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Some of New York’s most prominent cultural institutions reportedly are getting off the hook on paying fines for fire code violations. Gothamist reports that the city is not collecting fines from institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Museum of the City of New York. A reporter reviewed dozens of summonses the Fire Department (FDNY) issued to these museums between 2023 and 2025, the vast majority of which are for fire alarms sounding in the absence of any emergency.  These museums operate on city-owned property and receive capital investments from the city. The FDNY issues the violations not to the individual museums, but rather to the Department of Cultural Affairs (DLCA). “When the city fines one of its own agencies, it generally doesn’t collect—because that would be the same as the city paying money to itself,” writes Gothamist , based on an explanation by a spokesperson with the Office of Ad...

Tagata Pasifika | Television Series Sam V performs at the 2026 Pacific Music Awards.

Star artist Anna Weyant has painted designer Marc Jacobs for the cover of Vanity Fair ‘s 2026 Style issue. The magazine’s cover story , “Marc Jacobs Cannot Tell a Lie,” delves into Jacobs’ four decades in fashion and the sale of his namesake, $850 million label, Marc Jacobs International. In Weyant’s up-close portrait, Jacobs faces the viewer, meeting their gaze, with stone-faced composure against a dark background. Were it not for the artist’s characteristic Dutch Old Master painterly style, and subtle hints at an underlying flamboyance through details like Jacobs’ fashion accessories (teal flower earrings, the ruffled collar of a Chanel tweed top, salon hair clips), the artwork’s framing and composition would recall the sobering directness of a photo ID, as if to say, ‘this is me, take me as I am.’ That is also a running theme within the article. “All I’ve ever been is a fashion victim … I don’t think of that as a bad thing,” Jacobs tel...

The theft of four paintings by Renaissance master Antonello da Messina from a Sicilian museum has prompted suspicions of mafia involvement, given the startling speed and ease of the high-stakes crime, Italian authorities said on Monday.  “It’s a very, very strange affair,” Messina’s top culture official, Enzo Caruso, told Reuters , detailing the troubling circumstances: The thieves broke into the Regional Museum of Messina on the night of August 15, bypassed the museum’s alarm system, broke into security display boxes, and fled the scene with the three of five surviving panels that composed the altarpiece  Polittico di San Gregorio, and a fourth, smaller painting, within a matter of minutes. It’s difficult to conceive how this is possible, he said, without intimate knowledge of the museum’s layout.  Renato Schifani, the president of Sicily, has since confirmed that the museum’s video surveillance system and alarm were functioning pro...

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego has announced that its next director and chief executive will be Brett Littman. He will begin in the role in October. The fifth director in the institution’s 85-year history, Littman succeeds Kathryn Kanjo, who departed the MCA San Diego after 15 years in January to lead the newly merged UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. Littman was chosen after a six-month national search. “Brett is a visionary museum leader whose experience spans some of the country’s most respected contemporary art institutions,” MCA San Diego board president Maryanne Pfister said in a statement. “His ability to balance artistic ambition with organizational leadership, combined with his past personal connection to San Diego, makes him exceptionally well-positioned to guide the Museum into its next era.” An alumnus of the University of California, San Diego, Littman has spent his three-decade career in New York, having a string...

Two Swedish-American buyers are suing London’s Alison Jacques gallery, accusing breach of contract over the sale of three works by the Swedish-born artist Monica Sjöö, whose estate Jacques represents. The estate and the gallery say that Marie St. Germain, the adviser to Yoed and Natasha Anise, misrepresented the couple ahead of the purchase; they also claim that they believe the Anises would not be promising stewards of the artist’s works, the Art Newspaper ( TAN ) reports. The Anises, who paid £264,000 (about $358,000) for three paintings from the 1990s, split their time between Stockholm and Austin, Texas, and operate a tech company.  The paintings in question had been included in a retrospective dedicated to Sjöö, “The Great Cosmic Mother,” which opened at the Moderna Musseet in Stockholm in 2023. Born in Sweden in 1938, Sjöö spent the majority of her life in Bristol, England. Sjöö, who died from cancer at 66 in 2005, described herself as a “radic...