a meteorite hunter in Niger’s Agadez region in November 2023. It was sold at Sotheby’s New York for $4.3m, with both seller and buyer remaining anonymous. Sotheby’s has disputed any claims of trafficking, saying in a statement that the meteorite – known as NWA 16788 – was transported in line with all relevant international procedures. Niger does not currently have specific legislation regarding the sale of meteorites; Euronews reports that since the sale, the country’s president Abdourahamane Tchiani has banned the export of meteorites as well as precious and semi-precious stones.
Christophe de Menil, the costume designer, art collector and heiress of the founders of the Menil Collection in Houston, died on 5 August in Manhattan at the age of 92. Marie-Christophe de Menil was the eldest child of the art patrons John and Dominique de Menil, who, after moving to Houston from Paris, France, built one of the largest private art collections in the world with money from Schlumberger, the oil company co-founded by Dominique’s father. Following her parents’ lead, Christophe promoted artists including Willem de Kooning and the dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp. In 1965, she sold paintings worth $2m (some $20.7m today) to help finance a career in fashion, opening an atelier in her home and later designing costumes for the theatre director and artist Robert Wilson, who died last month at the age of 83.
Doris Lockhart, the Glasgow-raised art collector and advertising copywriter who married Charles Saatchi and helped him build his collection, has died at the age of 88. Lockhart is widely credited with steering Saatchi’s taste away from comic books and, first, towards US artists such as Sol LeWitt and Julian Schnabel, and then to the artists who became known as the YBAs. She particularly championed women artists including Rachel Whiteread and Jenny Saville. After her divorce from Saatchi in 1990 she continued to be involved in the visual arts, organising auctions and exhibitions. In 2013 a sale at Christie’s titled ‘Modern Women’ showed the breadth of her taste, which ranged from work by Louise Bourgeois to Alina Szapocznikow. In an interview in the Independent in 1997, responding to the idea that ‘Doris had the eye and Charles the wallet’, Lockhart said: ‘I had my own money.’
Daniel Muzyczuk is the new director of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, Poland. Muzyczuk, who joined the museum in 2011 and became its chief curator in 2015, has been acting director since July 2024, when Andrzej Biernacki left the post. From 2008 to 2011, Muzyczuk was a curator at the Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń, Poland; in 2013, he co-curated Poland’s pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale. As director, ArtReview reports, Muzyczuk plans to expand the building to create new storage and exhibition spaces.
Claudia Gould has been appointed director of the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York, home to one of the world’s most significant collections of Shaker material culture. Gould, who was director of the Jewish Museum in New York City from 2011 to 2023, joins the Shaker at what Paul Cassidy, chair of its board, calls a ‘pivotal moment’: founded 75 years ago, the museum is planning to move into a new $30m space designed by Selldorf Architects. Gould told Art News that she is excited to ‘build a museum from the ground up’.
