The Headlines
IN THE DOGEHOUSE. A federal judge slammed the US DOGE Service, ruling on Thursday that the Elon Musk–led department made unconstitutional and discriminatory cuts to National Endowment for the Humanities grants worth over $100 million, according to the Washington Post. US District Judge Colleen McMahon said DOGE violated the First and Fifth Amendments when it used ChatGPT to determine which grants to cancel based on whether they mentioned diversity, equity, and inclusion in their programs. She called the DOGE’s actions “a textbook example of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination,” and stated that Congress gave no authority to cut the funding it had appropriated. Some canceled grants highlighted in the case include projects about the Holocaust, HIV in prisons, and Indigenous culture at the Mesa Verde National Park and Wupatki National Monument. In its defense, the government suggested ChatGPT was responsible for determining what constituted DEI, not the DOGE employees. Judge McMahon shot back by comparing their argument to saying, “The devil made me do it.” That excuse, McMahon wrote, “does not work for the Government.”
THIRD TIME’S A CHARM. On Thursday, France’s Parliament unanimously passed a long-awaited law easing the restitution of artworks looted during the colonial era, between 1815 and 1972, reports France 24. It is the third so-called “framework law” designed to streamline the return of artwork that was taken illicitly and ended up in France’s national, publicly owned art collection. The law should go into effect this month, helping to fulfill President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 promise of returning African heritage to the continent, with the hope of bolstering diplomatic relations with France’s former colonies. Previously, Parliament had to enact individual laws for every item removed from its public collection. Now, two committees, including experts from France and the requesting country, plus government representatives, will examine restitution requests. France’s highest administrative court will make a ruling based on their conclusions, which will be enacted by government decree. The law does not specifically mention the word “colonialism,” contrary to demands of some left-leaning lawmakers, but it meets with another request from the political left: that countries should not have to prove they can properly care for objects once returned, as some conservatives hoped. The law also tasks museums with the mission to research provenance within their collections.
The Digest
American Folk Art Museum workers in New York demanded better wages and benefits in a protest outside the museum’s annual gala on Wednesday night. [Hyperallergic]
Indonesian-born artist Dian Suci has been awarded the 2025–27 Max Mara Art Prize for Women, which includes a residency and solo exhibitions at the Museum MACAN in Jakarta and at the Collezione Maramotti in Italy. [ARTnews]
A restored Banksy mural titled Migrant Child, which was removed from a 17th-century palazzo in Venice, will tour the city this weekend. [Venezia Today]
Read about the poetic performance work of artist Shoji Yamasaki, who dresses up as litter he finds on the street and choreographs movements mimicking how the paper trash rustles and flutters in the wind. [The Financial Times]
The Kicker
HARING’S HOUSE. Artist Keith Haring’s best friend since childhood, the artist Kermit Oswald, discussed the artist ahead of an auction of his work on May 14 and 15 that includes unseen, “intimate” works by Haring in Oswald’s collection, reports the Guardian. The artworks are on view at Sotheby’s in New York, in a show called “Haring’s House: Works From the Collection of Kermit Oswald.” A highlight is a bright yellow crib Haring painted when Oswald didn’t have the money to buy one. Also for sale is a 1985 self-portrait, one of only six Haring is thought to have made. Oswald also shares stories of the two doing “artistic pranks” and delivering newspapers together. “You have to remember, Keith was a paperboy … Works were untitled because he wanted you to see the date and look at the headlines from the New York Post or New York Times,” he explained. Haring died at 31 of AIDS-related complications, and is the godfather to Oswald’s son. As for any rivalry between the two artists: “There was no competition. You don’t compete against your friends.”