Articles

African Arts―Global Conversations draws from the Brooklyn Museum’s extensive and renowned collections to assert the importance of African arts within the art historical canon. Spanning the entire Museum, the exhibition questions dominant narratives from Western art history and museum practices that have traditionally sidelined African arts, and makes important connections between the continent’s various artistic practices and those of other global cultural groups.

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, who was known for his monumental environmental artworks with his late wife, Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, has died. He was 84 years old. Together, known simply as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, they wrapped iconic landmarks in fabric, such as the Pont Neuf in Paris in 1985 and the Reichstag in Berlin in 1995; and mounted thousands of orange gates in Central Park, redolent of Japan's sacred torii gates, in 2005.

Ai Weiwei is a creative thorn in the side of Chinese authorities. His activism gained prominence when he broke through the government cover up to commemorate the thousands of children who died during the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 due to shoddy school construction. Today, he is making a film about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

To gather information on how the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak is affecting and will affect the cultural sector in the short and long term, ICOM launched a global survey to analyse the impact of lockdowns. The survey covered 5 themes: the current situation for museums and staff, predicted economic impact, digital and communication, museum security and conservation of collections, freelancer museum professionals.

The Turner Prize, the most high-profile award in British art, will not be given out this year because of the upheaval caused by coronavirus pandemic. Tate Britain, which has organised the prize since 1984, said it would be impossible to organise the annual nominees' exhibition. Instead, Tate will give bursaries each worth £10,000 to help 10 artists at this "exceptionally difficult time".

"Because of my love at first sight for a bakery in Tehran, I saw similarities between the bakery and my artist studio, were I work with porcelain, plaster and salt as a daily ritual.Aside from this, the Middle Eastern bakeries seem like a white wide space. You could almost be presenting a gallery space".

“Meditations in an Emergency” is the first exhibition to open in 2020 at UCCA Beijing, bringing together 26 Chinese and international artists reflecting on the role of art during a time of crisis.

Italy’s most visited cultural sites want to reopen and come out of Italy’s two-month lockdown, while ensuring visitors to do it safely. Florence Cathedral has introduced devices that will allow people to visit the celebrated basilica, ensuring the minimum safety distance between them.

The Culture Secretary of the UK has announced representatives from the arts, cultural and sporting worlds who will join a new taskforce aimed at helping getting the country’s recreation and leisure sector up and running again.

France could make up for its financial losses amid the coronavirus pandemic by selling the Mona Lisa, a tech CEO has suggested. Stephane Distinguin, the founder of tech company Fabernovel, made the suggestion in a magazine interview, explaining that France should “sell the family jewellery” for at least €50 billion (£44.7 billion).

Finnish artist Jukka Korkeila uses installation, drawing, and most commonly painting to convey his unique perspective on a fragile but harsh world. In 1999 he was named Young Artist of the Year in Finland he took part in the Prague Biennale in 2003 and 2007 as well as the Sao Paulo Art Biennale in 2004. He has exhibited in major galleries and exhibitions around the world.

Sean Henry often portrays contemporary-looking, casual figures in distracted or thoughtful poses. He believes that “all sculpture is inherently theatrical” and has remarked upon watching a play and being struck by the “pure sculpture” of the scene.

'I like to tilt the image by adding what is for just a second an association to the subject. Through simple manipulations, the subjects are given a charge that makes them into something else; they suggest multiple meanings, or even a way of looking at reality'.

Exactly 80 years to the day when Churchill became Prime Minister, Sotheby’s to offer a collection of rare books & manuscripts, embracing his prolific life and career.

The Rijksmuseum is publishing the largest and most detailed ever photograph of The Night Watch on its website, making it possible to zoom in on individual brushstrokes and even particles of pigment in the painting. Work on Operation Night Watch will resume on Wednesday 13 May in the glass chamber in the museum.

Running through 30 June, Virtual Design Festival is the world’s first online design festival. On Saturday VDF teamed up with Schloss Hollenegg for the virtual opening of an exhibition exploring the wilder side of nature, including a live tour of the historic castle later today.

"I discover the poetic relation between old pages who have own their history and my imagery. Often, the story’s I draw are related to the text on the page. I like to interlace two tales related to the past together. The past is my source of inspiration, like the ancient drawings of the Abssy time in the 13th century, old fairy tales from east and west, and old mythologies".

Timo Menke is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Stockholm. Investigating the relationship between the observer and the observed, subject and object, recorder and projector, lens and screen, his practice is increasingly aiming at a dark holistic approach. Using photographic and moving images, documents, objects, drawing and plant cultivation he approaches, renegotiates and speculates about our common nature-culture, in order to highlight and transform an increasingly dark matter: body, earth, space.

Photographer Peter Beard, world-renowned for his beautiful and intimate images of Africa and African wildlife, was found dead at age 82 after he went missing from his Montauk, New York, home on April 1.

Man is part of the great whole and does not stand above nature. That the human animal is exceptional, is merely an illusion. Like other animals, he is governed by biology and by the laws that govern other animals. Suddenly, within a few weeks, we have become the chicken that has to be kept indoors, cordoned-off, kept apart.