The continued instability of Ukraine has led to cancellation of the second Kiev Biennale, the New York Times reports.  The 2014 edition had been postponed due to conflict, and the ongoing military confrontation in the eastern portion of the country has ultimately led to the event’s cancellation.  “Due to the fact that the armed conflict in the East of Ukraine does not stop,” a release from the organization says, the event has become “absolutely impossible.”  (more…)

The U.S. Army is searching for a new group of cultural affairs officers to supervise the securing and preservation of important cultural monuments, property and locations in conflicted areas.  The Army had long taken a more lax, reactive approach to cultural preservation, but is looking to strengthen its methods.  “The civil affairs units have always had ‘functional specialists’, but the individuals were often not qualified in any meaningful way,”said Brigadier General Hugh Van Roosen, the director of the Institute for Military Support to Governance (IMSG) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  “At the same time, if you have one person who was just the right fit, you probably didn’t have two of them. It was just a broken system.” (more…)