The Week In Art Podcast (October 6, 2023): The looted Ethiopian icon, AI copyright debate in US, and the end of China’s museum boom.

The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent Martin Bailey tells us about the Kwer’ata Re’esu, a European painting of Christ that became a revered icon in Ethiopia before being looted by an agent for the British Museum in the 19th century. Martin’s colour photographs of the work—which has been stored in a vault in Portugal—might help us to identify its maker and prompt new calls for the icon’s return to Ethiopia. On Monday this week, campaigners in the US staged an AI Day of Action, amid mounting concerns over the exploitation of artists’ work by corporations behind powerful artificial intelligence tools.

We talk to our reporter Daniel Grant about renewed calls for the US Congress to enact a law that would ban corporations from copyrighting art made by AI. And as China’s economy struggles, some museums in the country are closing or scaling down their ambitions. We talk to our correspondent in China, Lisa Movius, about how the end of the Chinese economic miracle has hastened the end of its museum boom.