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The Trump administration’s repeated attempts to undermine the Smithsonian are being met with international pushback: this week, the Museums Association in the UK republished a statement that resoundingly condemns the politicized attacks that’ve been leveled at the US’s “flagship museum system.”

A newly announced $22 Million expansion of LA‘s Watts Towers Campus is slated for groundbreaking in October. The soon to be enlarged Watts Towers Arts Center Campus (WTACC) surrounds 17 interconnected radio tower-like structures built between 1921 and 1954 by Sabato “Simon” Rodia.

The Han Nefkens Foundation in Barcelona announced French Lebanese artist Valentin Noujaïm as the recipient of the inaugural Mediterranean Video Art Production Grant 2026. The €25,000 grant was installed to support the production of a new video artwork by artists based around the Mediterranean Sea.

A coalition of institutions in Shanghai have launched a “Museum Healing Alliance”, focus on exploring museum-based mental health support and therapeutic programming for those in need of aid. www.artforum.com/news/shangha...

Employees of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum who are members of the Prospect trade union have voted to strike over issues including pay, working conditions, and access to water and toilets, The Guardian reports. www.artforum.com/news/v-and-a...

Pathbreaking Italian American artist, choreographer, and dancer Simone Forti has died at the age of ninety-one. Her death, in Los Angeles, was announced by the Milan-based gallery Raffaella Cortese, which represented her. www.artforum.com/news/simone-...

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has announced a deficit of $10 million on a $75.6 million budget for fiscal year 2025–26. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the figure is nearly double that of the institution’s shortfall for the previous year, which was $5.4 million.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) announced the acquisition of more than ninety modern and contemporary artworks, as well as more than 250 approved gifts of art to the museum. All the pieces were acquired between January and June 2026. www.artforum.com/news/sfmoma-...

Nearly 20 years after it was first announced, the long-awaited Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has finally revealed an opening date of December 11. The new modern and contemporary art museum in the United Arab Emirates’ capital was designed by the late Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry.

Pathbreaking artist Betye Saar, whose powerful assemblages of racist memorabilia served up scorching commentary on the condition of the Black American—particularly the Black American woman—died on July 26 in Los Angeles. She was 99. www.artforum.com/news/betye-s...

At the 48th session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, 13 works by Finnish modernist architects Aino, Elissa, and Alvar Aalto were added to the organization’s World Heritage List. The projects are the first collection of Finnish modernist architecture to achieve such a designation.

The Detroit Institute of Arts has received a major gift of over 2,000 contemporary and modern artworks from the estate of Gilbert B. and Lila Silverman. The gift includes artwork made by nearly 500 different artists, including Diane Arbus, Jenny Holzer, Bruce Nauman, Diego Rivera, and Andy Warhol.

The Art Institute of Chicago has announced it will lay off its entire in-house custodial staff, and subsequently outsource the positions to private contractor. This decision has caused severe backlash from the museum’s unionized staff. www.artforum.com/news/art-ins...

Low Kee Hong has been named as the artistic director of the 2028 Biennale of Sydney. Hong was formerly the creative director of the Manchester-based arts organization Factory International at Aviva Studios, and served as the founding director and general manager of the Singapore Biennale.

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order demanding the installation of temporary signs outside the Smithsonian alerting the public to the “ideological capture” of the institution. The order represents a marked escalation in the president’s sustained attack on the Smithsonian.

Lydia Yee, formerly chief curator at Whitechapel Gallery in London, has just been appointed the artistic director of a new, nonprofit gallery in Kuala Lumpur. The gallery, Muara Arts, will be dedicated to celebrating modern and contemporary art from Southeast Asia.

Another day, another French jewelry heist. On Friday July 24 a 2,500-year-old gold collar was stolen from the archaeological museum, Musée du Pays Châtillonnais in Châtillon-sur-Seine. www.artforum.com/news/2500-ye...

More than 300 unionized workers at the Victoria & Albert Museum are set to vote on a strike action spurred by the broiling heat that has enveloped the city in recent weeks, The Guardian reports. Staffers from across the institution’s four London sites will vote on the ballot, which closes July 29.

The Art Dealers Association of America has revealed the 63 galleries selected for the inaugural ADAA Fair at the Park Avenue Armory in NYC. The fair represents a new chapter for ADAA, a nonprofit membership organization which comprises approximately 200 fine art galleries in almost 40 US cities.

The Immigrant Artist Biennial, which has showcased the work of immigrant artists since 2019, has just announced the title and thematic focus of its third iteration, “Identity Card.” The 2026 edition of the biennial will unfold during October and November. www.artforum.com/news/immigra...