The French government has chosen Selldorf Architects and Studios Architecture Paris to oversee the Musée du Louvre’s ‘Nouvelle Renaissance’ redevelopment announced by President Macron in January 2025. The project, initially budgeted at €700m–€800m but now estimated at €1.1bn, will be the most significant overhaul of the museum in more than 35 years: it includes two new entrances as well as a dedicated space for the Mona Lisa. It will be overseen by the museum’s new director, Christophe Leribault, who took over from Laurence des Cars after she resigned in February. The project has been criticised by Louvre workers and cultural experts, who have raised concerns that it does not prioritise the less glamorous but more urgent repairs required.
The US Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) has approved designs for President Trump’s proposed 76-metre-high triumphal arch in Washington, D.C., reports the New York Times. The Art Newspaper reports that public comments were ‘99.5 per cent in opposition’ to it, and a group of war veterans has filed a lawsuit to try to stop it. Nevertheless, on 21 May, the four Trump-appointed commissioners all voted in favour of the project. The proposal will be reviewed by the National Capital Planning Commission, a body whose members were also mainly appointed by Trump, on 4 June. When a CBS journalist asked Trump last October who the arch was for, the president responded: ‘Me.’
Lord Sainsbury has donated £91.2m to the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich. The museum was established by his parents, Robert and Lisa Sainsbury, in the 1970s. The donation from the former chairman of Sainsbury’s supermarkets is one of the largest single gifts ever made to a UK institution and will be used to renovate the Norman Foster-designed Grade II-listed building. Jago Cooper, director of the museum, said the donation ‘secures the future of the Sainsbury Centre’.
The Spanish government has threatened to fire the director of the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid if the museum does not update its inventory by the end of the year, Art News reports. The museum holds more than 25,000 works of modern and contemporary art, including paintings by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró. Its current system of managing inventory has been criticised for years, and many works are unaccounted for. A parliamentary oversight committee has ruled that the museum has until 31 December to correct this; if it does not meet this deadline, consequences may include the firing of museum director Manuel Segade, who has led the museum since 2023. ‘
Anna Kafetsi, the art historian and founding director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens, has died at the age of 70. After beginning her career as curator of 20th-century art at the National Gallery, Athens, where she worked for 16 years, Kafetsi was appointed inaugural director of EMST in 2000. She led the museum until 2014 when she was fired by the ministry of culture. Two years later she became director of annexM, the visual arts venue at the Athens concert hall Megaron, a position she held until her death. In a statement, EMST described her work as ‘pivotal to the development of the history of modern and contemporary art, curatorial practice, and cultural institutions in Greece’.
