The Iraqi National Museum has reclaimed 701 artefacts that were stolen during looting in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The news was covered by media from around the world:

Stolen treasures returned to Iraq’s museum (People’s Daily Online, 29 Apr 2008)

Treasures returned to Iraq museum (Kazinform, 28 Apr 2008)

Stolen treasures returned to Iraq’s museum (Sydney Morning Herald, 28 Apr 2008)

Iraqi museum receives 701 artifacts stolen during looting (Aljazeera.com, 27 Apr 2008)

Treasures returned to Iraq museum (BBC, 27 Apr 2008)

Iraqi National Museum receives 701 artifacts stolen in wake of Saddam Hussein’s ouster (International Herald Tribune, 27 Apr 2008)

Baghdad museum receives artifacts stolen from Iraq (Washington Post, 27 Apr 2008)

Read more Baghdad Museum news (The Baghdad Museum Project)

And yet another example of the ungoing efforts to capture the horrors of Nazi-Germany in a museum context. Last week the German government started construction of an exhibition center in Berlin at the site where the Gestapo, leaders of the SS and other top officials in Adolf Hitler’s police state presided over Nazi-era crimes in the period from 1933 to 1945.

The so-called Topography of Terror (German: Topographie des Terrors) started as an outdoor museum in 1987 and in 1993, an architectural competition for a museum building was won by the design of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. However, the project was cancelled due to technical and financial reasons. In 2006 the Berlin office Heinle, Wischer und Partner won a new competition for the documentation and visitors’ center. It should be opened on May 8, 2010, the 65th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s final surrender.

 
A hand points at a detail of a scale model of a new building for the ‘Topography of Terror’ exhibition. (AP Photo/Miguel Villagran)

  
The single-story, glass-fronted pavilion, designed by German architect Ursula Wilms, should be ready in 2010. (Heinle, Wischer und Partner)

Read article (Yahoo/AP, November 2, 2007)
Go to website Topography of Terror

As its name implies, the new Man at Work museum at the Milwaukee School of Engineering is designed to celebrate the nobility of physical labor through the ages. But the engineer and the industrialist who run the museum have included artworks made to glorify the construction projects of the Nazi regime, art historians say. One painting depicts a U-Boat shipyard at Hamburg.

(Courtesy of “Man at Work: 400 Years in Paintings and bronzes,” published by Milwaukee School of Engineering)

This 1944 painting by Erich Mercker, the most represented artist in the collection, was commissioned by the Hitler government to create images of the expansion of infrastructure by the Third Reich.

The museum, which opened to the public Saturday, seems to have stumbled into a complex, controversial subject that the museum world has been coming to terms with for decades: When is it appropriate to exhibit art produced under the Nazis? How open should a museum be with its visitors about Nazi connections? What are the moral responsibilities of artists working under repressive regimes?

Read full report (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 27, 2007)
Go to website Man at Work Museum

In the museum of contemporary art in Tehran, all paintings exhibited in the public galleries are by Iranian artists. But in the basement, squirreled away behind a high-security door, it hides a startling array of world famous paintings by the likes of Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Miró, Pollock and Warhol. The paintings were purchased when the shah’s monarchical regime was flush with oil wealth and reputable works of art were selling relatively cheaply.

Despite being widely judged as the most important and comprehensive western art collection in Asia, there are no plans to display them publicly. The works have fallen prey to the cultural isolationist beliefs of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s radical president. The “buried” art is part of a general clampdown on social, intellectual and cultural freedoms, according to a report by the Guardian (October 29, 2007)

A part of an installation is hoisted into a warehouse for a Christoph Büchel show.

A federal judge ruled yesterday that the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art has the right to display an immense unfinished installation by Christoph Büchel, a Swiss artist whose relationship with the museum fell apart early this year, leading to a bitter public battle over control of the work and over artists’ rights in general.

The judge, Michael A. Ponsor, in Federal District Court in Springfield, Mass., said that the museum’s display of the work would not, as Mr. Büchel argued, violate the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which provides that an artist has the right to “prevent the use of his or her name as the author of the work of visual art in the event of a distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work.”

In this case, one watched closely by the art world for the effect it might have on the relationship between museums and artists who create huge, complex works, Judge Ponsor said that the artist rights act did not apply, in essence because it has no provision to prohibit showing an unfinished work of art simply because it is unfinished.

Read full article (New York Times, September 22, 2007)