Hawai’i at the British Museum, a Venice palazzo for sale, Joseph Beuys’s Bathtub

As the British Museum opens Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans, Ben Luke takes a tour of the exhibition with the museum’s head of Oceania, Alice Christophe. We also hear about the museum’s fresh approach to the stewardship of its collection of Hawaiian objects and materials. In Venice, one of the most famous palazzi on the Grand Canal, the Ca’ Dario, is up for sale and we discuss the building, its history and its supposed curse with the founder of The Art Newspaper and former chair of the Venice in Peril charity, Anna Somers Cocks. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Bathtub (1961-87), a late work made by Joseph Beuys, cast in bronze after his death in 1986. It is at the centre of a new show of Beuys’s work at the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery in London, and I speak to Thaddaeus Ropac about the sculpture and its long journey to completion.

Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans, British Museum, London, until 25 May 2026.

Joseph Beuys: Bathtub for a Heroine, Thaddaeus Ropac, London, until 21 March.

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