Police catch woman, 28, climbing colossal 16th-century statue of Neptune to touch its genitals as a dare
A tourist has been charged after allegedly climbing a colossal marble statue in Florence to touch its genitals for a pre-wedding prank.
Experts said the woman caused thousands of euros of damage to the Neptune fountain in Piazza della Signoria.
Continue reading...Ari Hodara bought his ticket at the weekend after finding out about the raffle by chance while dining out
A Parisian art enthusiast could not believe his luck when he found out on Tuesday he had won a Pablo Picasso painting worth more than €1m with a €100 raffle ticket.
“How do I check that it’s not a hoax?” said Ari Hodara, 58, after organisers called him following the draw at Christie’s auction house in the French capital.
Continue reading...Late-night gallery tours and new venues signal a city staking its claim as a regional arts capital
On a recent weekday evening, the doors of more than a dozen galleries and museums across Abidjan stayed open till midnight, several hours later than usual, as art enthusiasts went around town on a bus tour. It was the Night of the Galleries, designed for people to drop in after work and enjoy Abidjan art week to the fullest.
The after-hours special showcase was first tested in January 2024 on the sidelines of the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament hosted and won by Côte d’Ivoire. The tradition continued this year during the art week’s third edition, which ran from last Tuesday to Sunday.
Continue reading...Madrid and Basque government leaders call each other ‘provincial’ in dispute over the artwork
A row has broken out between the Madrid and Basque regional governments in Spain over the latter’s request for Guernica, probably Picasso’s most celebrated work, to be housed temporarily in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to mark the 90th anniversary of the bombing of the Basque town.
The work has hung in the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid since 1992 and repeated requests for it to be moved to the Basque Country have been refused.
Continue reading...Cultural figures sign open letter asking government for clarity on how long landmark collection will remain abroad
One of the world’s most important collections of 20th-century Mexican art, including works by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, is set to be exported to Spain under an agreement with Banco Santander, sparking outrage among Mexico’s cultural community.
Nearly 400 cultural professionals have signed an open letter calling on the Mexican government to offer greater clarity on what the deal means for the masterpieces, particularly the works by Kahlo, which the Mexican state has declared an “artistic monument”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: UK owner’s version of Old Man with a Gold Chain reunited in Chicago with undisputed work by Dutch master
A portrait in a UK collection that has long been dismissed as a workshop copy of an almost identical painting by Rembrandt was in fact also painted by the 17th-century Dutch master, according to a leading scholar.
Each of the paintings, titled Old Man with a Gold Chain and dated to the early 1630s, is a near-lifesize depiction of an older man wearing a gold chain and a plumed hat.
Continue reading...Piece by late South African artist Dumile Feni is part of new series History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But It Does Rhyme
On the second floor of the Reina Sofía, in the very spot where Picasso’s Guernica was first exhibited when it arrived in the Madrid museum 34 years ago, there now hangs a smaller, near-namesake of the Spanish artist’s most famous work.
While African Guernica, which was drawn by the late South African artist Dumile Feni in 1967, may lack the scale of Picasso’s masterpiece, its depth, anger and unnerving juxtaposition of man and beast, light and dark, and innocence and cruelty, are every bit as disturbing.
Continue reading...Mors Imperator caused a scandal in 1887 amid fears it mocked the German kaiser – more than 100 years later it is being displayed in a state museum
Wrapped in a cloak with ermine fur and wearing a jagged iron crown, a hulking skeleton rests one foot on a globe and knocks over a royal throne with a dramatic flick of its ivory wrist.
Entitled Mors Imperator (“Death is the Ruler”), the German artist Hermione von Preuschen’s 1887 symbolical painting was meant to express the transience of fame and power. But authorities feared the picture could be seen as mocking the ageing German Emperor Wilhelm I, who then had recently turned 90, and refused to accept its submission to the Berlin Academy of the Arts’ annual exhibition that year.
Continue reading...After a heist and the departure of its boss, the French institution wrestles with water leaks, strikes and much-criticised plans for a €1bn renovation
Just over a year ago, Laurence des Cars, the intellectually brilliant (if famously prickly) former head of the largest and most-visited museum in the world, wrote a somewhat alarming note to her boss, France’s culture minister.
Des Cars, who on Tuesday resigned as president of the Louvre, lamented the advanced state of disrepair of the iconic museum’s buildings and galleries.
Continue reading...The artist, who was controversially revoked and then reinstated by his government, is planning a ‘nurturing experience’ to bring people together
Australia’s presentation at the Venice Biennale in May will be a “nurturing experience” designed to bring people together – in the aftermath one of the most turbulent and divisive periods in the country’s 72-year history at the prestigious international art festival.
Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, who were controversially dumped and then reinstated as Australia’s representatives, will present not one but two major works at the Venice Biennale in May – both informed by Sabsabi’s practice as a Sufi Muslim and exploring “spirituality, migration, and the vastness of shared humanity”.
Continue reading...Reina Sofía’s three-year rehang of works by artists from Spain and beyond is billed as a ‘critical reinterpretation’
The Reina Sofía’s new rehang opens, quite pointedly, with a painting of a detained man sitting, head bowed and wrists shackled, as he waits for the arbitrary hand of institutional bureaucracy to decide his fate.
The picture, Document No …, was painted by Juan Genovés in 1975, the year Francisco Franco died and Spain began its transition to democracy after four decades of dictatorship. Genovés’s faceless, everyman victim of the Franco regime’s control and repression is the natural starting point for the Madrid museum’s exploration of the past 50 years of contemporary art in Spain.
Continue reading...Exclusive: French artist planning to cover bridge over Seine in tribute to Christo and Jeanne-Claude
The enigmatic French artist JR will undertake what he says is his biggest ever challenge next year when he “wraps” Pont Neuf, the oldest standing bridge across the Seine River in Paris, in a tribute to a monumental art project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
For three weeks next June, the 232-metre (761ft) long bridge will be wrapped in fabric, 40 years after the married artists known for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations did the same thing.
Continue reading...Artwork that hung for centuries at St John’s Almshouse in Sherborne will be sold to raise funds for social housing
“The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and He adds no sorrow with it,” so says the Bible, Proverbs 10:22.
On Friday, a church almshouse was counting its blessings after discovering that a triptych painting that has hung in the chapel for centuries is a 15th-century Flemish masterpiece worth £3.5m.
Continue reading...Large-scale William Scott works feature in exhibition that tells story of artist’s friendship with Mark Rothko
The story of how one of the UK’s great abstract painters was inspired by ordinariness – and the extraordinary meeting he had with an American artistic giant – is being told in a new exhibition in the West Country.
Three large-scale paintings by William Scott (1913 –1989) have been loaned to the Museum of Somerset in Taunton, not far from the artist’s home and studio in the countryside south of Bath.
Continue reading...Viewing original works of art can relieve stress, cut heart disease risk and boost immune system, first study of its kind finds
Enjoying original works of art in a gallery can relieve stress, reduce the risk of heart disease and boost your immune system, according to the first study of its kind.
Researchers measured the physiological responses of participants while viewing masterpieces by world-renowned artists including Manet, Van Gogh and Gauguin in a gallery.
Continue reading...Experimental film-maker’s works included Little Stabs at Happiness, Blonde Cobra, and Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son
Renowned experimental film-maker Ken Jacobs, whose works such as Little Stabs at Happiness, Blonde Cobra and Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son made him a key member of the underground film circuit of the 1960s, has died aged 92. His son Azazel Jacobs, also a film-maker, told the New York Times that he died of kidney failure in hospital on Sunday.
Described by the New York Times as “the éminence grise of the American avant garde”, Jacobs and his wife Flo, with whom he collaborated on much of his work, straddled the worlds of experimental art and American new wave film-making, along with the likes of Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas. He was a founding member of New York’s Film-Makers’ Co-Operative and the first director of the Millennium Film Workshop in 1966, both of which offered a space for film-makers working outside the mainstream and which are still operating today.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Author challenges assumption monks on Iona created manuscript, instead positing its origins are Pictish
The Book of Kells was likely to have been created 1,200 years ago in Pictish eastern Scotland, rather than on the island of Iona, according to research that challenges long-held assumptions about one of the world’s most famous medieval manuscripts.
The Book of Kells is an intricate, illuminated account of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that was long thought to have been started in the late eighth century at the monastery on Iona before being taken in the 9th century to the monastery of Kells in County Meath, Ireland, after a Viking raid.
The Book of Kells by Victoria Whitworth (Bloomsbury Publishing, £35). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Continue reading...Essex-based John Brandler seeking final loan payments as well as three murals from exhibitions company
A bitter row has broken out between a British art dealer and an Italian exhibitions company over three enormous Banksy murals that were loaned three years ago and which the dealer insured for £15m.
John Brandler, an Essex-based specialist in work by the graffiti artist, is pursuing legal action after losing patience with Metamorfosi in Rome, which stages temporary touring exhibitions.
Continue reading...National Trust-owned painting will be exhibited with a meditation option for art lovers to take a long, lingering look
The impulse to race around a gallery and take in as many wonderful paintings as possible can be hard to resist.
But art enthusiasts are being urged to slow down and take a lingering, meditative look at one of the great self-portraits when it is taken on an unhurried tour of England.
Continue reading...Artist’s latest work at Royal Courts of Justice in London is thought to refer to pro-Palestine demonstrations
A painting by Banksy of a judge using a gavel to beat a helpless protester appeared on the walls of the Royal Courts of Justice in London before quickly being covered up by guards.
Banksy confirmed the artwork was his by posting a picture of it on Instagram on Monday morning.
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