Palazzo Maffei in Verona contacts police after visitors cause Van Gogh’s Chair to buckle while posing for photos
An Italian museum has contacted the police after two clumsy tourists almost wrecked a work of art while posing for photos.
Video footage released by Palazzo Maffei in Verona showed the hapless pair photographing each other pretending to sit on a crystal-covered chair made by the artist Nicola Bolla – described by the museum as an “extremely fragile” work.
Continue reading...An exhibition in the Belgian capital shows the artistic style was first to seek to appeal to a wider group of consumers
The glazed porcelain vases with bold colours and geometric shapes of the 1920s and 30s are immediately recognisable to many people, says the art historian Cécile Dubois. Often given as a wedding present, these vases were usually passed down as family heirlooms, revealing the accessibility of art deco works, she says, gesturing to the glass cabinet beside her. “If you were a collector, you could find works that cost a fortune, but these pieces were destined for people of more modest means for very reasonable prices.”
Art deco was the first artistic movement that sought to appeal to a wider public beyond the elites, say the organisers of a new exhibition dedicated to the artistic movement of the interwar years, co-curated by Dubois, the president of the Brussels Art Deco Society.
Continue reading...Oghenochuko Ojiri given two-and-a-half-year sentence over failure to report art sales to suspected Hezbollah funder
A BBC Bargain Hunt art expert who failed to report a series of high-value art sales to a man suspected of financing the militant group Hezbollah has been jailed for two and a half years.
Oghenochuko Ojiri, 53, sold artworks worth a total of about £140,000 to Nazem Ahmad, a man designated by US authorities as a suspected financier for the Lebanese organisation, a court hearing was told last month.
Continue reading...Image on street incorporates shadow of a bollard alongside words ‘I want to be what you saw in me’
Banksy has posted an image of a new artwork that appears to be in Marseille, in southern France, though its exact location has not been confirmed.
The characteristic image, posted on the artist’s Instagram account, transforms the shadow of a street bollard into the form of a lighthouse. Stencilled across it are the words “I want to be what you saw in me”.
Continue reading...Brazilian photographer’s work highlighted injustice and introduced rainforest to the world
The Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, who is best known for his dramatic black-and-white photographs that highlighted injustice and introduced the Amazon rainforest the world, has died. He was 81.
His death was confirmed by the Instituto Terra, the environmental restoration non-profit he founded with his wife of six decades, Lélia Wanick Salgado. In a post on Instagram, the institute described Salgado as “much more than one of the greatest photographers of our time”.
Continue reading...Post on the pair’s Instagram page says ‘Eva returned to the future today’, having died at their home in Berlin after surgery on her spine
Eva, one half of the pioneering German performance art duo Eva & Adele, has died, her partner has announced.
“Eva returned to the future today,” a post on the pair’s Instagram page said on Wednesday. “She has left this world and stepped on to the eternal stage. Her faith in the power of art was never-ending.”
Continue reading...Photo from Vietnam war is now at centre of controversy after documentary claimed it was taken by someone else
The World Press Photo group has suspended the attribution of authorship for one on the most famous press photographs ever taken, after a new documentary challenged 50 years of accepted journalism history.
The photo, officially titled The Terror of War but colloquially known as Napalm Girl, remains one of the most indelible images of the US war in Vietnam. Since its publication in June 1972, it has been officially attributed to Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer working with the Associated Press in Saigon.
Continue reading...Country hospital brought back from the ashes wins top heritage prize
A colonial country hospital almost totally destroyed by fire more than two decades ago has won the top prize in the National Trust of Australia (NSW) heritage awards.
The recognition of heritage architecture and conservation projects in the built and natural environment takes place across each state annually. New South Wales staged its awards on Friday, announcing 20 winners across 10 categories.
Continue reading...These seven architects hope to show First Nations design and connection to Country at the world’s most prestigious architecture exhibition
Australia’s participation in next year’s Venice Biennale remains under a cloud. With Creative Australia holding fast to its decision to cancel its commission of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, it’s becoming increasingly likely that the Australian Pavilion might remain dark in 2026.
It is an added weight for the First Nations team who have unveiled their new creation inside the pavilion as part of Venice’s other biennale: the Venice Biennale of Architecture, held every other year in the Giardini.
Continue reading...Decision announced at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where all finalists will be exhibited to the public from Saturday
Julie Fragar has won the 2025 Archibald prize for her portrait of her fellow artist Justene Williams.
Announced as the winner of the $100,000 prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on Friday, the winning work was selected unanimously by the judges from 904 entries and 57 finalists.Fragar is just the 13th woman to win the prize in its 104-year history.
Continue reading...Touching breasts of city’s Molly Malone statue is supposed to bring luck, but not everyone is happy with tradition
Each time a tourist sidled up to the statue and reached for the most famous cleavage in Dublin, a voice called out: “No touching please.”
Two city council stewards stood vigil over the landmark on Tuesday to notify would-be gropers that Molly Malone was to be left alone. After years of supposedly bringing good luck to whomever touched the breasts, they were now off-limits.
Continue reading...The ‘epidemic for Golden Age paintings’ may already be a global problem, with the fungi a possible health hazard
A new type of “extreme” mould is sweeping through Denmark’s museums, threatening some of the nation’s most important paintings and cultural objects, conservators have warned.
Described as an “epidemic for Golden Age paintings”, the highly resistant mould covers objects in a white coating and has been detected in 12 of the country’s museums, including the National Museum of Denmark and Skagens Museum.
Continue reading...Perth will host huge exhibition of ancient treasures from first emperor’s tomb in June, with 40% of the artefacts leaving China for the first time ever
Two thousand years ago, in a bid to conquer death itself, China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang commissioned a city of the dead: a 49 sq km mausoleum guarded by an army of clay warriors, built to defend his tomb for eternity.
When farmers near Xi’an unearthed the first clay head in 1974, they cracked open one of humanity’s greatest archaeological mysteries, with more than 8,000 Terracotta Warriors discovered over the last 50 years. Now, fragments of that dream of immortality rise again – this time in Perth, where the largest exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors ever staged in Australia will head later this year
Continue reading...The Herds project from the team behind Little Amal will travel 20,000km taking its message on environmental crisis across the world
Hundreds of life-size animal puppets have begun a 20,000km (12,400 mile) journey from central Africa to the Arctic Circle as part of an ambitious project created by the team behind Little Amal, the giant puppet of a Syrian girl that travelled across the world.
The public art initiative called The Herds, which has already visited Kinshasa and Lagos, will travel to 20 cities over four months to raise awareness of the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Letters from staff expressed ‘complete lack of confidence in your ability to lead this organisation effectively’ and fears over participating in external inquiry
The embattled head of Creative Australia has been served with two letters of complaint collectively written by staff, and a third signed by more than 600 Australian literary figures.
The fallout over Creative Australia’s decision in February to withdraw the artistic team of Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino from next year’s Venice Biennale continues, with its chief executive, Adrian Collette, now on leave and an inquiry under way into the circumstances surrounding the selection and subsequent sacking of the pair as Australia’s representatives.
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Continue reading...Pope Francis recognises the ‘heroic virtues’ of the creator of Barcelona’s Sagrada Família basilica in first step of process
He’s long been nicknamed “God’s architect” by those who point to his piety and the religious imagery woven through his soaring spires, colourful ceramics and undulating lines.
Now it seems the Vatican may be ready to make it official. It said on Monday that Antoni Gaudí, the Catalan architect behind Barcelona’s Sagrada Família basilica, had been put on the path to sainthood.
Continue reading...William Mitchell artwork saved but Blackheath community centre in which it was housed will be torn down
A rare piece of postwar art that was under threat of being demolished along with the south London building it was housed in has been saved.
The work, a mural by William Mitchell, was created for a community centre in Blackheath that is to be torn down to make way for social housing. The mural will now be preserved by Heritage of London Trust (Holt).
Continue reading...After a year off, the often controversial art festival returns, having signed a new three-year funding deal with the state government
A two-hour performance work involving an artist and a stunt driver culminating in a head-on car crash, a man being crushed by sand in a giant hourglass, and an open invitation to scream, are among some of the artworks heading to Tasmania’s Dark Mofo festival, which is back this winter after taking a fallow year.
The annual art festival, created by David Walsh’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) and well known for its often controversial, confronting and humorous spirit, was called off last year so organisers could take stock of “changing conditions and rising costs” to ensure its future. Many festivals around Australia have been cancelled in the last two years, including Dark Mofo’s summer equivalent, Mona Foma, which finished in 2024 after 16 years.
Continue reading...Art lovers catch last glimpse of prestigious art collection before gallery shuts for five years for major revamp
Visitors from around the world have been flocking to the Pompidou Centre in Paris this weekend, seizing the last opportunity to enjoy Europe’s largest temple of modern and contemporary art before it closes its doors for a five-year overhaul.
In one of the most complex closures of its kind, the task of removing the museum’s 2,000-strong permanent collection will start on Monday. The Pompidou’s Chagalls, Giacomettis and myriad other treasures will be relocated to other sites in Paris and museums elsewhere in France and around the world.
Continue reading...Curator of Design Museum show says ‘human-centric’ approach to design needs overhaul amid climate crisis
Designers need to “fundamentally rethink our relationship with the natural world”, according to the curator of a new exhibition which argues the needs of nature and animals should be considered when creating homes, buildings and products.
Justin McGuirk, the curator of the upcoming More Than Human exhibition at the Design Museum in London, said our current “human-centric” approach to design needs to be radically overhauled as the world adapts to the climate crisis.
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