Category Archives: Art and design

Edvard Munch’s The Scream needs to practise physical distancing, say experts

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Art lovers may have to give 1910 version space due to damaging effect of humidity on impure paint

It is a masterpiece that seems to speak to the later horrors of war in the 20th century and even the anguishes of the 21st. Now Edvard Munch’s The Scream has another claim on modernity, after it emerged that an oversight by the artist means the 1910 version of the work needs to practise some physical distancing.

An international consortium of scientists seeking to identify the main cause of deterioration of the paint in the canvas has discovered Munch accidentally used an impure tube of cadmium yellow which can fade and flake even in relatively low humidity, including when breathed upon by crowds of art lovers.

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Berlin’s cultural capital in peril from exodus of billionaire art collectors

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Thousands of works will disappear from galleries as rent rises and a stand-off with city government take their toll

Home to some 400 galleries and an estimated 8,000 artists, Berlin has long aspired to be what its politicians call the cultural capital of Europe.

Yet in the coming year, thousands of works by artists including Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman and Gerhard Richter are set to vanish from its galleries, as the city debates what lengths it should go to to protect art collectors from the sharp edge of a property boom.

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‘It’s our sanctuary’: gardens in lockdown, as seen by drone

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Photographer Robert Ormerod uses his aerial camera to document how neighbours are finding solace in their green spaces. By Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

Robert Ormerod had just moved house when lockdown began. “We lived in a flat before. We moved for a garden,” he says. “So when this kicked off, we couldn’t believe how lucky we were to have moved in time.”

As with most photographers, his ability to work has been limited, so Ormerod hit upon the idea of shooting his Edinburgh neighbours in their gardens. These outdoor spaces have been a boon for millions of families across the UK, who have over the past two months used their patch, however small, to get some fresh air, exercise, escape, grow their own food or get to know the wildlife.

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‘Hyper-resolution’ image of Rembrandt painting aids restoration restart

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Lockdown delays restoration of The Night Watch, but it can be viewed online in ‘minute detail’

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has posted online the most detailed photograph ever taken of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, revealing every brushstroke and random fleck of paint.

The so-called hyper-resolution image was launched as the museum announced a delay to the completion of the painting’s restoration, which was begun last year and live-streamed to a global audience.

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‘Colour allows us to understand in a deeper sense’: Hitler, Churchill and others in a new light

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The story of global conflict is all the more powerful when it isn’t seen in black and white. Artist Marina Amaral explains her latest work

On a stretcher lies a patient; his ashen face protrudes from under a green blanket, eyes closed. Two uniformed women carry the stretcher, wearing face masks. It looks as if it’s a lovely day: the sun is shining, the shadows dark, the sky blue. But this is not a happy picture. Is the casualty even alive, or has he already been taken by the killer virus that has wrapped itself around our planet like a python, squeezing the life from it?

The photograph was taken at an ambulance station in Washington DC. Within the past couple of months? It could have been, if it weren’t for the uniforms (I don’t think today’s nurses wear lace-up leather boots) and the stretcher. In fact, it was taken more than a century ago, in 1918, during the Spanish flu epidemic, which killed so many millions. The photographer is unknown, forgotten. But the black and white picture was recently “colourised” by Marina Amaral.

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2020 GDT Nature Photographer of the Year

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The German Society for Nature Photography (GDT) has selected its Nature Photographer of the Year 2020.

The winning image is part of a series of photographs taken in Dortmund’s north by Peter Lindel. Compared with many international nature photography hot spots, this region has little to offer. Lindel spent a lot of time and blood, sweat and tears working on this project on his doorstep. It is a beautiful statement about the long-term exploration of a single species and region.

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Sex and sensibility: the photographers capturing a new American youth

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Peyton Fulford shot LGBTQ+ teenagers in the deep south; Sabine Ostinvil explores nascent black masculinity in pictures that cast a new light on US youth culture

When Peyton Fulford looks at her photograph Backbend, she sees gender fluidity in motion. A body arches over a bag of pink grapefruit, the white underwear and bare legs curving across the golden landscape in a defiant pose that is both playful and strong – yet also ambiguous.

“I wanted to tell a story and for people to question the figure in the image,” the 25-year-old photographer says from Atlanta, Georgia. “Whether it’s a man or a woman or a non-binary person.”

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Seattle artists create murals on shuttered stores – in pictures

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As businesses in Seattle closed their doors, many storefronts nailed plywood over their windows – but it created the feeling of a ghost town. So artists came together to create something beautiful and uplifting, turning these wooden coverings into murals. Sydney Pertl, who created one of the murals in Pioneer Square, says the response has been amazing

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The bittersweet story of Marina Abramović’s epic walk on the Great Wall of China

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In 1988 Abramović and Ulay trekked from opposite ends of the wall to meet in the middle, but this act of love and performance art was doomed from the start

From the moment in 1976 that Serbian and German performance artists Marina Abramović and Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen, who died last month aged 76) clapped eyes on each other they were inseparable. Ulay found Abramović witchy and otherworldly; she found him wild and exciting. Even their initial encounter was propitious: they met in Amsterdam on their shared birthday of 30 November.

The pair began to perform together, describing themselves as a “two-headed body”. For years they lived a nomadic lifestyle, travelling across Europe in a corrugated iron van and performing in villages and towns. Their artistic collaborations matched their personalities: they focused on performances that put them in precarious and physically demanding situations, to see how they and their audience would respond. In one, called Relation in Time, they remained tied together by their hair for 17 hours. They explored conflict, taking their ideas to extremes: running full pelt into each other, naked, and slapping each other’s faces until they could take no more.

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Peter Beard, photographer, wildlife advocate and socialite, dies at 82

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The body of the artist was found in Long Island, three weeks after he was reported missing

The body of photographer Peter Beard has been found, three weeks after he was reported missing.

The 82-year-old, famous for his images of African wildlife, had disappeared from his cliffside compound in Montauk at the tip of Long Island, New York, on 31 March. He had been suffering from dementia. His remains were found in a “densely wooded area” of Camp Hero State Park, according to the East Hampton police department.

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The Ocean Atlantic voyage from Antartica to a world changed by coronavirus – in pictures

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Photographer Sam Edmonds was the team leader on the cruise ship that found itself stranded in South America in late March after travelling to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. He documented the journey from idyllic island to isolation in a Sydney hotel room

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Banksy reveals pest problem in new lockdown artwork

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Artist posted five images on Instagram, saying ‘my wife hates it when I work from home’

Banksy has revealed his latest artwork created while in lockdown - a series of rats causing mayhem in his bathroom.

The elusive anonymous artist, who usually works in the street, posted a set of five images on his Instagram on Wednesday night, with the caption: “My wife hates it when I work from home.”

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TikTok is the social media sensation of lockdown. Could I become its new star?

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With families and couples filming themselves dancing or performing skits, the app has become even more popular in recent weeks. I asked its British stars to help me get started

Andy Warhol predicted a time everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. He was nearly right – it is actually 15 seconds. That is the maximum duration of a video clip with music (non-music clips can last up to a minute) on TikTok, the video-sharing platform that has taken the world by storm. Favoured by under-25s, who make up its core audience, TikTok this year surpassed Facebook and WhatsApp as the world’s most downloaded non-gaming app.

TikTok’s content doesn’t take itself too seriously, and ranges from food to fashion, pranks to pets – as well as the ubiquitous dance challenges. It is a perfect fit, in other words, for the lockdown, when many of us are stuck inside and in desperate need of some silly fun. This may be why, even if you haven’t downloaded it, you suddenly find, clogging up your social media, clips of Justin Bieber dancing to I’m a Savage by Megan Thee Stallion, or Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez swapping outfits to Drake’s Flip the Switch. It seems everyone from doctors and nurses in PPE to bemused parents quarantined with teenagers are flocking to the app – and sometimes going viral in the process.

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British Museum looks to crack mystery over decorated ostrich eggs

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Experts reexamine eggs – some dating back to bronze age – to understand origins and designs

They are about the same size as a standard Easter egg, but are rather older – with some specimens dating back five millennia to the early bronze age.

A collection of decorated ostrich eggs belonging to the British Museum in London has been reexamined by experts in an effort to understand where they originated, and how their often elaborately painted or engraved designs were created.

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‘Beginning of a new era’: how culture went virtual in the face of crisis

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The rise of Covid-19 has forced cultural institutions to explore alternative digital spaces with online exhibitions and a rise in virtual reality

It’s a terrible time for going out. Since the emergence of Covid-19 and resulting self-quarantine, thousands of museums, cultural institutions, festivals and global happenings have temporarily shuttered operations, leaving behind empty streets and a restless public. In a sector that thrives on in-person connection, the loss of an audience is disastrous, yet resilient performers, institutions, galleries, even entire art fairs, are moving to the digital arena, using streaming services and virtual reality, manifesting live concerts on the gaming app Twitch, organizing Instagram dance parties and launching online-only spaces.

During his popular 2015 Ted Talk, the immersive artist, entrepreneur and director Chris Milk suggested that virtual reality could someday become the “ultimate empathy machine” but despite an initial burst of interest in 2015 during the launch of the Oculus Rift headset, immersive media have primarily remained niche. Now, with social distancing, the technology is experiencing something of a renaissance.

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The future is in our hands: drive to save traditional skills

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A new campaign hopes to revive ‘critically endangered’ ancient techniques

Clay pipe making, wainwrighting, tanning and making spinning wheels – all are skills of the past that can offer us a sustainable future. This is the message behind a drive, launched this spring, to preserve endangered traditional crafts in Britain.

With a new award of £3,000 available, together with fresh support from outdoor pursuits company Farlows, the Heritage Crafts Association is calling for a renewed effort to save old skills and pass them down to the next generation.

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Living bridges and supper from sewage: can ancient fixes save our crisis-torn world?

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From underground aqueducts to tree-bridges and fish that love sewage, indigenous customs could save the planet – but are under threat. Landscape architect Julia Watson shares her ‘lo-TEK’ vision

On the eastern edge of Kolkata, near the smoking mountain of the city’s garbage dump, the 15 million-strong metropolis dissolves into a watery landscape of channels and lagoons, ribboned by highways. This patchwork of ponds might seem like an unlikely place to find inspiration for the future of sustainable cities, but that’s exactly what Julia Watson sees in the marshy muddle.

The network of pools, she explains, are bheris, shallow, flat-bottomed fish ponds that are fed by 700m litres of raw sewage every day – half the city’s output. The ponds produce 13,000 tonnes of fish each year. But the system, which has been operating for a century, doesn’t just produce a huge amount of fish – it treats the city’s wastewater, fertilises nearby rice fields, and employs 80,000 fishermen within a cooperative.

Watson, a landscape architect, says it saves around $22m (£18m) a year on the cost of a conventional wastewater treatment plant, while cutting down on transport, as the fish are sold in local markets. “It is the perfect symbiotic solution,” she says. “It operates entirely without chemicals, seeing fish, algae and bacteria working together to form a sustainable, ecologically balanced engine for the city.”

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