Archeologists find ancient Peruvian fresco, lost for a century
In Ukraine, a painting by the street artist Banksy was cut out of a wall by a group of local people shortly after it was completed. In the Kiev suburb of Hostomel,…
Latest
The metaverse is a concern because it will encourage more screen time and damage human connections, the producer of the Abba Voyage show says. Svana Gisla told Britain’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that the technology “scares” her and does not represent an obvious…
Campaigners were occupying buildings, including the British Museum and Scottish Power headquarters, amid a Saturday protest against rising energy bills and “sky-rocketing” levels of fuel poverty in Britain, according to organizers. Members of the grass roots movements Don’t Pay UK and Fuel Poverty Action said campaigners had…
Ukraine has detained eight people over the theft from a wall in the Kyiv suburbs of a mural painted by elusive British street artist Banksy, the authorities said. The stencil image of a person in a nightgown and gas mask holding a fire extinguisher next…
Focus
Videos
Choreographers Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and Némo Flouret take over the Louvre Museum with dance performances in front of the works of art. The museum offers performances by a dozen artists whose movements enter into dialogue with the masterpieces of David and Leonardo Da Vinci…
A remarkable wartime self-portrait of painter Max Beckmann will be auctioned in Germany next week, valued at a record-setting estimate of up to 30 million euros. “Selbstbildnis gelb-rosa” (Self-Portrait Yellow-Pink), widely considered a masterpiece and in private hands since it was painted in 1943, features…
Museums & Institutions
Dozens of modern artworks removed from Kyiv to protect them from Russian strikes that have already done huge damage to Ukraine’s cultural heritage will go on display at a Madrid museum on Tuesday. The works on show at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum of Art as…
At a time when Western relations with Russia have fallen to a historically low level, a new museum in the city once divided by the Iron Curtain wants to explore the facets of the Cold War. Berlin’s Cold War Museum, not far from the Brandenburg Gate…
Policy
A small museum in south-east London has begun the official process of returning looted Benin bronzes to Nigeria. The Horniman Museum, which houses a collection of 72 treasured items that were taken by force from Benin City in 1897, officially handed over ownership of the artefacts to the…
Authorities in Namibia’s capital Windhoek on Wednesday took down and relocated a statue of a controversial German colonial officer following pressure from local activists. The monument commemorated Curt von Francois, a German army commissioner who has been credited with founding Windhoek — something local campaigners…
Market & Fairs
Climate activists’ attacks on some of the world’s most precious paintings have added to insurers’ worries about the threat to art from climate change itself, concerns seen as leading to higher art insurance premiums. In recent weeks, activists have drawn attention to the climate cause…
The Venice Biennale art exhibition is coming to an end after having received a record number of visitors. The world’s most important presentation of contemporary art, alongside the documenta in Kassel, had recorded more than 800,000 admissions by Saturday, one day before it is due to close. According…
Digital
Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter has snowballed into a full-blown catastrophe, with large parts of the company reportedly refusing to commit to the billionaire’s plans for a new “hardcore” work culture. The platform might still be live, and yet #RIPTwitter has been trending as reports circulate,…
Nigeria’s famed Benin bronzes — artefacts stolen during British colonial rule and scattered across the globe — have a new online archive that aims to become a digital record of the treasures. Thousands of 16th to 18th century metal plaques, sculptures and objects were looted…
Latest Videos
ALL NEWS
The metaverse is a concern because it will encourage more screen time and damage human connections, the producer of the Abba Voyage show says. Svana Gisla told Britain’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that the technology “scares” her and does not represent an obvious improvement on digital experiences. Abba Voyage, a physical concert featuring four 3D digital versions of…
More
Campaigners were occupying buildings, including the British Museum and Scottish Power headquarters, amid a Saturday protest against rising energy bills and “sky-rocketing” levels of fuel poverty in Britain, according to organizers. Members of the grass roots movements Don’t Pay UK and Fuel Poverty Action said campaigners had bedded down with blankets, sleeping bags and hot water bottles in the foyer of the…
More
Ukraine has detained eight people over the theft from a wall in the Kyiv suburbs of a mural painted by elusive British street artist Banksy, the authorities said. The stencil image of a person in a nightgown and gas mask holding a fire extinguisher next to the charred remains of a window in the town of Gostomel went missing on…
More
German auction house Grisebach on Friday said it would open a new legal probe into a Kandinsky painting sold for 387,000 euros, after Poland said the work had been stolen from one of its museums. The 1928 piece called “Untitled” by Russian avant-garde artist Wassily Kandinsky was auctioned on Thursday evening in Berlin at a sale where a painting by…
More
The public prosecutor’s office in Berlin has brought charges against a 20-year-old climate activist who was involved in a glue stunt at Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie public painting gallery this summer. The woman allegedly used superglue to attach herself and another activist to the historic wooden frame of the painting “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” by Lucas Cranach on August 25. …
More
Framed, mounted and on pedestals – Egyptian sculptures and historic objects could be found all over the studio of Auguste Rodin, where the artist liked to study them and use them as inspiration. The Rodin Museum in Paris is now focusing on the French sculptor’s fascination with Egypt and its art, a side of the artist which has been largely unexplored…
More
Three and a half years after the devastating fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, the first collapsed stone vault has been restored. Craftsmen used 14 cubic metres of stone for the reconstruction, the Établissement Public, which is responsible for the reconstruction, said on Thursday. “We are moving forward with determination towards the reopening of the cathedral in 2024,” said Jean-Louis Georgelin, special…
More
Archeologists have rediscovered a pre-Hispanic fresco depicting mythological scenes in northern Peru that they had only seen in black and white photographs that were more than a century old. “It’s an exceptional discovery, first of all, because it is rare to unearth wall paintings of such quality in pre-Colombian archeology,” said Sam Ghavami, the Swiss archeologist who led excavations that…
More
Protesters have taken to the streets of Shanghai, Beijing and other cities in recent days to demonstrate against heavy COVID-19 measures and restrictions on freedom, a show of civil disobedience that is unprecedented since leader Xi assumed power. Ai Weiwei said the protests were not likely to carry on – not only because security forces would quash those speaking out…
More
Dozens of modern artworks removed from Kyiv to protect them from Russian strikes that have already done huge damage to Ukraine’s cultural heritage will go on display at a Madrid museum on Tuesday. The works on show at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum of Art as part of the “In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930” exhibition include…
More
The Venice Biennale art exhibition is coming to an end after having received a record number of visitors. The world’s most important presentation of contemporary art, alongside the documenta in Kassel, had recorded more than 800,000 admissions by Saturday, one day before it is due to close. According to organizers, another 22,000 people bought tickets for the preview days in April. The number…
More
A forgotten Roman emperor has been rescued from “obscurity” after UK researchers determined a coin long dismissed as fake was in fact authentic. The coin featuring the profile of an emperor named Sponsian was among a handful of similar coins found in Transylvania in present-day Romania in 1713. They had been considered fakes since the mid-19th century due to their…
More
Authorities in Namibia’s capital Windhoek on Wednesday took down and relocated a statue of a controversial German colonial officer following pressure from local activists. The monument commemorated Curt von Francois, a German army commissioner who has been credited with founding Windhoek — something local campaigners and historians dispute. The statue, which stood on a high pedestal outside municipal buildings, depicted…
More
German police on Thursday searched several premises in Leipzig following a glue attack on Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” painting in Dresden earlier this year. The flats likely belong to climate activists of the group Last Generation who glued themselves to the famous artwork in August in a bid to call attention to the climate crisis. “The measures are about finding evidence…
More
It was a relatively promising start for gender equality when London’s Royal Academy of Arts was set up in 1768, with two women artists included among its 40 founding members. But that was a false dawn — it would not be until the 1930s that another woman was elected a full member of the Academy. While a few big names…
More
Christie’s has called off the auction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, the auction house told AFP on Monday, days before it was due to go under the hammer in Hong Kong. The cancellation came after an American fossil company raised doubts about parts of the skeleton named “Shen”, The New York Times reported on Sunday. Christie’s said in a statement…
More
Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter has snowballed into a full-blown catastrophe, with large parts of the company reportedly refusing to commit to the billionaire’s plans for a new “hardcore” work culture. The platform might still be live, and yet #RIPTwitter has been trending as reports circulate, both in tech media and on the platform, that many employees critical to the company’s…
More
Banksy has accused fashion brand Guess of using his work on a clothing collection without permission. The elusive artist posted an image of items on display in the window of Guess’s store on Regent Street in London. He wrote: “Attention all shoplifters. Please go to Guess on Regent Street. They’ve helped themselves to my artwork without asking, how can it…
More
At the U.N. COP27 climate change conference in Egypt, the architects of the Paris Agreement to curb global warming urged negotiators at the upcoming biodiversity summit in Canada to take “urgent action” to protect and restore nature. They said that a failure to agree on an “ambitious and transformative” biodiversity pact at COP15 in Montreal in December would risk undermining…
More
At the COP27 climate talks in Egypt this week, world leaders have sought to accelerate efforts to halt deforestation by 2030 – in line with a pledge 140 countries made last year to preserve forests. A new group of nations was created to boost momentum on that promise, along with new funding commitments, including 90 million pounds ($106 million) from…
More