Los Angeles County Museum of Art management on Wednesday declined to voluntarily recognize the union its employees announced they were forming last week. This means LACMA United cannot move forward with collective bargaining efforts until it is formalized by a National Labor Relations Board election. Complicating matters further, NLRB activities — including elections — are on hold amid the federal government shutdown.
The disconnect between staff — a clear majority of whom signed union authorization cards — and management comes at a significant moment in the museum’s history as LACMA works tirelessly to open its $720-million David Geffen Galleries. The new home for its encyclopedic permanent collection, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor, contains 110,000 square feet of gallery space and is scheduled to open to the public in April after more than a decade of planning, fundraising and building.
In a news release, the union noted that organizing efforts — in the works for more than two years — have taken on added urgency as workloads have increased in the face of opening the new building.
“Staff across departments — many performing demanding physical labor — are stretched thin as deadlines accelerate,” LACMA United wrote. “Without adequate protections, this pace is unsustainable and has already contributed to burnout and turnover among dedicated employees who deserve better from an institution they’ve helped build.”
The union’s organizing committee added in a statement, “We are disappointed that LACMA leadership has chosen to delay rather than embrace the democratic will of its workers. While the museum reimagines itself as a more collaborative, less hierarchical institution in its new David Geffen Galleries, it has declined to extend that same vision to its relationship with the very people who bring LACMA’s mission to life every day.”
“LACMA’s leadership has great respect for our team and for everyone’s right to make their own choice on this important issue,” Michael Govan, the museum’s director and chief executive, said in an email. “No matter the outcome, my commitment to our employees — to listen, to support them, and to continue building a strong and respectful workplace — remains unchanged.”
Management’s decision stands counter to those made by other cultural institutions across the city, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Academy Museum and the Natural History Museum, all of which voluntarily recognized their unions over the last six years.
LACMA United represents more than 300 workers from across all departments, including curators, educators, art installers, conservators, registrars, visitor services staff, facilities workers, researchers and designers. The union is asking for improved wages, benefits and working conditions in what has proved to be a challenging climate for museum workers across the county.
The union did not demonstrate at last week’s celebrity-packed LACMA Art + Film Gala, which was co-hosted by Leonardo DiCaprio and fashion designer Eva Chow, and raised more than $6.5 million in support of the museum and its programs.
MOST childhoods for Brits were made up of reading books like The BFG, Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Next year, you’ll be able to experience some true nostalgia as a new museum showcasing the work of famed illustrators, like Sir Quentin Blake, will open in the UK.
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The new House of Illustration will be in ClerkenwellCredit: Tim Ronalds ArchitectsSome of Quentin Blake’s own work will be shown in the museumCredit: Sean Dempsey/PA Wire
Sir Quentin Blake is well-known for illustrating lots of Roald Dahl’s books, as well as his own like the Mrs Armitage series.
Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration will open in May 2026, and it’s an attraction that has been 20 years in the making.
On the project, Sir Quentin said: “I have long dreamt of a permanent place with ‘illustration’ above the door, and now the amazing reality is that we have it.
“I am proud to think the centre has my name on it – illustration is a wonderful universal and varied language.
“Here we shall celebrate its traditions and welcome the astonishing diversity of visual language from across the world. Hurrah!”
Once open, the museum will have exhibitions that will feature rarely-seen works from all over the world.
Original illustrations from leading and emerging illustrators, including work loaned from Quentin Blake’s own archive, will be on show.
There will be open spaces and a cafe for visitors to grab a bite to eatCredit: Tim Ronalds ArchitectsOn-site will also be a gift shop full of illustrated goodiesCredit: Tim Ronalds Architects
Also on the site will be free spaces, including public gardens, displays and an illustration library.
You can take a seat at the café which will serve up fresh food and drinks, and there will be a shop stocked with illustration gifts.
There will be illustrator residencies in London‘s oldest surviving windmill which is also on the old waterworks site in Clerkenwell.
Other events at the museum will be illustration workshops and learning programs.
Previously, the House of Illustration was in Granary Square from 2014 to 2020.
A famous Civil War-era photo of an escaped slave who had been savagely whipped. Displays detailing how more than 120,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry were forcibly imprisoned during WWII. Signs describing the effects of climate change on the coast of Maine.
In recent months, a small army of historians, librarians, scientists and other volunteers has fanned out across America’s national parks and museums to photograph and painstakingly archive cultural and intellectual treasures they fear are under threat from President Trump’s war against “woke.”
These volunteers are creating a “citizen’s record” of what exists now in case the administration carries out Trump’s orders to scrub public signs and displays of language he and his allies deem too negative about America’s past.
More than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in camps during World War II, including these Japanese Americans seen at Manzanar in the Owens Valley in 1942.
(LA Library)
“My deepest, darkest fear,” said Georgetown University history professor Chandra Manning, who helped organize an effort dubbed Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, is that the administration plans to “rewrite and falsify who counts as an American.”
In March, Trump issued an executive order entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” arguing that, over the past decade, signs and displays at museums and parks across the country have been distorted by a “widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history,” replacing facts with liberal ideology.
“Under this historical revision,” he wrote, “our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
He ordered the National Parks Service and The Smithsonian to scrub their displays of content that “inappropriately disparages Americans” living or dead, and replace it with language that celebrates the nation’s greatness.
The Collins Bible — a detailed family history recorded by Richard Collins, a formerly enslaved man — is seen at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
That’s when Manning’s colleague at Georgetown University, James Millward, who specializes in Chinese history, told her, “this seems really eerie,” Manning recalled. It reminded him of the Chinese Communist Party’s dictates to “tell China’s story well,” which he said was code for censorship and falsification.
So the professors reached out to friends and discovered that there were like-minded folks across the country working like “monks” in the Middle Ages, who painstakingly copied ancient texts, to photograph and preserve what they regarded as national treasures.
“There’s a human tradition of doing exactly this,” Manning said. “It feels gratifying to be a part of that tradition, it makes me feel less isolated and less alone.”
Jenny McBurney, a government documents librarian at the University of Minnesota, said she found Trump’s language “quite dystopian.” That’s why she helped organize an effort called Save Our Signs, which aims to photograph and preserve all of the displays at national parks and monuments.
The sprawling network includes Manzanar National Historic Site, where Japanese American civilians were imprisoned during the Second World War; Fort Sumter National Monument, where Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War; Ford’s Theater National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Park.
It would be difficult to tell those stories without disparaging at least some dead Americans — such as the assassins John Wilkes Booth and James Earl Ray — or violating Trump’s order to focus on America’s “unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity and human flourishing.”
At Acadia National Park in Maine, where the rising sun first hits the U.S. coast for much of the year, signs describing the effect of climate change on rising seas, storm surge and intense rain have already been removed.
McBurney doesn’t want volunteers to try to anticipate the federal government’s next moves and focus only on displays they think might be changed, she wants to preserve everything, “good, bad, negative or whatever,” she said in a recent interview. “As a librarian, I like complete sets of things.”
And if there were a complete archive of every sign in the national park system in private hands — out of the reach of the current administration — there would always be a “before” picture to look back at and see what had changed.
“We don’t want this information to just disappear in the dark,” McBurney said.
Another group, the Data Rescue Project, is hard at work filling private servers with at-risk databases, including health data from the Centers for Disease Control, climate data from the Environmental Protection Agency and the contents of government websites, many of which have been subject to the same kind of ideological scrubbing threatened at parks and museums.
Both efforts were “a real inspiration,” Manning said, as she and Millward pondered what they could do to contribute to the cause.
Then, in August, apparently frustrated by the lack of swift compliance with its directives, the Trump administration sent a formal letter to Lonnie G. Bunch III, the first Black Secretary of the Smithsonian, setting a 120-day limit to “begin implementing content corrections.”
Days later, President Trump took to Truth Social, the media platform he owns, to state his case less formally.
“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL,” he wrote, “everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”
Even though the Smithsonian celebrates American astronauts, military heroes and sports legends, Trump complained that the museums offered nothing about the “success” and “brightness” of America, concluding with, “We have the “HOTTEST” Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it.”
People visit the Smithsonian Museum of American History on the National Mall in Washington.
(Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press)
Immediately, Manning and Millward knew where they would focus.
They sent emails to people they knew, and reached out to neighborhood listservs, asking if anyone wanted to help document the displays at the 21 museums that make up the Smithsonian Institution — including the American History Museum and the Natural History Museum — the National Zoo and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Within about two weeks, they had 600 volunteers. Before long, the group had grown to over 1,600, Manning said, more people than they could assign galleries and exhibitions to.
“A lot of people feel upset and kind of paralyzed by these repeated assaults on our shared resources and our shared institutions,” Manning said, “and they’re really not sure what to do about it.”
With the help of all the volunteers, and a grad student, Jessica Dickenson Goodman, who had the computer skills to help archive their submissions, the Citizen Historians project now has an archive of over 50,000 photos and videos covering all of the sites. They finished the work Oct. 12, which was when the museums closed because of the government shutdown.
After several media outlets reported on the order to remove the photo of the whipped slave from the Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia — citing internal emails and people familiar with deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly — administration officials described the reports as “misinformation” but declined to specify which part was incorrect.
A National Parks Service spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
But the possibility that the administration is considering removing the Scourged Back photo is precisely what has prompted Manning, and so many others, to dedicate their time to preserving the historical record.
“I think we need the story that wrong sometimes exists and it is possible to do something about it,” Manning said.
The man in the photo escaped, joined the Union army, and became part of the fight to abolish slavery in the United States. If a powerful image like that disappears from public display, “we rob ourselves of the reminder that it’s possible to do something about the things that are wrong.”
When Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan first stepped up to the podium at the museum’s star-packed 14th annual Art + Film Gala, the Dodgers were down one point to the Toronto Blue Jays in the eighth inning of the final game of the World Series.
There was no giant screen in the massive tent where a decadent dinner was being served Saturday night in celebration of honorees artist Mary Corse and director Ryan Coogler. Instead guests in elaborate gowns and tuxedos discreetly glanced at their phones propped on tables and at the base of flower vases across the star-packed venue. This became apparent when Miguel Rojas hit a game-tying home run at the top of the ninth inning and the whole room erupted in cheers.
Michael Govan, CEO of LACMA, wearing Gucci, speaks onstage during the 2025 LACMA Art+Film Gala.
(Amy Sussman / Getty Images for LACMA)
When Govan returned to the stageto begin the well-deserved tributes to the artist and filmmaker of the hour, the game had been won, the effusive cheering had died down, and the phones had been respectfully put away.
“Go Dodgers!” Govan said, before joking that LACMA had engineered the win for this special evening. The room was juiced.
It made Los Angeles feel like the center of the universe for a few hours and was fitting for an event that famously brings together the city’s twin cultural bedrocks of art and cinema, creating a rarefied space where the two worlds mix and mingle in support of a shared vision of recognizing L.A.’s immeasurable contributions to the global cultural conversation.
“This is a celebration that can only happen in L.A. — where art, film and creativity are deeply intertwined,” Govan said. “I always say this is the most creative place on Earth.”
The event raised a record $6.5 million in support of the museum and its programs. Co-chairs Leonardo DiCaprio and LACMA trustee Eva Chow hosted a cocktail party and dinner that drew celebrities including Dustin Hoffman, Cynthia Erivo, Cindy Crawford, Queen Latifah, Angela Bassett, Lorde, Demi Moore, Hannah Einbinder, Charlie Hunnam and Elle Fanning alongside local elected officials and appointees including U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles); L.A. County Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Lindsey Horvath; L.A. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky; West Hollywood Councilmember John M. Erickson, and Kristin Sakoda, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.
Sakoda said she thoroughly enjoyed the festivities “as representative of the incredibly diverse culture of Los Angeles and how that speaks to our entire nation.”
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1.George Lucas arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday.(Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)2.Elle Fanning arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday.(Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)3.Angela Bassett arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday.(Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)
A special nod of gratitude went to previous gala honorees in attendance including artists Mark Bradford, James Turrell, Catherine Opie, Betye Saar, Judy Baca, George Lucas and Park Chan-Wook. Leaders from many other local arts institutions also showed up including the Hammer Museum’s director, Zoe Ryan; California African American Museum Director Cameron Shaw; and MOCA’s interim Director Ann Goldstein.
Rising in the background was LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries, the 110,000-square-foot Peter Zumthor-designed building scheduled to open in April as the new home for the museum’s 150,000-object permanent collection.
“Every day I’m in that little building behind installing thousands of artworks,” Govan said to cheers. “I can’t wait for people to rediscover our permanent collection, from old favorites to new acquisitions. It’s a monumental gift to L.A., and in addition to L.A. County and the public, I would like to thank the person whose generosity brought us to this landmark moment, Mr. David Geffen.”
Geffen sat in a sea of black ties and glittering gowns, near Disney CEO Bob Iger and DiCaprio — who had been filmed earlier in the week in attendance at Game 5 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium.
Govan also gave a special acknowledgment to former LACMA board co-chair, Elaine Wynn, who died earlier this year and was one of the museum’s most steadfast champions. Wynn contributed $50 million to the new building — one of the first major gifts in support of the effort. Govan noted that the northern half of the building will be named the Elaine Wynn wing.
Honoree Ryan Coogler, wearing Gucci, speaks onstage during the 2025 LACMA Art+Film Gala.
(Amy Sussman / Getty Images for LACMA)
Left unmentioned was the fact that earlier in the week LACMA’s employees announced they are forming a union, LACMA United, representing more than 300 workers from across all departments, including curators, educators, guest relations associates and others. One worker told The Times there were no plans to demonstrate at the gala, which raises much-needed funds for the museum.
The crowd sat rapt as the night’s guests of honor, Corse and Coogler, humbly spoke of their journeys in their respective art forms, with Govan introducing them as “artists whose brilliant groundbreaking work challenges us to see the world differently.”
The night concluded with an enthusiastic performance by Doja Cat on an outdoor stage in the shadow of the David Geffen Galleries, the lights girding its massive concrete underbelly like stars in the sky.
“It was a beautiful evening of community coming together around something that reminds us of our shared humanity at a time when we need it,” said Yaroslavsky with a smile as the evening wound down.
An image created by drones depicting the funerary mask of Tutankhamun lights up the sky above the Grand Egyptian Museum during the opening ceremony in Giza, Egypt, on Saturday. Photo by Mohamed Hossam/EPA
Nov. 1 (UPI) — The Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt, is one of the world’s largest and opened on Saturday after decades of delays and a cost of more than $1 billion.
The 5 million-square-foot museum features exhibits and artifacts ranging across 7,000 years, from prehistory to about 400 A.D., according to CBS News.
It also is the world’s only museum that is dedicated to one culture, which is ancient Egypt.
“It’s a great day for Egypt and for humanity,” Nevine El-Aref told CBS News. “This is Egypt’s gift to the world.”
El-Aref is the media advisor to Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy.
“It’s a dream come true,” El-Aref added. “After all these years, the GEM is finally and officially open,” he said.
The triangular structure is located about a mile from the pyramids of Giza, which makes it a can’t miss for those who want to experience Egyptian antiquities up close with tours of the pyramids and a visit to the museum.
The GEM’s construction initially was budgeted for $500 million, but that price more than doubled over the past three decades amid delays and cost overruns.
Egyptian sources and international contributions covered the building cost.
The museum first was proposed in 1992, but significant events occurred between then and now, including the 2011 “Arab Spring” revolution in Egypt, a military coup d’etat in 2013 and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, delaying its completion, CNN reported.
The GEM’s main entrance features a 53-foot-tall obelisk suspended overhead and is viewable from below via a glass floor.
A grand staircase containing 108 steps enables visitors to access the museum’s main galleries and view large statues from top to bottom.
The GEM has 12 main halls for exhibits and encompasses a combined 194,000 square feet that can hold up to 100,000 items, according to the museum.
The museum also two galleries that are dedicated to the pharaoh Tutankhamun and contain 5,300 pieces from his tomb, NBC News reported.
Those galleries and others will exhibit items that never have been made available for public viewing.
It’s also the first time that all of the young pharaoh’s items have been exhibited under the same roof since British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered King Tut‘s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922.
The museum’s walls and slanted ceilings mimic the lines of the nearby pyramids, but the structure does not exceed them in height.
The museum’s opening prompted the Egyptian government to declare a national holiday on Saturday.
How it ranks with the world’s other iconic museums remains to be seen, but it likely will rank favorably with its unique collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts and other attractions.
Two halls are dedicated to the 5,000 artefacts from the collection of King Tutankhamun.
Published On 1 Nov 20251 Nov 2025
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Cairo is set to open the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum that Egypt hopes will celebrate the nation’s heritage and also revitalise its struggling economy and tourism sector.
According to a statement from the Egyptian presidency, world leaders – including monarchs, and heads of state and government – were expected to attend the grand opening ceremony in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Saturday.
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It described the museum opening as “an exceptional event in the history of human culture and civilisation”.
Massive statues and historical artefacts from the country’s ancient civilisation will be on display across the 24,000 square metres (258,000 square feet) of permanent exhibition space. Two decades in the making, the museum is located near the Giza Pyramids on the edge of Cairo.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi wrote on social media that the museum will bring “together the genius of ancient Egyptians and the creativity of modern Egyptians, enhancing the world culture and art with a new landmark that will attract all those who cherish civilisation and knowledge”.
A general view before the official opening ceremony of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), near the Giza pyramids [Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters]
The museum is one of several megaprojects championed by el-Sisi since he took office in 2014, embarking on massive investments in infrastructure with the aim of reviving an economy weakened by decades of stagnation and battered by the unrest that followed the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.
Preparations for the grand reveal have been shrouded in secrecy. Security around Cairo has been tightened ahead of the opening ceremony, with the government announcing that Saturday would be a public holiday. The museum, which has been open for limited visits over the past few years, was closed for the final two-week preparations.
The government has revamped the area around the museum and the nearby Giza Plateau that holds the pyramids and the Sphinx. Roads were paved and a metro station is being constructed outside the museum gates to improve access. An airport, Sphinx International Airport, has also opened west of Cairo, 40 minutes from the museum.
The $1bn facility had faced multiple delays, with construction beginning in 2005 but interrupted due to political instability.
From the atrium, a grand six-storey staircase lined with ancient statues leads up to the main galleries and a view of the nearby pyramids. A bridge links the museum to the pyramids, allowing tourists to move between them either on foot or via electric vehicles, according to museum officials.
The Great Pyramid of Giza is seen in the distance from the Grand Egyptian Museum [Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters]
The museum’s 12 main galleries, which opened last year, exhibit antiquities spanning from prehistoric times to the Roman era, organised by era and themes.
Two halls are dedicated to the 5,000 artefacts from the collection of King Tutankhamun, which will be displayed in its entirety for the first time since British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered King Tut’s tomb in 1922 in the southern city of Luxor.
The government hopes the museum will draw more tourists who will stay for a while and provide the foreign currency needed to shore up Egypt’s battered economy.
A record number of about 15.7 million tourists visited Egypt in 2024, contributing about 8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to official figures. Egypt, which has needed repeated bailouts to stabilise its economy, uses the foreign currency it collects from tourism to pay for crucial imports such as fuel and wheat.
The government aims to attract 30 million visitors annually by 2032. The museum will be open to the public starting from Tuesday, authorities said.
A MAJOR new museum is opening and it will be the largest archaeology museum in the world.
The Grand Egyptian Museum based in the winter sun spot of Cairo, will officially open to the public this weekend, after a decade of set backs.
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The Grand Egyptian Museum based in Cairo, Egypt will open this weekendCredit: ReutersThe museum has experienced more than a decade of delayed openingsCredit: AFPInside, visitors can learn about ancient Egyptian civilisationCredit: AFP
The new museum traces the history of ancient Egyptian civilisation and cost around $1billion (£761million) to build.
One of the main attractions are the Tutankhamun Galleries, which are home to 5,000 objects that were discovered when the famous pharaoh’s tomb was back in 1922.
Visitors will even be able to see his golden coffin, discovered more than a century ago.
In another wing, visitors will find two of King Khufu’s (the pharaoh who commissioned the construction of the Pyramid of Giza) solar boats, which were found near the Pyramids.
And if you want a glimpse of the pyramids, just look out the building’s sprawling windows.
The galleries are split by eras of Egyptian civilisation and include Predynastic, the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, the Late Kingdom, Ptolemaic Egypt and the Roman Period.
Throughout the museum, there are many interactive features such as pyramid building and papyrus making, and there is a children’s museum too.
According to Time Out, the museum features around 250,000 triangular stone pieces that make up its north facade.
There is then a pyramid-shaped entrance, with gold hieroglyphics.
As you enter, you will then see a huge atrium with an 11 metre tall statue of Ramses II – the pharaoh of Egypt between 1279 and 1213 BCE.
Also in the atrium, is a collection of restaurants and shops.
In total, the museum is the same size as 93 football pitches and once it is fully open, will house over 100,000 artefacts.
After exploring the museum, you can then head to the Pyramids of Giza which are just over a mile away.
Ahmed Youssel, CEO of the Egyptian Tourism Authority, told Time Out: “It’s not a museum, it’s a cultural hub.
“You don’t see history. You live history, you experience history.
This includes seeing 5,000 objects from Tutankhamun’s tombCredit: GettyThe museum also looks out to the Pyramids, which are just over a mile awayCredit: AFP
“That’s the idea. When we build new museums, we have this concept of virtual reality, augmented reality – electronic things everywhere.”
The museum was originally meant to open back in 2013, but it has been delayed several times due to a variety of reasons including politics, regional conflict, budget and the Covid-19 pandemic.
And last year it then opened for its soft launch, ahead of the official opening this weekend.
Tickets to the museum cost £23.36 per adult and £11.76 per child, and they can either be bought in advance online or at the museum.
Cairo has highs of 21C during the winter months, and lows of around 11C.
After more than 20 years under construction, the Grand Egyptian Museum will finally open this weekend, promising more than 50,000 artifacts showing what life was like in ancient Egypt.
Oct. 26 (UPI) — French prosecutors on Sunday announced that arrests had been made in connection with the brazen daylight heist of historic jewels worth more than $100 million from the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Laure Beccuau, the Paris public prosecutor, said in a statement that the office’s anti-gang unit had made the arrests Saturday evening, but did not disclose precisely how many arrests had been made. It previously had been reported that at least four people were believed to have been involved in the heist last Sunday.
Beccuau revealed that one of the men was preparing to flee the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport when he was arrested.
The arrests had first been reported by the French newspaper Le Parisien, citing anonymous sources, before the news was confirmed by Beccuau. The prosecutor lamented that the leak that arrests had been made before authorities were ready to disclose the news.
“I deeply regret the hasty disclosure of this information by informed individuals, without consideration for the investigation,” she said in her statement.
“This revelation can only hinder the investigative efforts of the hundred or so investigators mobilized in the search for both the stolen jewelry and the perpetrators. It is too early to provide any further details.”
Beccuau said that she would provide further information to the public at the end of this phase of police custody.
A representative for the Louvre confirmed to UPI last week that several people broke in through a window in the Galerie d’Apollon, which houses many of France’s royal jewels, around 9:30 a.m. local time after the museum had already opened its doors to the public.
The thieves had posed as workers in yellow vests and used a hoist truck to break into a second-floor window of the Galerie d’Apollon and cut through the glass display cases to snatch the jewels before dashing away on motorcycles along the A6 motorway.
The theft set off alarms on the gallery’s exterior window and display cases, and museum workers present in the gallery during the theft quickly notified police, but the thieves escaped with the jewels in less than seven minutes.
Interpol later added the jewels to its Stolen Works of Art database, an international registry of cultural property stolen worldwide to aid in their recovery, the art news publication Urgent Matter reported.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez praised investigators for working tirelessly to find the men who stole the jewels.
“The investigations must continue while respecting the confidentiality of the inquiry under the authority of the specialized interregional jurisdiction of Parquet de Paris,” he said.
The heist has heightened scrutiny of security flaws faced by French institutions.
And French authorities announced that a Chinese woman had been charged in connection with the September theft of gold nuggets from the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.
AI is driving the stock market to record highs, dominating countless debates about the value of human labor, and radically rewiring the way schools approach education. It’s also causing a stir in the art world, with media artist Refik Anadol poised to open Dataland, the world’s first museum of AI arts, inside the Frank Gehry-designed Grand L.A. complex in downtown Los Angeles next spring.
A first-look at the Infinity Room gallery at Dataland.
(Dataland)
The 25,000-square-foot museum was originally scheduled to open this year, but Anadol announced Thursday that the opening has been pushed back to spring 2026. Anadol also unveiled a sneak peak at the Infinity Room, one of the museum’s five discrete galleries. The immersive room features Anadol’s distinct swirling colors and images and will be infused with AI-generated scents, creating a multisensory experience powered by its very own AI model, called the Large Nature Model.
The Infinity Room design dates back to 2014 when Anadol created his first immersive data sculpture at UCLA. He described it as an exploration into the future of the Light and Space movement. It was essentially a 12-by-12-foot cube, with mirrored walls, ceiling and floors. Projectors emitted pulses of black-and-white imagery that used data as a pigment. To date, the Infinity Room has toured 35 cities and been viewed by more than 10 million people.
Another look at the Infinity Room, which has been viewed by 10 million people on tour.
(Dataland)
“The work emerged from my exploration of the idea that information can become a narrative material capable of transforming architectural space into a living canvas. The question driving me was simple but profound: What happens if there is no corner, no floor, no ceiling, no gravity?” Anadol wrote about his concept for the Infinity Room in a blog post on his website. “At DATALAND, Infinity Room enters a new era. This iteration embodies the technical and conceptual leaps our studio has made over the past decade. Where the original used generative algorithms, this new incarnation incorporates our decade-long research into what I call “machine hallucinations” — the dreamlike, surreal realities an AI can generate from vast datasets.”
The Infinity Room is meant to be a multisensory experience.
(Dataland)
In an interview last year, Anadol said “ethical AI” is essential to his practice. Unlike most large AI models, Anadol secured permission to use all of his sourced material, and said all of the studio’s AI research was performed on Google servers in Oregon that use only renewable energy.
Thieves have stolen priceless jewels from the Louvre in a brazen heist that only took minutes, according to the French government. The suspects are believed to have escaped on scooters while the world’s most visited museum was forced to close for the day.
An extendable ladder used by thieves to access one of the upper floors of the museum is seen during the investigation at the southeast corner of the Louvre Museum on Quai Francois-Mitterrand, on the banks of the River Seine, after a robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday. Photo by Mohammed Badra/EPA
Oct. 19 (UPI) — A group of thieves broke into the Louvre Museum on Sunday morning and stole priceless jewels before fleeing on motorcycles, the famed institution confirmed to UPI.
A representative for the Louvre said that several people broke in through a window in the Apollo Gallery, which houses many of France’s royal jewels, around 9:30 a.m. local time after the museum had already opened its doors to the public.
Inside, the thieves stole jewelry from their display cases. French media later reported that they made off with seven jewels owned by Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais.
“An investigation has begun, and a detailed list of the stolen items is being compiled,” museum officials said in a statement. “Beyond their market value, these items have inestimable heritage and historical value.”
After the theft, the museum was evacuated “without incident” and no injuries were reported among the public, museum staff or law enforcement, the representative said.
The museum shared on social media that it would be closed Sunday for “exceptional reasons.”
“At the Louvre Museum this morning to commend the exemplary commitment of the staff mobilized following the theft,” Culture Minister Rachida Datishared on social media after visiting the site.
“Respect for their responsiveness and professionalism. Together with President Emmanuel Macron, we extend our sincere thanks to them.”
Dati told French TV channel TF1 on Sunday that one of the jewels was later found and that the entire heist lasted only four minutes. She called the thieves “professionals.”
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Sunday that “everything is being done” to find the thieves.
“The mobilization of investigators will be total, under the authority of the Parquet de Paris,” Nuñez said. The Parquet de Paris is the public prosecution office in the French capital. “Attacking the Louvre is attacking our history and our heritage.”
The news comes just days after the Louvre announced that two 18th-century snuff boxes that were stolen during a violent armed robbery in 2024 while they were on loan to the Cognacq-Jay Museum have been found and returned.
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures held its fifth annual star-studded fundraising gala Saturday at its Wilshire Boulevard campus.
An unrecognizable Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez, Demi Moore and Elle and Dakota Fanning were among the celebrity guests at the event, which debuted in 2021 upon the film museum’s long-awaited opening. The gala raises funds for museum exhibitions, education initiatives and public programming.
The Academy Museum collected more than $11 million in donations at last year’s gala, which honored Quentin Tarantino, Paul Mescal and Rita Moreno.
This year’s gala honorees included actor Penélope Cruz, director Walter Salles, comedian Bowen Yang and musician Bruce Springsteen, who was presented with the inaugural Legacy Award and performed live at the ceremony. A biopic about the rock legend, starring “The Bear’s” Jeremy Allen White, hits theaters Oct. 24.
Springsteen and Cruz, the recipient of this year’s Icon Award, are both Academy Award winners, the former for his original song “Streets of Philadelphia” — which he wrote for Tom Hanks’ 1993 legal drama “Philadelphia” — and the latter for her role in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (2008).
Salles, presented with the Luminary Award for innovative filmmaking, last year gave Brazil its first Academy Award for international film with his moving family drama “I’m Still Here.” Fernanda Torres was also nominated for her role as the Paiva family matriarch in the 2024 movie.
Yang received the Vantage Award, “honoring an artist or scholar who has helped to contextualize and challenge dominant narratives around cinema.” The “SNL” darling and “Las Culturistas” podcast host will return as Glinda’s sidekick Pfannee in “Wicked: For Good,” hitting theaters Nov. 21.
Gala attendees spared no expense with their donations or their ensembles, with Jenna Ortega wearing a futuristic Grace Ling halter top, Rachel Zegler channeling Old Hollywood in Tamara Ralph Couture, Olivia Rodrigo sporting vintage Giorgio Armani Privé and Eva Longoria rocking Elie Saab.
Here are the best looks, captured by Times photographer Eric Thayer.
MEXICO CITY — Amid the constant blare of car horns in southern Mexico City, it’s hard to imagine that Cuicuilco was once the heart of a thriving ancient civilization. Yet atop its circular pyramid, now surrounded by buildings and a shopping center, a pre-Hispanic fire god was revered.
“This is incredible,” said Evangelina Báez, who spent a recent morning at Cuicuilco with her daughters. “In the midst of so much urbanization, there’s still this haven of peace.”
Her visit was part of a monthly tour program crafted by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, known by its Spanish initials as INAH.
Aside from overseeing Mexico’s archaeological sites and museums, the institute safeguards the country’s cultural heritage, including restoring damaged monuments and artworks as well as reviewing construction projects to ensure they don’t harm archaeological remains.
Its historians and archaeologists also lead excursions like the one in Cuicuilco. Each academic expert picks a location, proposes a walking itinerary to the INAH and, once approved, it’s offered to the public for about 260 pesos ($15).
“I joined these tours with the intention of sharing our living heritage,” said archaeologist Denisse Gómez after greeting guests in Cuicuilco. “Our content is always up to date.”
According to Mónica de Alba, who oversees the tours, the INAH excursions date to 1957, when an archaeologist decided to share the institute’s research with colleagues and students.
“People are beginning to realize how much the city has to offer,” said De Alba, explaining that the INAH offers around 130 tours per year in downtown Mexico City alone. “There are even travel agents who pretend to be participants to copy our routes.”
María Luisa Maya, 77, often joins these tours as a solo visitor. Her favorite so far was one to an archaeological site in Guerrero, a southern Mexican state along the Pacific coast.
“I’ve been doing this for about eight years,” she said. “But that’s nothing. I’ve met people who have come for 20 or 25.”
Traces of a lost city
Cuicuilco means “the place where songs and dances are made” in the Nahua language.
Still, the precise name of its people is unknown, given that the city’s splendor dates back to the pre-Classic era from 400 to 200 B.C. and few clues are left to dig deeper into its history.
“The Nahuas gave them that name, which reveals that this area was never forgotten,” said archaeologist Pablo Martínez, who co-led the visit with Gómez. “It was always remembered, and even after its decline, the Teotihuacan people came here to make offerings.”
The archaeological site is a quiet corner nestled between two of Mexico City’s busiest avenues. Yet according to Martínez, the settlements went far beyond the vicinity and Cuicuilco’s population reached 40,000.
“What we see today is just a small part of the city,” he said. “Merely its pyramidal base.”
Now covered in grass and resembling a truncated cone, the pyramid was used for ritual purposes. The details of the ceremonies are unknown, but female figurines preserved at the site’s museum suggest that offerings were related to fertility.
“We think they offered perishable objects such as corn, flowers and seeds,” Gómez said. “They were feeding the gods.”
Echoes of living heritage
According to official records, Mexico’s most visited archaeological sites are Teotihuacán and Chichén Itzá. The first is a pre-Aztec city northeast of the capital known for its monumental Sun and Moon pyramids. The latter is a major Mayan site in the Southeast famed for its 12th-century Temple of Kukulkán.
The INAH oversees both. But its tours focus on shedding light on Mexico’s hidden gems.
During an excursion preceding Cuicuilco’s, visitors walked through a neighborhood in Ecatepec, on the outskirts of Mexico City, where open-air markets, street food and religious festivals keep local traditions alive. A few days prior, another tour focused on La Merced market, where flowers, prayers and music filled the aisles during the feast of Our Lady of Mercy.
October’s schedule takes into account Day of the Dead traditions. But tours will feature a variety of places like Xochimilco, where visitors can take a moonlit boat tour through its canals and chinampas, and Templo Mayor, the Aztec empire’s main religious and social center in ancient Tenochtitlán.
“These tours allow the general public to get closer to societies that are distant in time and space,” said historian Jesús López del Río, who will lead an upcoming tour on human sacrifices to deities in Mesoamérica.
“Approaching the pre-Hispanic past is not only about how the Maya used zero in their calculations or how the Mexica built a city on a lake,” he added. “It’s about understanding how those societies worked — their way of seeing and relating to the world.”
“The fame of the museum is spreading far and wide, and people are coming from all over the United States,” says the award-winning comedian and museum founder
In 2022, the iconic L.A. comedian Cheech Marin opened an art museum with the hope of inspiring a Chicano art renaissance.
“I looked around and said, ‘This could be the next big art town’ — because the foundations were already there,” Marin told De Los. “There was this kind of nebulous underground here, but [they’ll] reach officialdom when they have their museum.”
Known colloquially as the Cheech, the museum is widely considered the only space in the nation that exclusively showcases Chicano art. It’s located in Riverside, a majority-Latino city which is also within one of the largest Latino-populated counties in the country.
In its first two years, the space attracted over 200,000 visitors, according to an independent study commissioned by the city, with around 90% of attendees coming from outside the Inland Empire. The study also found that the Cheech brought around $29 million into the city’s local economy in that time frame.
“We were recognized as one of the top 50 shows in the world,” Marin said. “The fame of the museum is spreading far and wide, and people are coming from all over the United States.”
While the Cheech grew in nationwide prominence, its artistic director, María Esther Fernández, explained that the museum’s team also worked to fulfill Marin’s goal by taking advantage of its rapid success.
In the last three years, the center has become a hub and vital resource for many of the region’s Chicano artists. It has done this by creating opportunities to network with high-profile individuals, hosting recurring professional development workshops and regularly contracting emerging creatives for different design projects.
Drew Oberjuerge, the center’s former executive director, added that the museum has invested in the region’s economy by hiring locals to help prepare artwork for installation while also paying musicians and other contractors to work throughout their events.
Cheech Marin photographed in the Riverside Art Museum for the unveiling of the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture (a.k.a. “The Cheech”) in 2022.
(Gustavo Soriano / For The Times)
Most important for these artists, however, is the space that the Cheech has designated to put their art front and center.
“What we’ve been really lucky to leverage is the visibility of the Cheech,” Fernández said. “We’ve been really dedicated, since we opened, to featuring artists that are emerging or some that are even mid-career in the community gallery.”
Some of the creatives, who have collaborated with the Cheech within the community gallery since it first opened, say the center’s efforts have legitimized their career paths and created new opportunities to help pursue their dreams.
The gallery is located next to the museum’s entrance and is only a fraction of the space given to the other exhibits within the 61,420-square-foot museum — and it feels like being in a waiting room in comparison to the rest of the center too. Yet, on only four small walls, the artists featured in the area have put on powerful exhibitions that tell the region’s story while also making art on par with Marin’s collection.
This includes shows like “Desde los Cielos,” which was co-curated by Perry Picasshoe and Emmanuel Camacho Larios, and looked into the concept of alienness — as well as Cosme Córdova’s “Reflections of Our Stories,” which emphasized a cultural connection between Inland Empire artists, despite the use of vastly different mediums.
Perry Picasshoe stands outside the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture as part of a performance piece in Riverside on July 3, 2025.
(Daniel Hernandez)
In total, the Cheech has held at least seven different exhibitions that showcased artists from across the Inland Empire — at times, catching Marin’s connoisseur eyes.
“I bought a couple of pieces from different artists because they are of that quality,” Marin said. “It’s great to be encouraging local talent as well as recognizing a larger picture that they are a part of, or going to become a part of [the Cheech].”
According to the Cheech’s spokesperson, Marin has purchased three works from Inland Empire-based artist Denise Silva after they curated an exhibition named “Indigenous Futurism” within the gallery. Another piece, created by artist Rosy Cortez, who has been featured in several exhibitions, was purchased by an anonymous donor and added to the center’s permanent collection.
“We’ve also begun to implement an artist fee for artists who are participating in the exhibitions,” Fernández said, adding that her team has assisted in the transportation of larger works of art as well. “Participating in exhibitions can be cost-prohibitive for artists, and so it’s something we’re trying to mitigate in our practices.”
Their most recent exhibition within the community gallery, called “Hecho en Park Avenue,” has been one of their most successful showings, with over 1,300 community members attending its opening earlier this year.
The exhibition’s co-curator, Juan Navarro, explained that the show culminated years of work within Riverside’s Eastside neighborhood. He, along with other Chicano artists, has been creating art within the Latino-dominant community since 2021.
Then, when the Cheech asked them to curate a show, Navarro felt it was the perfect chance to tell the stories of the Eastside’s locals. The response to the final product was more than Navarro could have ever imagined.
“The community showed out: from intellectuals from UC Riverside, from local government, to state government showed up, to the gang members,” Navarro said. He also noted the emotional weight of being recognized for his art, while surrounded by the work of Chicano artists who waited decades for their own to be recognized.
“Seeing this big, broad community and seeing that our show met the need for a diverse audience… It was meaningful to a lot of people, that’s what I cared about.”
The show’s other co-curator, Michelle Espino, also expressed gratitude for the chance to tell the Eastside’s story at the Cheech. Besides being one of its featured artists, Espino worked on many of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the “Hecho en Park Avenue” exhibition.
It was also a full-circle moment for her; years prior, Espino had written about Fernández’s work for a Chicano art history class. This year, she met with Fernández to ask for advice and to finalize plans for the exhibit.
“It [validated] that I do want to continue with this,” Espino said. “She is literally the person I look up to.”
On top of Espino’s one-on-one meetings with the artistic director, she has also enrolled in a few professional development workshops hosted by the center, most recently taking a class that taught both the art of portraiture and poetry. The Cheech regularly partners with a nonprofit organization named the Riverside Arts Council to host professional development classes.
“If we had these resources when I was younger, my trajectory could have probably been a little bit different,” Espino said.
Marin, in his lifelong quest to collect works for his private collection, has seen how Chicano artists have grown their communities in their respective cities. It starts with painters sharing their works with each other through smaller shows, he said, which builds excitement and increases participation. He likened it to a biological process, where each generation builds upon the growth of the previous iteration.
That process is starting in the Inland Empire now, he added.
“We are a part of this big American picture,” Marin said. “And there’s nothing more official that you can do besides having your own museum.”
NEW YORK — Scientists have identified the origins of the blue color in one of Jackson Pollock’s paintings with a little help from chemistry, confirming for the first time that the Abstract Expressionist used a vibrant, synthetic pigment known as manganese blue.
“Number 1A, 1948,” showcases Pollock’s classic style: paint has been dripped and splattered across the canvas, creating a vivid, multicolored work. Pollock even gave the piece a personal touch, adding his handprints near the top.
The painting, currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is almost 9 feet wide. Scientists had previously characterized the reds and yellows splattered across the canvas, but the source of the rich turquoise blue proved elusive.
In a new study, researchers took scrapings of the blue paint and used lasers to scatter light and measure how the paint’s molecules vibrated. That gave them a unique chemical fingerprint for the color, which they pinpointed as manganese blue.
The analysis, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first confirmed evidence of Pollock using this specific blue.
“It’s really interesting to understand where some striking color comes from on a molecular level,” said study co-author Edward Solomon with Stanford University.
The pigment manganese blue was once used by artists, as well as to color the cement for swimming pools. It was phased out by the 1990s because of environmental concerns.
Previous research had suggested that the turquoise from the painting could indeed be this color, but the new study confirms it using samples from the canvas, said Rutgers University’s Gene Hall, who has studied Pollock’s paintings and was not involved with the discovery.
“I’m pretty convinced that it could be manganese blue,” Hall said.
The researchers also went one step further, inspecting the pigment’s chemical structure to understand how it produces such a vibrant shade.
Scientists study the chemical makeup of art supplies to conserve old paintings and catch counterfeits. They can take more specific samples from Pollock’s paintings since he often poured directly onto the canvas instead of mixing paints on a palette beforehand.
To solve this artistic mystery, researchers explored the paint using various scientific tools — similarly to how Pollock would alternate his own methods, dripping paint using a stick or straight from the can.
While the artist’s work may seem chaotic, Pollock rejected that interpretation. He saw his work as methodical, said study co-author Abed Haddad, an assistant conservation scientist at the Museum of Modern Art.
“I actually see a lot of similarities between the way that we worked and the way that Jackson Pollock worked on the painting,” Haddad said.
About 20 of us are huddled in a patch of shade, beneath a cluster of palm trees, in a sleepy Culver City garden. Paired up, we face our partners, cup our hands behind our ears and let out loud, primal noises. And we laugh.
We’re participating in a “tuning exercise” led by the performing arts group Cantilever Collective. It’s part of a movement workshop meant to facilitate connection between individuals and help regulate our central nervous systems so as to release stress and promote a sense of overall well-being.
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Where are we, exactly? At one of Los Angeles’ newest and most robust wellness hubs — held, perhaps counterintuitively, inside the Wende Museum of the Cold War. The Culver City museum, which opened its doors in 2017, debuted its Glorya Kaufman Community Center last weekend, a 7,500-square-foot space for cultural programming and wellness activities. The three-story, modernist concrete building, which sits across the sculpture garden from the museum’s exhibition hall, was made possible with funding from the late philanthropist Glorya Kaufman, who passed away in August. Her foundation provided the lead gift toward the $17-million new building and committed $6 million toward programming.
The new community center includes a 150-seat theater inside a refurbished, century-old A-frame structure, an old MGM prop house. It will host all the expected cultural programming such as screenings, live talks and dance performances, among other events. But it will also offer yoga classes, guided meditations, sound baths, dance and movement classe, and healing writing workshops for L.A. wildfire victims, as well as herb and incense-making workshops and matcha tea-making classes.
Most notably? All of these wellness activities are free to the public. The center will also offer about 100 hours of free therapy a year, with licensed psychologists, as well as life-coaching sessions.
The modernist concrete building evokes Cold War–era architecture.
The Wende is quickly becoming “the living room of Culver City,” as visitor Lisette Palley, 74, describes it. She attends meditations at the community center, which soft-launched in January, weekly. “This place, it has an ease about it, an openness, a generosity that you don’t find everywhere you go,” Palley says.
Increasingly, museums and art galleries have been adding wellness activities to event calendars. The Hammer Museum has long held weekly mindfulness meditations on its campus, the Huntington regularly holds forest bathing and tai chi workshops and the J. Paul Getty Museum’s education department offers a “Wellness Day for Educators” at the Getty Center that includes yoga, a sound bath and guided mindfulness — to name a few. But typically, such wellness events are the programming exception at museums, and often they’re in conversation with an exhibition on view. The Glorya Kaufman Community Center at the Wende will host wellness activities nearly every day of the week, with “Wellness Wednesdays” being especially robust.
“There’s an affordability crisis in this country right now, and the things we’re providing are human rights,” says Wende founder and executive director Justin Jampol. “This museum — art — has always been sustenance for your soul. Now it’s sustenance for your mind and body. We realize we can’t inspire people if they’re hungry or sick. We have to tend to the whole person.”
Earlier in the day, about 50 visitors enjoyed a mindfulness meditation in the A-frame theater led by Christiane Wolf, a former physician turned meditation teacher. Wolfe encouraged the crowd to “just be … lean on the strength of community.”
Light bites are served in the courtyard. Soon, the center will debut its new Konsum Cafe.
Afterward, guests mingled in the courtyard over borscht and Russian tea made from fermented fireweed, honey and pine bud, among other offerings. A soon-to-debut Konsum Cafe will serve freshly baked bread from Clark Street, specialty coffees and teas, and a rotating menu of homemade soups from regions around the world that relate to its exhibition programming (first up: borscht, Hungarian goulash and Vietnamese pho). All of the food and drink in the cafe will also be free.
“We’re hardwired to come together as communities, and if we’re sharing food, it’s very regulating for our nervous systems,” Wolf says. “It creates a sense of safety.”
Early on, there were some concerns that people would balk at a Cold War history museum entering the wellness space. But Jampol says it actually makes sense paired with the collection.
“This place, it’s become this subversive museum,” he says. “First, because of the collections — they’re so much about dissonant movements and revolutions — and because it documents and celebrates the human spirit. Even in the face of totalitarian authority and oppression and restrictions, the human spirit has a way of fighting back; the human spirit always finds a way.”
Considering the federal government’s slashing of funding for the arts and public health programs in U.S., the community center is even more relevant now, Jampol says.
A portrait of the late Glorya Kaufman by artist Boris Vansier hangs inside the center.
“The things that get cut first are the things people need most: self-care, eating right, having opportunities for art and culture, going to the theater — those are stress relievers,” he says. “So the idea is to try and address that here in our own small way.”
Kaufman, who died at 95, was a transformative dance world philanthropist in L.A. She established the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, as well as the Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center. At the Wende, she did more than just fund the new center — it was her idea in the first place. She regularly attended music programs and dance events at the Wende, starting not long after its opening. Back then, museum staffers would move chairs and art around to make space for public events. One day in 2019, Kaufman told Jampol, “This is ridiculous. You can’t have heads poking around a statue; this is super weird,” he recalls. They began hatching plans to create a new space for events.
Kaufman and Jampol felt the COVID pandemic only heightened the need for health and wellness programming. The new building broke ground in 2022, designed by AUX Architecture (which designed the Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services). Other lead donors include the Ahmanson Foundation, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and the Rose Hills Foundation. Culver City donated the plot of land. Wellness activities debuted in the nearby sculpture garden even as construction was underway.
Visitors weren’t deterred by the construction cacophony. Event attendance has more than doubled since last year, Jampol says: about 15,000 program attendees in 2024 compared with about 32,000 so far in 2025.
The theater, with its restored slow-growth Douglas fir, is the crown jewel of the new building. It has a retractable seating system so it can morph into a space with room for a dance floor or sound baths. Practitioners can select the type of event they’ll be leading on a digital keypad and the room will automatically reconfigure itself. Hit “screening” and the lights dim in the audience and a screen drops down, for example. Select “dance hall” and disco lights swirl around the room.
A concrete fountain in the sculpture garden.
On a recent Wellness Wednesday, free snacks included borscht and bread.
Guests mingle in the Wende’s sculpture garden, a space for community connection.
The Wende’s wellness vision also includes a 4,000-square-foot Zen-inspired mediation garden, created by designer Michael Boyd, a scholar of postwar gardens and Midcentury Modern architecture. It features a decomposed granite ground surface studded with river stones and succulents, and is filled with the sounds of crickets and a rushing stream, digitally piped in. The museum is also turning about 200 feet of a median strip along Culver Boulevard into an “herb and incense garden” that will serve the cafe and upcoming incense-making workshops.
Much of the programming will be internally curated and the museum will pay its practitioners (those events will still be free to the public). Other programming will be “community curated.” Meaning, the Wende will make its center available, for free, to any wellness practitioner in L.A. who wants to hold an event there. The only caveat? Their event must be free to the public.
Kaufman may not be able to attend any of these events, but her presence is deeply felt. A portrait of the late philanthropist, by Russian-born, Swiss artist Boris Vansier, hangs by the entrance to the theater.
Participants enjoy a movement workshop with Cantilever Collective at the new Glorya Kaufman Community Center.
Surveying the new building, as Wellness Wednesday attendees stream in and out of it, Jampol appears certain of the museum’s mission and role in the city.
“It’s about these moments of joy and happiness and togetherness amidst awfulness,” he says. “Having these kinds of oases in our lives is so important. There’s a certain tranquility in being in beautiful spaces and being present and being in community with one another. In a way, that is the ultimate purpose of museums.”
WASHINGTON — Former President Biden has decided to build his presidential library in Delaware and has tapped a group of former aides, friends and political allies to begin the heavy lift of fundraising and finding a site for the museum and archive.
The Joe and Jill Biden Foundation this past week approved a 13-person governance board that is charged with steering the project. The board includes former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, longtime adviser Steve Ricchetti, prolific Democratic fundraiser Rufus Gifford and others with deep ties to the one-term president and his wife.
Biden’s library team has the daunting task of raising money for the 46th president’s legacy project at a moment when his party has become fragmented about the way ahead and many big Democratic donors have stopped writing checks.
It also remains to be seen whether corporations and institutional donors that have historically donated to presidential library projects — regardless of the party of the former president — will be more hesitant to contribute, with President Trump maligning Biden on a daily basis and savaging groups he deems left-leaning.
The political climate has changed
“There’s certainly folks — folks who may have been not thinking about those kinds of issues who are starting to think about them,” Gifford, who was named chairman of the library board, told The Associated Press. “That being said … we’re not going to create a budget, we’re not going to set a goal for ourselves that we don’t believe we can hit.”
The cost of presidential libraries has soared over the decades.
The George H.W. Bush library’s construction cost came in at about $43 million when it opened in 1997. Bill Clinton’s cost about $165 million. George W. Bush’s team met its $500 million fundraising goal before the library was dedicated.
The Obama Foundation has set a whopping $1.6 billion fundraising goal for construction, sustaining global programming and seeding an endowment for the Chicago presidential center that is slated to open next year.
Biden’s library team is still in the early stages of planning, but Gifford predicted that the cost of the project would probably “end up somewhere in the middle” of the Obama Presidential Center and the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
Biden advisers have met with officials operating 12 of the 13 presidential libraries with a bricks and mortar presence that the National Archives and Records Administration manages. (They skipped the Herbert Hoover library in Iowa, which is closed for renovations.) They’ve also met Obama library officials to discuss programming and location considerations and have begun talks with Delaware leaders to assess potential partnerships.
Private money builds them
Construction and support for programming for the libraries are paid for with private funds donated to the nonprofit organizations established by the former president.
The initial vision is for the Biden library to include an immersive museum detailing Biden’s four years in office.
The Bidens also want it to be a hub for leadership, service and civic engagement that will include educational and event space to host policy gatherings.
Biden, who ended his bid for a second White House term 107 days before last year’s election, has been relatively slow to move on presidential library planning compared with most of his recent predecessors.
Clinton announced Little Rock, Arkansas, would host his library weeks into his second term. Barack Obama selected Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side as the site for his presidential center before he left office, and George W. Bush selected Southern Methodist University in Dallas before finishing his second term.
One-termer George H.W. Bush announced in 1991, more than a year before he would lose his reelection bid, that he would establish his presidential library at Texas A&M University after he left office.
Trump taps legal settlements for his
Trump was mostly quiet about plans for a presidential library after losing to Biden in 2020 and has remained so since his return to the White House this year. But the Republican has won millions of dollars in lawsuits against Paramount Global, ABC News, Meta and X in which parts of those settlements are directed for a future Trump library.
Trump has also accepted a free Air Force One replacement from the Qatar government. He says the $400 million plane would be donated to his future presidential library, similar to how the Boeing 707 used by President Ronald Reagan was decommissioned and put on display as a museum piece, once he leaves office.
Others named to Biden’s library board are former senior White House aides Elizabeth Alexander, Julissa Reynoso Pantaleón and Cedric Richmond; David Cohen, a former ambassador to Canada and telecom executive; Tatiana Brandt Copeland, a Delaware philanthropist; Jeff Peck, Biden Foundation treasurer and former Senate aide; Fred C. Sears II, Biden’s longtime friend; former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh; former Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young; and former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell.
Biden has deep ties to Pennsylvania but ultimately settled on Delaware, the state that was the launching pad for his political career. He was first elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and spent 36 years representing Delaware in the Senate before serving as Obama’s vice president.
The president was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he lived until age 10. He left when his father, struggling to make ends meet, moved the family to Delaware after landing a job there selling cars.
Working-class Scranton became a touchstone in Biden’s political narrative during his long political career. He also served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania after his vice presidency, leading a center on diplomacy and global engagement at the school named after him.
Gifford said ultimately the Bidens felt that Delaware was where the library should be because the state has “propelled his entire political career.”
Elected officials in Delaware are cheering Biden’s move.
“To Delaware, he will always be our favorite son,” Gov. Matt Meyer said. “The new presidential library here in Delaware will give future generations the chance to see his story of resilience, family, and never forgetting your roots.”
Holocaust Museum LA says the post was misinterpreted as a ‘political statement’ and promises to ‘do better’.
A Holocaust museum in Los Angeles is facing backlash after deleting an Instagram post that suggested the phrase “never again” should apply to all people – not just Jews.
The post, shared with Holocaust Museum LA’s 24,200 Instagram followers, read: “Never again can’t only mean never again for Jews.” The slogan “never again”, long associated with Holocaust remembrance, is also invoked more broadly as a pledge to prevent future genocides.
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The Instagram message was initially praised online and interpreted by some as an acknowledgment of Palestinian suffering amid Israel’s war on Gaza, which numerous United Nations experts, scholars and rights groups have described as a genocide.
It was later deleted and replaced with a statement on Saturday saying the post had been misinterpreted.
“We recently posted an item on social media that was part of a pre-planned campaign intended to promote inclusivity and community that was easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East. That was not our intent,” it said.
Holocaust Museum LA also promised to “do better” and to “ensure that posts in the future are more thoughtfully designed and thoroughly vetted”.
The museum, which is currently closed for construction until June 2026, quickly faced criticism online after journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News reposted a screenshot of the deleted message, writing: “Speechless. No words for this.”
Yasmine Taeb, a human rights lawyer and progressive strategist, called the museum’s move “absolutely disgusting”, saying that the museum is “cowering under pressure” from pro-Israel voices.
“Countless genocide scholars and human rights organisations have confirmed what Israel is doing in Gaza is textbook definition of genocide,” Taeb told Al Jazeera.
“It’s appalling that a museum established for the purpose of educating the public about genocide and the Holocaust not only refuses to acknowledge the reality of Israel’s actions in Gaza, but [is] removing a social media post that merely stated that ‘never again’ is not intended for just Jews, in order for it to not be interpreted as a response to the genocide in Gaza.”
The original now-deleted post did not mention Gaza, but it faced a barrage of pro-Israel comments expressing disapproval, including some that called on donors to stop funding the institution.
By deleting the post and issuing the subsequent statement, the museum sparked accusations of backtracking on a universal anti-genocide principle.
“We live in a world where the Holocaust Museum has to aploogise and retract for simply appearing to sympathise with Palestinians,” Palestinian American activist and comedian Amer Zahr told Al Jazeera.
“If that does not illustrate the historic dehumanisation that Arab Americans have had to live with, I don’t know what does.”
Assal Rad, a researcher with the Arab Center Washington DC, called the controversy “unbelievable”.
“Palestinians are so dehumanized that they’re excluded from ‘never again,’ apparently their genocide is the exception,” Rad wrote on X.
Political commentator Hasan Piker also slammed the museum’s decision. “A real shame that even a tepid general anti-genocide statement was met with unimaginable resistance from Israel supporters,” he wrote in a social media post.
The Holocaust Museum LA did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
Director Ryan Coogler and artist Mary Corse will be honored at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 14th annual Art+Film Gala, the museum announced Sunday.
The splashy, high-fashion dinner is co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio, and is scheduled to take place on Nov. 1. It will be the last such event to occur before the museum opens its new Peter Zumthor-designed building next spring.
Los Angeles is uniquely suited for the gala, which seeks to highlight and strengthen the connections between film and visual art by bringing the two communities together in grand style. Last year’s honorees were Baz Luhrmann and Simone Leigh, and per usual, a host of celebrity guests attended the party including Blake Lively, Kim Kardashian, Laura Dern, Viola Davis, Andrew Garfield and Sarah Paulson. Charli XCX closed out the night with a banger.
LACMA Director and Chief Executive Michael Govan called last year’s event, which raised $6.4 million, its most successful ever. Proceeds go toward LACMA’s mission of making film more central to its programming, as well as toward funding exhibitions, acquisitions and educational programming.
Mary Corse will be honored at LACMA’s Art + Film gala.
(Indah Datou)
Other previous honorees include artists Helen Pashgian, Betye Saar, Catherine Opie, Mark Bradford, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Barbara Kruger, David Hockney, Ed Ruscha and John Baldessari. On the film side there has been Park Chan-wook, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, George Lucas, Kathryn Bigelow, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick and Clint Eastwood.
Coogler — who directed “Black Panther,” “Creed” and “Fruitvale Station” — is having a stellar year. His gory Southern-vampire horror film “Sinners,” which was released in mid-April, has been a massive hit. The film, which had a budget of $90 million, grossed $48 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend, and has gone on to gross more than $365 million worldwide.
Topanga-based painter Mary Corse is known for her connection to Southern California’s Light and Space movement, but her career has been defined by her willingness to experiment with form and various materials, including ceramics and acrylic on canvas. Corse devoted much of her life to her “White Light” series, which involves layering tiny glass beads — called microspheres — over white acrylic paint for a constantly shifting, reflective effect.
“Mary Corse has continually expanded the possibilities of painting in her exquisite works, which invite us to think deeply about the nature of perception,” said Govan in a statement. “Ryan Coogler’s films do something equally transformative. Through masterful storytelling and visual innovation, he reframes history, redefines narratives and opens new worlds of possibility.”
