A Plea to Museum Leaders
Why museums should voluntarily recognize unions, the art dealer guilty of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron, impressions from Guatemala’s Paiz Art Biennial, and more.
Why museums should voluntarily recognize unions, the art dealer guilty of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron, impressions from Guatemala’s Paiz Art Biennial, and more.
Outside my regular lunch spot in Brooklyn yesterday, a worker dressed as a giant lettuce leaf was handing out samples in the cold. When I asked him how he was doing, he replied with a smile, "Can't complain." I took it as a reminder to remain grateful for what I have, no matter where life takes me.
Speaking of problematic working conditions, I encourage you to read Amanda Tobin Ripley's plea to art museums to voluntarily recognize their workers' unions. No more forced elections, fear-mongering, and pitting workers against each other. It's a must-read not just for museum leaders, but for everyone in our field.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
LACMA workers celebrate after winning their union election in December 2025. (image courtesy LACMA United)
Museum Leaders, Recognize Your Unions Now
Museum worker and researcher Amanda Tobin Ripley calls on museum leaders to cut their union-busting tricks and voluntarily recognize their workers' efforts to organize.
"Challenging worker eligibility has been a favorite response of museum leaders to this current wave of unionization, as I’ve discovered in my own experience organizing and researching museum unions," she writes. "There is a clear pattern of museum leadership weaponizing the time between campaign announcement and election to challenge the union’s power."
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News
A visitor looks at the painting "The Skiff (La yole)" (1875) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in the Courtauld Collection on February 15, 2019. (photo by Francois Guillot/AFP via Getty Images)
- A new study finds that seeing original art can help drop cortisol levels and reduce inflammatory load, among other positive effects on the nervous system.
- Art dealer Bertrand Scholler, owner of 55 Bellechasse gallery in Paris, is found guilty of cyberbullying France’s First Lady Brigitte Macron, partaking in a conspiracy theory that she was assigned male at birth.
From Our Critics
Carlos Martiel's performance at Fundación Paiz (photo by Sergio Muñoz, courtesy Fundación Paiz)
International Rendezvous at Guatemala’s Paiz Art Biennial
This year’s biennial, The World Tree, was intended to highlight the “archetypal myth central to many ancient cosmogonies.” | eunice bélidor
Anselm Kiefer’s Rustbelt Romanticism
In Becoming the Sea, nostalgia for the Rhine River of Kiefer’s childhood flows into homages to the Mississippi as a symbol of both industry and creative freedom. | Eileen G’Sell
Explore Low and Full Residency MFA Options at Maine College of Art & Design
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In Memoriam
Artist Lucia Di Luciano (photo courtesy Herald St Gallery)
Remembering Lucia Di Luciano, Rosa von Praunheim, and Kathleen Goncharov
An Italian painter, a filmmaker who chronicled queer life, and a beloved museum curator are among the community members we've lost this week.
Jo Ford on Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia's "Five Venezuelan Artists Respond to US Attacks"
Thank you for sharing these views. Although they are different from one another to a degree, it would appear that all agree no one is sad to see Maduro leave, but it is pathetic to see Trump boasting about US "running" (I think he was slurring his speech again and meant "ruining") Venezuela. I personally find the comments of Cassandra Mayela the most inspiring, as I too find "identity" as just another layer to discredit those who don't look/think/feel/whatever the same as "me/mine". If humanity is ever to evolve beyond mutually assured destruction, it will be because of true community with all of life, not a community of "us and ours".
ICYMI
A fragment of the contested Parthenon sculptures of Ancient Greece on display at the British Museum in London (photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
British Museum Launches Farcical “Decolonizing” Loan Program
Long-term loans to former colonies are not restitution. They do not acknowledge historical wrongdoing, nor do they restore agency to source communities. |
Emiline Smith