Artists say firm with murky ethical record is stealing their designs
Vanessa Bowman paints the world around her: the 19th-century village church, her back garden, the leaves on the trees in the fields where she walks her dog.
Once she has chosen a scene from her rural Dorset idyll, she puts brush to canvas, sometimes poring over the details for days in her studio.
Continue reading...Exhibited artists cover up their work in protest after piece portraying ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is removed
Four overlapping black and white rectangles make up Israeli artist David Reeb’s painting Jerusalem. On two, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is portrayed praying at the Western Wall – known also as the Wailing Wall – from two different angles, his hands pressed against the stone. Opposite the images, thick brushstrokes spell out phrases in Hebrew: “Jerusalem of gold”, the title of a nationalistic song – and “Jerusalem of shit”.
The work was among several explicitly political, daring pieces featured in an exhibition that opened in December at the newly renovated Ramat Gan Museum of Israeli Art near Tel Aviv.
Continue reading...The Sydney Mardi Gras parade began in 1978 as a march and commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York. This is the parade’s 44th year and it was held at the Sydney Cricket Ground due to Covid-19 restrictions
Continue reading...Renaissance works transported for first time since the artist installed them in churches 600 years ago
A collection of bronzes sculpted by Renaissance master Donatello have been moved for the first time from the Italian churches where he installed them 600 years ago so that they can be displayed at a ground-breaking exhibition in Florence
Three of the four pieces, a relief, a statue and two bronze doors, from Siena Cathedral and San Lorenzo baptistery in Florence, are also being restored to their former glory using techniques ranging from chiselling with porcupine needles to thermographing to discover structural weaknesses.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Petr Aven’s donation returned after he was called one of Putin’s closest oligarchs in the list
A Russian billionaire named in EU sanctions “as one of Vladimir Putin’s closest oligarchs” stepped down on Tuesday as a trustee of the Royal Academy, which has also returned a donation he made towards a Francis Bacon exhibition.
The RA – which had had been among UK cultural institutions and bodies facing calls to sever ties with Russian oligarchs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – said that the billionaire banker Petr Aven would be stepping down with immediate effect.
Continue reading...The mind-boggling hoard of jewellery the plundering first lady tried to smuggle out of the Philippines is being remade as sculpture by artist Pio Abad – with all its sparkle gone
Over his three terms as president of the Philippines from 1965, Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda were able to cream off some $10bn of the nation’s assets through offshore banks. New revelations that a close associate of the dictator was also able to maintain an account with Credit Suisse as late as 2006 therefore comes as no surprise to Manila-born Pio Abad. For a decade the artist has been making work under the title The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders, a reference to the aliases the couple used with the Swiss bank.
“It’s funny when a 10-year project becomes news,” says Abad, who is now London-based. “These institutions are very culpable for what happened in the Philippines.”
Continue reading...Conceived as a utopian city within a city, the labyrinthine London landmark had a troubled path on its way to being hailed as an architectural icon. But is this world-class arts centre now in danger of being turned into a shopping mall?
It looks like something from a wildly imaginative sci-fi comic, an impossible vision of worlds slamming into each other in a fantastical collage. Elevated walkways leap across the sky while a trio of towers rise up like serrated blades, their edges sawing at the clouds. Beneath them, fountains cascade and cafes spill across lush waterside terraces, while an art gallery and library jut out overhead. A tropical conservatory wraps around the top of a subterranean theatre, next to a cinema buried beneath a crescent of apartments. And the entire multilayered edifice floats above a 2,000-seat concert hall carved into the ground.
This is no sci-fi comic, but a cutaway diagram of the Barbican arts centre dating from 1982, rendered in vivid orange, red and green. Somehow, this miraculous Escher-like wonder really did get built, and it hits 40 this month, with celebratory events and a handsome new book modestly titled Building Utopia.
Continue reading...Concerts, dance recitals and exhibitions have been postponed indefinitely after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted responses from the cultural sphere, with Russian artists and companies beginning to feel the repercussions of decisions taken by the Kremlin. Not only has Russia been stripped of two prestigious events – the Champions League men’s final and Formula One’s Russian Grand Prix –but an increasing number of performances by Russians are being cancelled worldwide.
Continue reading...Eerie photographs recovered from the 1857 wreck of the SS Central America are now being published for the first time
It is one of the most famous treasure wrecks ever discovered, a steamer named the “ship of gold” after it sank in 1857 off the coast of South Carolina with one of the largest cargoes of gold ever lost at sea. Miners who had struck it rich in the California gold rush were among those bringing home to New York their hard-earned wealth, only to lose their lives when the SS Central America was struck by a hurricane, sinking nearly a mile and a half beneath the waves.
When nuggets, ingots and coins were recovered from the seabed in various expeditions between 1988 and 2014, the world was dazzled. But, with reported values of tens of millions of pounds, it sparked a complex legal case that landed its original treasure-hunter in jail.
Continue reading...Marco Fusinato describes his experimental noise project as ‘discordant intensities’, with his curator hoping that people who hate it will ‘hate it right away’
Marco Fusinato is counting on his forthcoming show at the Venice Biennale being immediately disliked.
Outlining his contribution as Australia’s representative at the world’s oldest art show this week, the 57-year-old Melbourne-based contemporary artist and noise musician said Desastres was the product of a nightmarish two years enduring the world’s longest lockdown.
Continue reading...‘This image is from a collection I made called Stop Tanks With Books. I have sent out 750 free copies to try to stop the war’
This was taken in May last year in Myrnohrad, an industrial town 50 miles from Donetsk, a stronghold of the illegal Russian occupation in eastern Ukraine. Then, as now, fears of a Russian invasion were high. While much of the west thinks the threat of conflict started only a few weeks ago, it’s been the reality for Ukrainians for almost a decade.
I was walking around Myrnohrad taking photos with a big portable flash and a plate camera when I saw this woman sit down and light a cigarette. She looked so confident and self-absorbed. I speak a little Russian, so I told her I was taking pictures of ordinary life across Ukraine and asked if she would pose. She agreed without hesitation.
Continue reading...Priceless treasures stolen by the French army over a century ago have finally been returned to the African nation. Our writer joins the emotional celebrations
At first glance, it seems to be just another day in Cotonou, Benin’s largest city. Motorbike-taxis are everywhere, filling the streets of the country’s economic capital with dust and noise. But inside the swanky presidential palace, something seismic is talking place: over a century after they were looted by the French army, 26 treasures that once belonged to the nation have gone on display to the public.
Art of Benin Yesterday and Today is more than just a stunning show of these ancient works, though. It segues from the looted 19th-century artefacts to work by 34 of the country’s contemporary artists. “This is a form of regained dignity,” says local art historian Didier Houénoudé, “and the culmination of a long fight started by African countries shortly before independence.”
Continue reading...Graves and Lipman were partners in both life and art for three decades. Their acutely observed images, taken at American social rituals from proms to football games, capture fleeting moments of connection, of longing, of restraint and desire
Continue reading...Alienated civilians, ruined homes and Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline
Continue reading...Colourful ceremony marks artefacts’ homecoming more than a century after they were pillaged by British troops
Two Benin bronzes were returned on Saturday to a traditional palace in Nigeria, more than a century after they were pillaged by British troops, raising hopes that thousands more artefacts could finally be returned to their ancestral home.
The artefacts, mostly in Europe, were stolen by explorers and colonisers from the once-mighty Benin Kingdom, now south-western Nigeria, and are among Africa’s most significant heritage objects. They were created as early as the 16th century onwards, according to the British Museum.
Continue reading...Gallery at site of uprising against colonial rule accuses US museum of stonewalling request for artefact
A statue depicting the angry spirit of a Belgian officer beheaded during an uprising in Congo in 1931 is at the centre of a tug of war between a US museum and a Congolese gallery at the site of the rebellion.
The statue of Maximilien Balot, a colonial administrator, has travelled to Europe but the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is accused of stonewalling requests for a loan to the White Cube gallery in Lusanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Continue reading...Scowling, sodden and surrounded by waterfowl, the actor adorns the new Hollywood issue as an icon of … what exactly?
The customary brouhaha erupted yesterday after the release of Vanity Fair’s annual Hollywood Issue cover photos, the most striking of which depicts an angry Benedict Cumberbatch emerging fully clothed from a hot bubblebath sesh with a bevy of swans.
The Hollywood Issue increasingly feels like it belongs to a different era, when fashion magazines and actors’ star power were at their respective heights. These days, the printed press is clinging on for dear life (Entertainment Weekly announced just last week that it will be ceasing its print edition), and in Hollywood no one performer is bigger than a franchise. So the Hollywood Issue, which trades in the nose-to-the-window glamour of movie stars, has a more forlorn quality than it used to.
Continue reading...Rare photos taken by Ansel Adams from the collection of David H Arrington, a passionate collector of Adams’ photographs from the beginning, will be offered for sale from 17 February at midday in Sotheby’s New York
Continue reading...‘The couple were just strangers blocking my view. But as they reached out and embraced each other, it seemed an optimistic image representing the young people of a city that had suffered’
I first visited and photographed Sarajevo in 1996. I had been volunteering in neighbouring Croatia and managed to hitch a ride in to Bosnia in a UN vehicle. The war and siege had ended a few months before and the city was enjoying its long-awaited peace. Sarajevans took to its scarred streets in huge numbers, meeting with friends and drinking coffee safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t be struck down by a sniper or shell.
The destruction of the city at that time was jaw-dropping, surreal and seemingly total: rows upon rows of broken, bombed-out high-rise flats; shell craters and explosion indents everywhere; hospitals, offices and factories all in ruins. This was urbicide, a late-20th-century Dresden or Stalingrad. Everyone who lived through the nearly four-year siege had a nightmare to share.
Continue reading...People with albinism across Africa face the harsh sun as well as social exclusion and suspicion. Photographer Maroussia Mbaye hopes to bring greater understanding through her work
An estimated 10,000 people are living with albinism in Senegal. Albinism is genetically inherited and, while prevalence varies from region to region, some of the highest rates are found in sub-Saharan Africa. The deficit in melanin is characterised by the absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes. Albinism can lead to skin cancer, visual impairment and sun sensitivity. About 90% of people with the condition across Africa die of skin cancer before they are 40.
Myths surrounding people affected by albinism have led to extreme practices involving the use of body parts. Hundreds of attacks including horrific mutilations, ritual killings, sexual violence, kidnappings and trafficking of people and body parts have happened in many countries across the continent. Many people with the condition are at risk every day because of superstition and witchcraft practices.
Franco-Senegalese photographer Maroussia Mbaye is a graduate from the London School of Economics and the London College of Communication. She was raised in a politically active family and her experiences fuelled an interest in social division and justice, leading her to pursue documentary photography, through which she aims to capture human life in new, perspective-shifting ways
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