Art rarely carries a public health warning even when the likes of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin try to push the boundaries of taste.

However, the casualties have been mounting up at Tate Modern in London, where 15 people were hurt viewing Shibboleth 2007in the first four weeks after its opening.

Beginning as a crack, Shibbolethwidens and deepens as it snakes across the gallery’s Turbine Hall, until in some places it is large enough for a toddler to fall into. Staff have been detailed to monitor visitors wandering around the hall, but a Freedom of Information request by The Times has revealed that their efforts have not been entirely successful.

Read full article (Times, November 26, 2007)

Museum director Amira Edan gives US Army Lt Col Kenneth Crawford, commander of the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, a tour of the galleries. Photo: Sgt First Class Kap Kim, USA

Nearly five years after the museum was ransacked, two main galleries should go on view this month; funding has come from Italy.

The National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad is due to reopen at the end of December, nearly five years after the looting. Italian officials assisting the Iraqis told The Art Newspaper that work on two main galleries has now been completed. “Barring any last minute security emergencies, the museum will reopen in December,” says Roberto Parapetti, of the Turin-based Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi.

The two galleries which are set to reopen, with Assyrian and Islamic antiquities, contain large and almost immovable objects. This means that the security risks are lower than with smaller items in glass cases. The rooms are on the ground floor, near the main entrance, and lie on either side of the central courtyard.

Read full article (The Art Newspaper, November 25, 2007)
The Iraq Museum
The Iraq Museum on Wikipedia
Read Iraq and ruin (Guardian, May 2, 2003)