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Trump Unveils Latest Plans for Proposed 250-Foot Tall Triumphal Arch

The Trump administration released on Friday its design for a 250-foot triumphal arch that would face the Lincoln Memorial, part of a portfolio of projects intended to monumentalize the president’s time in Washington, D.C. According to The New York Times , which first reported the news, the plan was submitted to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. The federal design panel, composed of members appointed during the Trump administration, will deliberate on the proposal when convened next week. The arch would rise at one end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River and has been framed by its proponents as a means to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. President Trump introduced the project last October at a dinner held at the White House in honor of donors to another planned addition near Capitol Hill: a $400 million ballroom attached to the White House’s East Wing. Guests at the dinner were shown models of the proposed arch featuring two eagles and a golden angel with ...
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Canada Deepens Indo-Pacific Ties as Trade Mission to South Korea Delivers Strategic Gains

In a week defined by momentum and market ambition, Canada’s latest Team Canada Trade Mission to the Republic of Korea underscored the country’s accelerating push to diversify trade and deepen its Indo-Pacific presence. Led by Maninder Sidhu, the April mission brought more than 180 Canadian delegates and over 100 organizations to Seoul, marking a significant step forward in strengthening bilateral economic ties with one of Asia’s most dynamic economies. At its core, the mission was about positioning Canada not just as a trading partner—but as a long-term collaborator in innovation, investment, and supply chain resilience. Building Strategic Momentum Throughout the visit, Sidhu engaged directly with senior Korean and Canadian business leaders, emphasizing Canada’s strengths in integrated supply chains and its appeal as a gateway to North American markets. Meetings with major conglomerates reinforced Canada’s value as both an investment destination and an innovation partner. Key disc...
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Portland Museum of Art Buys New Building For $14 M., Freeing Up Space For Exhibitions

The Portland Museum of Art (PMA) in Maine closed on its purchase of a new building in the city’s downtown, as well as two adjacent parking lots late last month. The building, previously owned by MaineHealth, a major regional hospital system and the largest private employer in the state, was sold for $14 million. The plan is for the PMA to move its administrative offices to the new Free Street building, which is next door to the museum as a way to open up space for more galleries in its main building. “This acquisition is a milestone for PMA, allowing the next generation of our institution to grow in place in the Arts District,” Marcie Parker Griswold, head of communications for the museum, said in a statement Wednesday. “Securing these neighboring properties enables us to turn a long-term vision into reality: creating a more accessible and cohesive home for the arts in the center of Portland.” The PMA is in the process of launching another, unrelated, addition to its facilities: a...
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Do We Have Duchamp All Wrong? A Brilliant MoMA Retrospective Reintroduces One of Modernism’s Greats

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Artists are often secretive creatures, hesitant to disclose too much, and none more so than Marcel Duchamp, who spun slipperiness into an art form. But I think Duchamp may have given the game away when he made Genre Allegory (1943), one of the more than 300 works included in his Museum of Modern Art retrospective opening this Sunday. Produced as a commission for an “Americana” issue of Vogue , it’s a star-studded map of the United States turned sideways. Duchamp constructed the nation out of gauze, leaving it puckered and stained, as though it were a patch set atop a festering wound. A couple things are worth remembering here: first, that Duchamp, a Frenchman by birth, relocated to the US the year before he made Genre Allegory , having fled the Vichy regime; and second, that the US was one of many nations embroiled in World War II, whose bloodshed would continue for two more years after the piece was made. With all that in consideration, Genre Allegory comes off as pretty unpatriot...
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Barker College make fast start on three-game tour

By Adam Julian Barker College opened its three-game New Zealand tour with a 40-36 victory over St Patrick’s College, Silverstream on Wednesday. The North Sydney independent Anglicans stunned the 2025 Wellington Premiership winners by blasting to a 26-0 lead in under 10 minutes. Not since 2017, when Silverstream was caned by national championships, Hastings Boys’...
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Siri Aurdal, Artist Who Elevated Industrial Materials Into Visions of Shared Humanity, Dies at 88

Siri Aurdal, a Norwegian sculptor and painter who elevated industrial materials into sleek expressions of art’s social imperative, died on March 31. She was 88. Galleri Riis, her representative, announced her death on social media, writing that she died in Oslo surrounded by friends and family. Though born in 1937 to two prominent Scandinavian artists—Synnøve Anker Aurdal (1908–2000), a textile artist who represented Norway at the 1982 Venice Biennale, and painter Leon Aurdal (1890–1949)—Siri Aurdal forged a visual identity uniquely her own within the Scandinavian art scene of the late 1960s. A core concern of her practice was the potential for change in people, places, and materials—a preoccupation that first took shape in her manipulation of plexiglass and a reinforced fiberglass engineered for Norway’s oil sector.  Aurdal was raised in the orbit of Scandinavian’s leading architects and initially intended to follow them—the father of her childhood best friend worked on the 195...
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Tokyo Architect Kengo Kuma Beats Out Renzo Piano and Selldorf to Design National Gallery’s £350 M. New Wing

The National Gallery in London has selected Kengo Kuma and Associates, the Tokyo-based firm known for designing the V&A Dundee in Scotland, to design its new extension as part of Project Domani, the institution’s £750 million ($995 million) campaign to transform its campus and expand its collection into the 20th and 21st centuries. Two UK-based firms, BDP and MICA, will collaborate with Kuma on the project, which is subject to ratification at the end of a standstill period ending April 16. The new wing will be built on the site of St. Vincent House, which currently houses a hotel and office complex and will be demolished as part of the expansion. The new wing, expected to open in the early 2030s, will add approximately 15,000 square feet of exhibition space, a roughly 15 percent increase, according to the Art Newspaper . The wing is expected to cost around £350 million ($464 million), with the rest of the Project Domani funds expected to go toward post-1900 acquisitions and to ...
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