Mosul Museum partially reopens with contemporary exhibition

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Mosul Museum partially reopens with contemporary exhibition | The Mosul Museum has opened its doors to the public for the first time since Islamic State forces overran the Iraqi city in 2014. An exhibition of work by 29 contemporary artists has been staged in the royal reception hall, and will run until 3 February. The rest of the museum, which housed a number of antiquities that were damaged or destroyed during the IS group’s use of the building as their seat of power, remains closed ‘to protect what is left’, says its director, Zeid Saadallah. 

Dozens of New York galleries sued over disability access | More than 75 art galleries in New York have been served with lawsuits for allegedly violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because their websites are not equally accessible to blind and visually impaired people, Hyperallergic reports. Lawsuits have been filed against galleries including Marian Goodman, David Zwirner and Gagosian, with at least 37 coming from a single plaintiff. Legal action of a similar nature has been taken against other sectors in recent months, including hotels, restaurants and universities.

El Museo del Barrio cancels Alejandro Jodorowsky retrospective | El Museo del Barrio in New York has cancelled its planned retrospective of the Chilean-born artist and filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, ARTNews reports. The decision comes after community activists in East Harlem raised concerns about public remarks made by Jodorowsky in the 1970s, in which he claimed that he raped his co-star Mara Lorenzio during the making of the 1970 film El Topo. A statement from the museum said: ‘We cannot endorse words that go against the identity and the context that El Museo serves.’