31 May: After days of fighting in south Lebanon, Israeli forces have crossed the Litani River and occupied Beaufort Castle and the surrounding ridge, reports Associated Press. Built in around 1137 AD, the Crusader-era castle – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – is one of the best preserved examples in the region. It was the site of intense fighting between the Israeli Defence Forces and the Palestine Liberation Organisation during Israel’s invasion of the Lebanon in 1982 and suffered ‘significant damage’ during the subsequent 18-year-long Israeli occupation. On Saturday, after the Lebanese state news agency reported air raids and ‘intense bombardment’ near the castle, the Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam, went on television to say that Israel was trying to ‘uproot Lebanon’s memory and erase the people’s history’. On Sunday the Israeli Defence Forces issued a statement saying that it was trying to prevent the Shia militia group Hezbollah from carrying out attacks from the Beaufort Ridge.
On 24 May a Russian airstrike that killed at least four people damaged several cultural institutions in Kyiv including the National Art Museum of Ukraine and the National Library, reports the Kyiv Independent. The Ukrainian culture minister, Tetyana Berezhna, wrote on Facebook that the strike had caused the largest amount of damage to cultural institutions since the start of the war in February 2022. Other institutions affected by the attack include the Kyiv Opera Theatre. The Kyiv Post reports that nearly half the objects at the recently reopened National Chernobyl Museum, as well as the building itself, have been damaged beyond repair.
Arts Council England (ACE) has published its new policy framework. The interim strategy, titled ‘Excellence. For Everybody. Everywhere’, replaces ‘Let’s Create’. The change comes after Baroness Hodge’s review, published in December, called for a ‘less prescriptive’ strategy. The new plan, which ACE is calling ‘a stepping stone’, emphasises artistic excellence as the main consideration for funding. Other changes include providing simpler practical support, expanding the kinds of funding available to artists and organisations, and the creation of a new touring service to ensure the sector can better serve audiences around the UK.
A Manhattan jury has found Daniel Sikkema guilty of hiring the hitman who murdered his husband, the art dealer Brent Sikkema, at the latter’s home in Rio de Janeiro in January 2024. The pair were in the middle of divorce proceedings that included a custody dispute over their son. Daniel Sikkema, who was convicted of three counts of conspiring to hire and pay a hitman, reports the Wall Street Journal, now faces a sentence of life in prison. His lawyer said he intends to appeal.
Tiwani Contemporary, the London- and Lagos-based gallery specialising in contemporary art from Africa and the African diaspora, has closed its London space after 15 years, the Art Newspaper reports. The gallery cited in its statement ‘financial challenges’ and a ‘difficult market’. Founded by Maria Varnava in Fitzrovia in 2011, the Tiwani Contemporary also opened a space in Lagos in 2022, which will now close for ‘restructuring’ in the coming months.
Tess Jaray, the British artist and teacher best known for her large geometric paintings, has died at the age of 88. Jaray, who was born in Vienna in 1937, emigrated with her parents to England after the Anschluss. She studied painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, where she was taught by Ernst Gombrich and later returned in 1968 to be its first female teacher. Over the three decades she worked at the Slade, Jaray continued to paint, creating flat, often monochromatic works, later exhibiting at institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. She also undertook public art commissions, painting the floor of Victoria Station in London in 1985 and designing a paved floor for St Mary’s Church in Nottingham in 2012.
