Category Archives: Art and design

Thieves stole Banksy Bataclan door mural with crowbar, French court told

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Seven Frenchmen and Italian on trial for theft of work thought to be a tribute to victims of Paris attacks

Thieves who stole a mural by the street artist Banksy on an emergency exit door of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris used a crowbar and angle grinder to prise it free, in a crime that lasted just minutes, a French court heard.

The work depicting a veiled and mournful figure is thought to have been a tribute to victims of the Islamist militant attacks against the Bataclan and other entertainment venues in Paris in 2015.

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Christo before Christo: Paris exhibition reveals artist’s earlier works

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Exhibition to show items the artist experimented with before larger wrapped pieces that defined him

Long before scaling the heights of the Reichstag in Berlin or the Pont Neuf in Paris, the artist known as Christo started on a much smaller scale.

Having fled communist Bulgaria for Paris and working in a maid’s room, the impoverished refugee began creating his first wrapped sculptures using everyday objects such as cans, bottles and – when he found a bigger studio – old oil barrels.

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Antony Gormley to become German citizen due to ‘tragedy’ of Brexit

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Acclaimed sculptor calls leaving the EU ‘a practical disaster’ and a ‘betrayal’ as major retrospective opens

The acclaimed British sculptor Antony Gormley is to become a German citizen because of the “tragedy” of Brexit.

Speaking at a major retrospective of his work at the Museum Voorlinden near The Hague, Gormley, who is half-German, said his strong feelings about Britain’s departure from Europe had prompted him to apply for German nationality.

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‘Perception and deception’: Australian glass art prize winner plays tricks on the eye

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Tim Edwards spent 35 hours grinding his work into a glass illusion that took out the $15,000 Tom Malone prize

Artist Tim Edwards has won the prestigious Tom Malone prize for Australian glass art with a work that plays tricks with the viewer’s eye.

The winning work, titled Ellipse #8, is a luminous blue form 47cm tall and from some angles it is difficult to tell whether the glass is two- or three-dimensional. The piece is 3D but not very thick with a depth of just 8mm.

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Prague’s Orloj clock at centre of row over artist’s ‘amateur’ restoration

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Artist accused of putting likenesses of friends and acquaintances on 15th-century clock, possibly as a joke

One of Prague’s most famous landmarks, a 15th-century astronomical clock, is at the centre of an embarrassing row amid claims that an artist endowed it with likenesses of his friends and acquaintances in an expensive restoration project, possibly as a joke.

The 600-year-old Orloj – long a magnet for tourists who gaze up in wonder as the 12 apostles are set in motion by the clock striking the hour – reopened in a blaze of fanfare in 2018 after a £2.1m refurbishment to the city’s medieval old town hall that included an upgrade to the clock’s intricate machinery.

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Bangarra’s Stephen Page and artist Destiny Deacon win $50,000 lifetime achievement awards

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Page and Deacon both won the Red Ochre prizes at the 2022 First Nations Arts awards on Friday night for their life work

Last year, choreographer, dancer and director Stephen Page announced that he was stepping down as artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, after 31 years in the job. On Friday night, Page was named the recipient of a $50,000 lifetime achievement award, at the Australia Council’s First Nations Arts awards – and it could not have come at a more opportune moment.

The descendant of the Nunukul people and the Mununjali clan of the Yugambeh nation in south-east Queensland, Page has created more than two dozen works for Bangarra over the past three decades and won many accolades, including being named an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). Now, it is time to take a break.

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V&A to host exhibition on Coco Chanel’s career and designs

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Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto will display 180 designs, jewellery, accessories and perfumes

The V&A is to host the first ever exhibition in a major UK museum on the work of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, covering the career of the French designer from the opening of her first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910 to the showing of her final collection in 1971.

The London museum’s exhibition, Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto, will display 180 designs as well as jewellery, accessories and perfume, and outfits created for Lauren Bacall and Marlene Dietrich.

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Médecins Sans Frontières apologises for using images of child rape survivor

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Medical charity’s president calls publication of controversial photographs ‘a mistake’ and says guidelines will be tightened

The international president of Médecins Sans Frontières has apologised for publishing photographs of a teenage rape survivor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on its website, following criticism that the images were unethical and racist.

Dr Christos Christou also announced that the medical charity had tightened its guidelines on photographing vulnerable minors, such as survivors of sexual abuse, requiring that they should not be identified visually or by name.

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Birmingham Hockley flyover murals get listed status

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Artworks by sculptor William Mitchell, designed to encourage public interaction, earn Grade-II accolade

A group of concrete murals on a flyover in Birmingham, known as a “brutalist climbing wall”, have been given listed status.

The three-banked mural walls flanking the entrance to the Hockley flyover underpass feature geometric shapes and abstract patterns and were designed by the sculptor William Mitchell to encourage public interaction.

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Cow you see me, cow you don’t: Spanish town’s Osborne bull turns sky blue

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Anonymous artist behind billboard’s makeover says it was ‘just a poetic endeavour’

In the 65 years since their unmistakeable silhouettes first appeared on Spanish hillsides, the bulls created to advertise Osborne brandy have hosted cinematic trysts, been given a Guernica paintjob, and even borne a phone-checking, coffee-drinking Batman.

Until a fortnight ago, however, no bull had ever vanished, almost completely, into the blue depths of the Spanish spring sky. Today, thanks to an overnight sortie and some very long brushes, the Osborne bull on the outskirts of the small Galician town of Xinzo de Limia is a fetching shade of azure – and a reflection on the impossibility of doing justice to the ever-changing heavens.

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Médecins Sans Frontières condemned for ‘profiting from exploitative images’

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Medical charity criticised for using images that ‘endanger and exploit children’ amid row over photos from DRC identifying child rape survivor

Doctors, photographers, human rights activists and academics have written to Médecins Sans Frontières to raise concerns that the medical charity is exploiting the trauma of vulnerable patients to promote its work.

In an open letter to the international president and MSF board, almost 50 signatories, who include current and former staff, allege that the aid organisation has commissioned, published and allowed the sale of photographs that endanger and exploit vulnerable black people, including children.

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Roman sculpture up for auction in US linked to disgraced dealer

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Exclusive: researcher calls for sale of marble head of Greek philosopher Antisthenes to be halted

An archaeologist is calling for a US auction house to withdraw a monumental Roman sculpture from sale, claiming he has photographic evidence of its direct link to a dealer involved with illicit trade.

Prof Christos Tsirogiannis, whose academic research focuses on antiquities and trafficking networks, said Hindman Auctions in Chicago should cancel its auction of the portrait head of Antisthenes, the Greek philosopher, scheduled for Thursday.

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‘The rich have got much richer’: why art sale prices are going through the roof

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Auction houses are recording a boom in sales after a return to pre-pandemic levels of supplies of works

As a straight return on investment, it’s hard to beat “Untitled”, a 1982 work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, the African American street artist who became a global cultural icon, featuring a horned African mask on an abstract background across a canvas almost 5m wide.

In 2004, the painting sold for $4.5m. Back on the market 12 years later, it fetched $57.3m, then a record for a Basquiat. This week, it went under the hammer in New York for $85m (£68m), including fees, to a buyer from Asia.

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Why the long face? Artist pilloried after creating half-horse, half-man sculpture

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Aidan Harte was thrilled to be asked to make a statue of a púca, a mythological mischievous spirit, but then his troubles began

In Irish mythology, a púca is a mischievous, shapeshifting spirit that can take the form of a horse and entice unwary travellers on to its back for a wild ride.

Aidan Harte knows how that feels. Eighteen months ago the sculptor was commissioned to create a 2-metre tall bronze statue of a púca for the town square in Ennistymon, County Clare.

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Picasso, Monet and Cézanne lead the way in $400m New York art auction

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Ten works sell for more than $10m each in sale featuring giants of art, also including Gauguin and Magritte

Three paintings by titans of modern art have sold for a total of almost $166m (£134m) at auction, confirming the buoyancy of the global market.

In a sale of modern art at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday evening, a total of more than $408m was paid for works by artists including Picasso, Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Magritte, Dalí and Renoir.

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Madrid show explores graphic art’s role as tool of resistance in Latin America

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Graphic Turn: Like the Ivy on a Wall at Reina Sofía looks at calls for social justice and responses to repression

Forty-three kites bearing 43 black-and-white faces hang from the ceiling of the Reina Sofía, each one a mute appeal for answers, remembrance and justice.

Close by, T-shirts and posters clamour for equality, a forest of placards commemorates the detained, disappeared and dead of Uruguay’s military dictatorship, and an icon of the struggle for Peruvian independence undergoes a queer, pop art makeover.

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Painting traded for a cheese sandwich in 1973 sold at auction for C$350,000

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Maud Lewis sold her paintings on Nova Scotia roadsides but found a larger audience after a documentary chronicled her life and work

A Canadian painting that was swapped 50 years ago for a grilled cheese sandwich has sold at auction for an “astounding” C$350,000 (US$272,000).

Black Truck by the folk artist Maud Lewis sold for 10 times its assessed value, setting a new high mark for a painter whose popularity has surged in recent years.

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‘Lost’ Picasso spotted in Imelda Marcos’s home after son’s election win

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Artwork’s appearance fuels fears family will use return to power to further stifle efforts to recover ill-gotten wealth

The glimpse of a possible Picasso in the home of Imelda Marcos seen during a visit by her son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, after his election win has set off a flurry of speculation in the Philippines, where the family that once plundered billions is set to return to power.

Marcos Jr, the son and namesake of the late dictator, won a landslide victory in Monday’s presidential election, an outcome that has appalled those who survived his father’s regime.

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Sotheby’s debut of Robbie Williams’ art puts Sharon and Trish on show

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Paintings produced in collaboration with Ed Godrich are titled with ‘names that define the 1980s’

Trish has never been seen in public before. Nor have Sharon, Janet, Debbie, Denise, Donna, Jacqui, Joanne, Kim, Lorraine, Mandy, Paula, Sandra or Tina.

But for the next two weeks, these 14 artworks by the pop star Robbie Williams and his creative partner Ed Godrich will be on display at Sotheby’s in central London.

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Artist who ‘reclaims black experience’ wins Deutsche Börse photography prize

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Judges praise Deana Lawson’s portraits, which depict familiar domestic scenes containing an unsettling element

An artist whose staged portraits reflect the language of the family photo album has won one of the most prestigious prizes in photography, with judges saying her work “reframes and reclaims the black experience”.

Deana Lawson from Rochester, New York, was awarded the £30,000 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation prize 2022 at the Photographers’ Gallery in London for her solo exhibition Centropy, held at Kunsthalle Basel two years ago.

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