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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
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NEWS ABOUT: museums

museums stories: 18 news summaries

 China To Scour 
 Museums for 
 Looted Art 

Artifact team will hunt for Imperial Gardens booty

Oct 22, 09 3:40 AM CDT
(Newser) - China is about to send teams of artifact hunters to the world's top museums to track down looted art treasures. They'll be on the lookout for art from the splendid Imperial Gardens of Yuan Ming Yuan, more commonly known as the Old Summer Palace, which was used by Chinese emperors... More »

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China • art • museums • British Museum • The Louvre • Metropolitan Museum of Art • looted art • summer palace

Nation's Top Museums
Free Tomorrow

Smithsonian Museum Day offers free online passes  for 1,200 sites

Sep 25, 09 3:06 AM CDT
(Newser) - Admission to over 1,200 museums across America will be free tomorrow as part of the Smithsonian's annual "Museum Day." The event is aimed at promoting culture and removing  "any  economic barrier" keeping people from enjoying museums, a Smithsonian exec tells USA Today. Museum-goers will need a ... More »

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museum • museums • Smithsonian • Rock and Roll Hall of Fame • Smithsonian Institute

(Newser) - They just don’t make shrunken heads the way they used to. In fact, no one makes them at all, which is a big problem for Ripley’s Believe It or Not! The chain of “odditoriums” has expanded so far and so fast that its collection is stretched to... More »

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weird • museums • toothpick • Ripley's Believe It or Not! • shrunken head

 12 Museums of Odd Things 


May 18, 09 5:02 PM CDT
(Newser) - Trying to awake from the nightmare of history? Mental Floss' list of 12 "oddly specific" American museums may only give you bad dreams:
  • The SPAM Museum: Complete with a wall of 5,000 SPAM tins and a scale plant where visitors can suit up in white coats
... More »

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art • spam • garbage • museums • conspiracy • medical devices • pests • genetic abnormalities • ventriloquism • barbed wire • PEZ • hobo

 For Sale: Soviet Sub, 
 Very Rusty 

Cold War relic once used in Harrison Ford film is too costly to restore, RI museum says

Dec 25, 08 4:00 PM CST
(Newser) - The former Soviet submarine used in Harrison Ford’s film K-19: The Widowmaker may be sunk for good. The cruise-missile sub, which served as a floating museum in a Rhode Island river until it foundered in a 2007 storm, will be sold for scrap if no one buys it by... More »

MORE ABOUT:
museums • Cold War • submarine • restoration • Rhode Island • artifacts • relics • Harrison Ford • former Soviet state

Jane Austen Museum Bans Fans' Ashes

Devotees were using her garden as their
final resting place

Dec 3, 08 6:10 PM CST
(Newser) - The caretakers of Jane Austen's estate in England have issued an unusual plea to her devoted fans: Please stop having your ashes scattered in her garden. Museum representatives say they understand the passion but can't allow the practice. “It is distressing for visitors to see mounds of human ash,... More »

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England • literature • museums • English literature • fans • Jane Austen • ashes

GLOSSIES

 Black Museums 
 Fight for Funding 

Economy, depressing subject matter are issues; others cite little tradition in community

Aug 31, 08 9:32 AM CDT
(Newser) - As Barack Obama’s fundraisers pull in huge sums of money for his historic candidacy, African-American museums across the country are struggling for cash and visitors, Portfolio reports. Part of the problem may be the flagging economy, but for the likes of the National Slavery Museum, the subject matter can... More »

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African Americans • museums • Barack Obama supporters • African-Americans

MUSEUM REVIEW

 This Just In: Newseum Opens 

Relocated institution's self-glorifying quality leaves reviewer cold

Apr 11, 08 4:43 PM CDT
(Newser) - The Newseum reopens today in its new, $450 million home off the National Mall, and reaction to the enterprise is mixed. Granting that the interactive, artifact-laden presentation of the history of news is a good mix of education and entertainment, Edward Rothstein of the New York Times also describes it... More »

MORE ABOUT:
media • Washington DC • journalism • museums • National Mall • history • Newseum • Freedom Foundation

 Smithsonian Picks New Leader 

Museum returns to academia roots, selects Ga. Tech president

Mar 15, 08 2:25 PM CDT
(Newser) - The Smithsonian Institute today handed its top job to Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough, marking a return to the museum’s academic roots, the AP reports. Clough follows the troubled tenure of businessman Lawrence Small, who came under fire for raising executive salaries and for focusing more on money... More »

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museums • academia • Georgia Tech • Smithsonian • G. Wayne Clough • Lawrence Small • Smithsonian Institute

The House of Mirthlessness

Drowning in debt,
Edith Wharton's
Mass. estate faces foreclosure

Feb 28, 08 12:19 PM CST
(Newser) - Edith Wharton's masterpieces include The House of Mirth, but the story of her own house is much less joyous. Her estate in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, currently a museum called the Mount that chronicles her life and career, is drowning under some $9 million in debt. Now, writes the Berkshire ... More »

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philanthropy • literature • foreclosure • museums • Edith Wharton • the Mount • Berkshires • The House of Mirth • estate

Paris Tweens Get Their SexyEdBack

Frank exhibit touches on everything from how to kiss to icky feelings

Feb 19, 08 2:55 PM CST
(Newser) - Worried that the French approach to sex education isn't very, well, French, a new exhibit in a Paris science museum is teaching kids what happens when the lights go out in the City of Lights. The museum exposes the anatomical, biological, and mushy sentimental mysteries of sex through exhibits that... More »

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France • sex • museums • sex education • Paris • City of Lights

Now on eBay:
6 Million Songs for Just $50M

World's greatest music collection is looking for a home, again

Feb 19, 08 11:20 AM CST
(Newser) - Record collector supreme Paul Mawhinney has put his collection of over 6 million songs on eBay, but with its value estimated at $50 million and a $3 million starting bid, bidders could be rarer than some of the jewels in the collection, the Idolator writes. "It's the history of... More »

MORE ABOUT:
music • eBay • auction • museums • Library of Congress • records

Feds Raid Calif. Museums, Gallery in Stolen Art Case

Illegal artifacts donated for inflated tax deductions

Jan 25, 08 10:38 AM CST
(Newser) - Federal agents raided four California museums and a private gallery in a smuggling investigation into stolen foreign antiquities, reports the New York Times. The gallery allegedly imported looted goods from Thailand, Myanmar, and China, and individuals got inflated tax write-offs for donating them to museums. No charges have yet been... More »

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California • fraud • art • museums • looting • artifacts • art heist

Vegas to Build Mob Museum

Attraction will display history of crooks who helped build the city

Dec 11, 07 11:03 AM CST
(Newser) - Las Vegas will create a museum showcasing the Mob's role in turning a tiny desert settlement into America's gambling mecca. The $50 million project is slated to be completed in 2010. "Let's be brutally honest, warts and all. This is more than legend. It's fact," said the mayor.... More »

MORE ABOUT:
FBI • organized crime • Las Vegas • mob • museums • Mafia • Nevada

2 Downtowns, 1 New Museum

Japanese architects win raves for new New York building

Dec 1, 07 10:22 AM CST
(Newser) - New York's New Museum, the scrappy showcase for contemporary art founded in a SoHo loft 30 years ago, reopens this weekend in a building Nicolai Ouroussoff describes as "a series of mismatched galleries precariously stacked one atop the other." For the New York Times' architectural critic, the building,... More »

MORE ABOUT:
architecture • New York • art • museums • Gentrification

France Will Offer Free Museums

Culture ministry scraps entry fees in pilot program

Oct 24, 07 7:22 PM CDT
(Newser) - Wandering leisurely through one French museum after another—priceless, right? Exactly, as of January 1, when the French culture ministry opens 14 of the country's museums to visitors free of charge. The pilot program, a campaign plank for Nicolas Sarkozy, is being greeted skeptically as columnists debate whether the policy... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Nicolas Sarkozy • France • museums • The Louvre

Getty Sends Looted Art Home

Italy wins decades-long fight over illegally purchased antiquities

Aug 2, 07 4:49 AM CDT
(Newser) - The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles will return to Italy 40 works of art, including some of the finest in the museum's collection, following a decades-long legal battle. The museum has agreed to give up dozens of  masterpieces that Italy claims were looted, including its signature 5th-century marble... More »

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art • Italy • Los Angeles • museums • J. Paul Getty Museum • looting • Getty

Miners Dig for Gold in Belgian Museum

A collection of colonial-era maps of the Congo draws mining firms to musty stacks

Mar 20, 07 11:33 AM CDT
(Newser) - A Belgian museum filled with stacks of faded geological maps of the Congo—a former colony—has become an unlikely mecca for mining companies searching for new deposits. With prices soaring and on-site exploration impeded by armed militias, drillers are eager to shell out hefty research fees to the... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Belgium • King Leopold I • mining • museums • maps • geology • colonialism • Democratic Republic of Congo

18 Stories


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