£180 million pledged to Museum of London for planned revamp

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Museum of London project receives major funding boost | The Museum of London has raised £180 million of the £250 million needed to develop its future home at the city’s Smithfield Market. According to the FT, the City of London Corporation, the relevant local authority, will contribute £110 million, with a further £70 million coming from the office of the Mayor of London. The latter donation marks the mayoralty’s largest single investment in a cultural project to date. The museum plans to raise the rest of the money needed through philanthropy and a public campaign.

Shortlist for Musée d’Orsay director revealed | Four candidates to replace Guy Cogeval as director of Paris’s Musée d’Orsay have been named by the French culture ministry. Musée de l’Orangerie director Laurence des Cars; Sylvain Amic, the director of museums in Rouen; Musée Delacroix head Dominique de Font-Réaulx and Michel Draguet, the director-general of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium have all been confirmed as candidates for the position. No date has been set for the announcement of the appointment; Cogeval steps down on 15 March.

Exchange of works between Bronx Museum and Cuba scrapped | A long planned and controversial loan of works between the Bronx Museum and Cuba’s National Museum of Fine Arts will not take place as expected, reports the New York Times. In 2015, the New York institution sent more than 80 works to its Cuban counterpart for the first part of a two-country exhibition entitled ‘Wild Noise/Ruido Salvaje’. However, a reciprocal loan from Havana has been scuppered after Cuban officials failed to allow works to travel to the US, Bronx Museum director Holly Block said. Instead, the American institution will stage a show featuring some 60 pieces drawn from collections outside Cuba, featuring many of the artists the Bronx Museum hoped to secure from Havana.

Plans founder for proposed Cape Town museum | Two years after they were announced by the government of South Africa’s Western Cape, plans for a new museum in Cape Town’s oldest building have fallen into doubt, reports the Times (South Africa). Proposals for the museum, which was to be housed in the 132-year-old Standard Bank Building and administered by a public-private partnership, have faltered after the parties involved fail to agree on financial terms. A spokesman from the provincial culture department said that other venues are being considered.