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The Headlines
On the wall of immigration lawyer Michael Wildes’s office reportedly hangs a photograph of Yoko Ono and John Lennon, a reminder of a pivotal moment in the history of the US artist visa. When the Nixon administration sought to deport Lennon in the 1970s, Wildes’s father successfully argued that he qualified as an “outstanding person in the arts,” a case that later helped inspire the creation of the O-1B visa under the 1990 Immigration Act. Decades on, the O-1B, intended for artists of exceptional ability, is undergoing a transformation. The Financial Times reported that since the pandemic, immigration attorneys say applications have surged, driven largely by social media influencers and Only Fans models. High follower counts, brand partnerships, and digital earnings are increasingly used to demonstrate “commercial success,” one of the visa’s key criteria. Supporters argue these metrics offer clear evidence of distinction in a crowded field. Critics, however, worry that reliance on algorithmic popularity risks diluting the visa’s original purpose, replacing artistic merit with measurable attention, and reshaping how creative excellence is defined in US immigration law.
INDIANA JONES WANTED. The British Museum is preparing to hire a specialist to help recover hundreds of stolen artifacts before they vanish permanently, the Times wrote. In 2023, the museum revealed that thousands of items were missing from its Greek and Roman collections. Professor Tom Harrison, who was newly appointed head of the department, has been leading efforts to retrieve the treasures, which include gold jewellery, semi-precious stones, and glass dating back to the 15th century BC. He hopes to recover the gold items before they are melted down but expects the hunt to continue “until I am retired or under the ground.” Once the budget is secured, Harrison plans to recruit someone to focus on contacting dealers, auction houses, and collectors worldwide. Currently, the mission relies on a small team of five, who also manage other duties. So far, 654 of an estimated 1,500 missing items have been recovered, while a criminal investigation and civil case against former curator Peter Higgs continue.
The Digest
British museums have been concealing certain African artifacts that, according to tribal rules, should not be viewed by women. [The Telegraph]
Related Articles
British Museum to Hire Specialist to Find Missing Gold ‘Before It’s Melted Down’
British Taxpayers to Underwrite $1 B. Loan to Cover Bayeux Tapestry in the UK
Turkey announced that its Seddülbahir Fortress has been nominated for the 2026 European Museum of the Year Award. [Daily Sabah]
The 151-year-old Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum in Scotland is facing a precarious financial crisis revealed by a consultancy review, prompting a £360,000 council bailout. [The Courier]
Scientists have said that a seven-million-year-old fossil suggests our ancestors walked upright far earlier than previously believed, potentially reshaping the story of human origins. [Science Daily]
The Kicker
MEGA-MUSEUMS FAR FROM EXTINCT. Frank Gehry’s death last month seemed to toll the bell for the age of the blockbuster museum, the FT (again) wrote. The architect whose Guggenheim Bilbao taught struggling cities to believe salvation lay in a single, flamboyant cultural object has gone; his long-delayed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is still being built, “set perhaps to be a bookend for that era,” the FT added. “By the time it is completed (this year, apparently, though that has been said before), it will be a fossil, a dinosaur from another age.” However, the mega-museum is far from extinct; this year Los Angeles will open two major new art museums. The most prominent project is Peter Zumthor’s extension to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), estimated to cost $720 million. Mega-museums are also opening in Europe in 2026. Take the KANAL-Centre Pompidou in Brussels, housed in a 1930s Citroën garage. And don’t forget Russia; Zilart, a huge private contemporary art museum in Moscow conceived to show the collection of its founders, Andrey and Yelizaveta Molchanov, opened last month.