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The Montclair Art Museum has a new chief curator. The New Jersey institution hired Kate Kraczon, who lost her job as director of exhibitions and chief curator at the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, late last year amid a wave of layoffs; she had served in that office since 2019. Kraczon takes over the role from Gail Stavitsky, who had held the post since 1994, and takes up her new position June 15. Before the Bell, Kraczon was associate curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 2008–19. The museum also appointed Todd Caissie, an enrolled member of the Osage Nation and previously director of Canada’s New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum, as director. Before entering museum work, he was an executive search consultant in Tokyo and New York.  “I am honored to join MAM at this pivotal moment, and to work in close partnership with Todd Caissie, whose vision for the museum resonates w...

Celebrating community rugby highlights of the past decade. Intercept and chargedown tries can turn games and take the breath out of opposing players and supporters alike. They are also often exciting and thrilling to watch, the sight of a winger coming up in the line and poaching a pass and doing what he or she...

The Council of the European Union announced on April 23 that it is formally sanctioning Mikhail Piotrovsky, the long-time director of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The reasons given are that Piotrovsky is “a close associate of Vladimir Putin” and that “he has actively supported and justified Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” The news was first reported by The Art Newspaper . According to the Hermitage Development Foundation, Piotrovsky succeed his father, Boris, as director of the state-run museum in 1992, which is around the time he met Putin. He has a background in Arabic studies and archaeology, and studied at Leningrad State University and the University of Cairo. When Piotrovsky turned 80 on Dec. 9, 2024, Putin sent him the following message, according to a Kremlin news site : “You have devoted your talents as a scholar, researcher and organiser to the noble mission of preserving humanity’s unique historical, cultural a...

Vui Suli Tuitaupe, founder of Moana Vā and recipient of the Pacific Health Service Award at the 2026 Minister of Health Volunteer Awards. Photo: World Education News The founder of Moana Vā, a collective supporting MVPFAFF+, LGBTQIA+ and Rainbow+ communities in Christchurch and around the country is the recipient of the Pacific Health Service Award for the Minister of Health Volunteer Awards.  Vui Suli Tuitaupe was announced as one of the recipients acknowledged by health minister Simeon Brown and mental health minister Matt Doocey celebrating individuals and groups who make an outstanding contribution to New Zealand’s health system.  Vui is a public health researcher, registered nurse, academic currently studying towards a Doctor of Health Sciences at the University of Canterbury as well as a fitness instructor.  Minister Brown says, “these awards recognise individuals and groups who go above and beyond to support patients, families, and communities. Their work str...

A Spanish judge has ordered the Museo del Prado in Madrid to hold onto a painting attributed to Diego Velázquez at the center of a divorce dispute between steel magnate José María Aristrain and his ex-wife Gema Navarro, according to  El País .  The painting ended up at the Prado through a chain of state intervention. After Navarro filed a complaint alleging the work had been wrongly kept from her, a Madrid judge, acting with the support of prosecutors, ordered Spain’s Ministry of Culture to take custody of it citing its potential importance to the country’s historical heritage. The ministry then designated the Prado as custodian. The work was removed from Aristrain’s Madrid residence and transferred to the museum’s storage on March 17, where it will remain until ownership is resolved.  At the center of the dispute is a portrait of Philip IV linked to Velázquez’s early years in Madrid. A different version of the composition hangs in the Prado, and sc...

“What does Damien Hirst have to do with McDonald’s? Nothing.” So begins a perplexing Instagram video introducing an installation organized by Nicolas Ballario, founder of a Milan-based communications agency, that was on view as part of Milan Design Week. The immersive installation, “POOL. Ti sblocco un ricordo” (“Pool: I’ll Unlock a Memory for You”), is part of a series of offsite exhibitions collectively called Tortona Rocks, in the Tortona neighborhood of Milan. The centerpiece of “POOL” is a large swimming pool-shaped pit full of hundreds of thousands of colorful balls, like a McDonald’s PlayPlace ball pit on steroids. So, what does the provocative British artist have to do with all of this? Ballario’s video is unclear, explaining that Hirst’s relevance to the project, which is intended to celebrate McDonald’s 40th anniversary in Italy, is, in fact, irrelevant. “Art is compelling when it is ambiguous, when it is disorienting and fills you with doubt,” he says. Okay, then! Acco...

Entering the cavernous Magazzini del Sale in Venice, viewers encounter Nalini Malani’s animations, which are projected directly onto the uneven brick walls of the former salt warehouse. Her images flicker, dissolve, and reappear as they are cast across architecture shaped by centuries of trade. The installation feels both contemporary and archaic: moving images that seem less like digital projections than pigment placed on stone, recalling cave paintings set in motion.   This tension between past and present runs throughout Of Woman Born , Malani’s latest project, which was commissioned by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and is being presented during the opening of the Venice Biennale next month. Drawing on tens of thousands of hand-drawn images translated into animation, the installation brings together mythology, literature, and sound in a layered environment that unfolds as the viewer moves through the space. Beyond the exhibition itself, Malani has also extended one of her rec...

Scene at Kilbirnie Park on Saturday in a high scoring match between Tawa and Poneke. Photo: Kinetic Images. We are into the fifth week of the club rugby season and the Swindale Shield and other competitions are just starting to heat up. A look at Premier Swindale Shield fixtures this coming Saturday in Wellington (Premier...

At the press conference for the 42nd edition Art Brussels fair (April 23–26), director Nele Verhaeren was refreshingly straightforward. “We’re not going to hide it,” she said, referring to the event’s smaller numbers: 138 participating galleries, or 26 fewer than last year. The downsizing has meant a shift toward a “quality-first” approach, per organizers, who framed the current edition as an opportunity to create a different kind of art-fair experience that allows for both seeing a lot of art, but also taking it slower. Art Brussels “embraces a clear shift this year towards more focused, legible fairs in which the quality of the experience prevails over quantity,” according to a pre-fair press release. The reduction in exhibitors by 15 percent also meant that all the fair’s exhibitor booths could now fit in one hall of the Brussels Expo instead of 1.5 halls as it had in previous years. With mounting operational costs and ongoing geopolitical and economic tensions straining dealers, ...

Canada is putting new weight behind Nunavut’s future, announcing more than $13 million for four major projects designed to strengthen the territory’s economy, improve critical infrastructure and reinforce Arctic security. Unveiled in Iqaluit by Rebecca Chartrand, the funding through Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency will support initiatives across all three of Nunavut’s regions, with a focus on long-term economic opportunity and immediate community benefits. “These four projects reflect the Government of Canada’s commitment to working in partnership with Inuit governments and Nunavummiut to strengthen Nunavut’s economy, protect the North, and advance locally-led priorities. By investing in infrastructure, capacity building, cleaner energy, and defence readiness, these initiatives are laying the groundwork for lasting prosperity, resilience, and security for a strong Nunavut and a strong Canada,” expressed the Honourable Rebecca Chartrand, Minister of Northern and Arctic A...

The Venice Biennale is upon us, returning for its 61st edition. Thousands will pour into the Italian city for the opening of one of the art world’s most prestigious events—barring a few interruptions—since 1895. When it closes in late November, more than 800,000 people will likely have attended (if last year’s record–breaking numbers are any indication). Awards will also be given and rising new stars in contemporary art identified. Though the Venice Biennale is one of the most known in the world, replete with a rich history and an engaging mythos, it has also seen a number of changes since it began. The 61st edition will be on public view May 9 to November 22, 2026. Below, are the answers to some frequently asked questions. What is the Venice Biennale? Dubbed “the Olympics of the art world,” the Venice Biennale is an international art festival that is now comprises three parts: 1) a central exhibition organized by an artistic director in the Central pavilion in the public ...

In the 15 years since his 81-day detention by China’s Ministry of Public Security, artist and dissident artist Ai Weiwei has explicitly addressed the harrowing experience in his work. This summer, he will do so again, in what will likely be the most demanding presentation to date. As part of his site-specific exhibition called “Button Up!” at Factory International’s Aviva Studios in Manchester, England, Ai will present Sewing a Button , a 24-hour performance piece in which he will reenact his detention. The performance will activate a re-creation of Ai’s cell, which measured 7.2 meters by 3.6 meters (about 23.6 feet by 11.8 feet). Sewing a Button , scheduled to start at 5 p.m. on July 3 and running until July 4, will take place the day after the opening of “Button Up!” on July 2. Visitors will be able to book two-hour slots, as well as a full 24-hour ticket that allows them to come and go, to see the performance. (Some of the footage will also be broadcast online.) Sewing a Button ...

Hundreds of paintings lost to the ravages of war—including multiple works by Peter Paul Rubens, Paolo Veronese, Anthony van Dyck, and Caravaggio—will soon be viewable online courtesy of a digitization initiative by Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie. The museum’s formidable collection of Old Master paintings was damaged by two fires around the end of World War II. But as reported by the Art Newspaper , digital renderings made from high-resolution glass negatives from a photo-documentation campaign started in 1925 are bringing the works back to life, in a way. “The losses have long represented a major gap in the visual record and in attribution, provenance and conservation research,” according to TAN . But records by way of the glass negatives—most of them made by the German photographer Gustav Schwarz, as part of an ongoing process related to new acquisitions that continued until 1944—stand to make the works accessible. “They have tremendous documentary value—not only for the museum and the ...

Above: Trytime for Ories in their one-point Anzac Day win over Pōneke in 2015.  Saturday’s fourth round of the 2026 Swindale Shield will be the fifth time that club rugby has been played on Anzac Day since our records began in 2002 (Anzac Day also fell on a Saturday in 2001 but we don’t have...

Mexico City’s Museo Anahuacalli is set to receive more than 150,000 objects from Juan Rafael Coronel Rivera, the grandson of Diego Rivera, in a donation that significantly expands the museum’s holdings and renews attention on the artist’s original vision for the site. As first reported by  The Art Newspaper , the gift spans centuries, from 16th-century ceramics to textiles, photographs, wooden objects, prints, and archival material tied to Rivera and his circle. The works will be transferred in stages over the coming months, beginning with ceramics and followed by manuscripts and correspondence, with completion expected by the end of the year.  Coronel Rivera, a photographer and art historian, spent more than four decades assembling the collection. It brings together pre-Hispanic objects, family documents, and works from his own career, though it does not include paintings by Rivera or Frida Kahlo.  Speaking to the Art Newspaper , Coronel Rivera said the collection h...

Johnsonville beat the Wellington Axemen in frightful conditions at home at Helston Park in their third round Swindale Shield and Mick Kenny Memorial Cup match. Johnsonville scored two first half tries, to first-five Niall Delahunt and to fullback Jacob Walmsley, and then kicked a penalty on halftime to lead 15-3 at the interval. A second...

James Hayward, a West Coast painter whose abstractions earned him a loyal cult following among artists, died on April 16. He was 82, according to a brief obituary posted by his studio over the weekend. Hayward may not be among the most well-known names to emerge from the postwar period, but many artists knew and loved his work. Mike Kelley, for example, once praised him as “one of the few truly important West Coast painters.” His process was marked by a certain eccentricity that differentiated his art from a lot of similar work. From the mid-1970s onward, Hayward largely produced monochrome abstractions. But where many single-color canvases from the era were characterized by the smooth, even application of paint, Hayward purposefully left his materials chunky and thick. Referring to the phrase “monochrome abstraction,” Hayward told Artillery of his work, “People ask what does that mean—you know, lay people? I say, well basically I make one-color paintings of basically nothing.” A...

Māngere Bridge and surrounding South Auckland neighbourhoods, where police are responding to repeat family harm and youth offending. Photo: aboutmangerebridge Local Democracy Reporting | Free Public Interest News Service By Taelegalolo’u Mary Afemata of Local Democracy Reporting. Police are raising concerns about repeat family harm and youth crime in Māngere and Ōtāhuhu, with officers returning to the same households again and again. Speaking to the Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board, Inspector Mohammed Atiq, Counties Manukau West Area Prevention Manager, said the pattern is clear and hard to break. “It’s usually the same people over and over again, so it’s not new that we go to new places when we go to somebody we’ve actually been there before, they don’t have their own capability or problem-solving skills to sort their problems out and that’s why they get into that situation,” Atiq said. He said many of these cases involve children, which means police cannot simply step back....

The Northern United and Hutt Old Boys Marist teams in action at Porirua Park on Saturday. Photo: Kinetic Images. A wild Saturday saw most matches played in conditions more akin to mid-July than Mid-April, and a handful spanning at least four grades that didn’t go ahead. The most high profile of these was the Paremata-Plimmerton...

Canada has concluded Operation NANOOK-NUNALIVUT 2026, marking the largest and most comprehensive winter Arctic operation ever conducted under the broader Operation NANOOK framework. Running from February to April, the exercise highlighted the Canadian Armed Forces’ growing focus on northern readiness as international attention on the Arctic continues to intensify. Approximately 1,300 Canadian Armed Forces members took part in the mission, supported by nearly 200 vehicles and pieces of equipment, including two M777 howitzers. Operations spanned Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba, combining land, air, and joint activities across some of the country’s most remote and demanding terrain. The 2026 edition also featured military participation from Belgium, Denmark, France, and the United States, reinforcing allied coordination in a region of increasing strategic importance. Among the most notable achievements was a long-range patrol covering ...

Cellula Robotics has appointed Colleen Hahn as Vice President, Technology Transfer and Strategy, reinforcing its senior leadership team as the company expands its footprint in the United States and advances its broader international growth ambitions. Based in Burnaby, British Columbia, Cellula said Hahn’s role will focus primarily on the US market while also supporting the company’s wider global strategy. Her responsibilities will include market intelligence, customer engagement, strategic outreach, and partnership development across Cellula’s subsidiaries and partner network. The appointment underlines Cellula’s continued investment in the relationships, market insight, and strategic direction needed to accelerate growth across both defence and commercial sectors. It also reflects the company’s commitment to ensuring its capabilities remain closely aligned with customer priorities and emerging market opportunities. Hahn joins the business with extensive experience in partnership d...

Canada’s push to strengthen its defence industrial base has gained fresh momentum, with AtkinsRéalis and Hanwha Ocean signing a strategic Memorandum of Understanding aimed at supporting the country’s submarine capability and long-term domestic industrial resilience. Announced in Montreal on April 14, 2026, the agreement aligns with Canada’s new Defence Industrial Strategy and sets out a framework for long-term collaboration between the Canadian engineering and nuclear leader and the global shipbuilding and submarine manufacturer. Together, the two companies will explore opportunities to enhance Canada’s submarine readiness while helping build industrial capacity at home. The partnership brings together AtkinsRéalis’ extensive expertise in submarine infrastructure and lifecycle support with Hanwha Ocean’s established submarine design and manufacturing capabilities. It marks an early but significant step in what both companies describe as an ambitious collaboration. “At a time when ...