Arts news

• Drawing the prophet: Islam’s hidden history of Muhammad images

  10-01-2015 23:16
  
  Ban on depictions has not always been absolute – Islam has a rich heritage of images and icons dating back to the 13th centuryTo many Muslims, any image of the prophet Muhammad is sacrilegious, but the ban has not always been absolute and there is a small but rich tradition of devotional Islamic art going back more than seven centuries that does depict God’s messenger.It began with exquisite miniatures from the 13th century, scholars say. Commissioned from Muslim artists by the rich and powe
  
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• ‘Mack Is the Metal-and-Glass Man, Uecker Is the Nails Man': Flashing Back to the Zero Group

  10-01-2015 16:00 via artnews.com
  With the Guggenheim’s “ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s–60s” just closed, we look back 50 years, to 1964, when ARTnews published a review of a Group Zero show at Howard Wise Gallery. Though the European avant-garde group had been well-known in Europe since the … Read More
  
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• Disputes damage hopes of rebuilding Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas

  10-01-2015 11:00
  
  Plans are afoot to restore giant Buddhist symbols destroyed by the Taliban, but experts cannot agree on best way forwardIt is always a shock reaching Bamiyan, coming face to face with the two huge cavities in the cliff face. The upright tombs stare out over the valley, a splash of vegetation surrounded by wild mountains. The town straddles the Silk Road, close to the point where it used to enter Persia, dwarfed by two massive mountain ranges, the Koh-i-Baba and Hindu Kush. The void left by the t
  
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• Orfeo: looking back at Monteverdi’s masterpiece

  10-01-2015 10:00
  
  Don Paterson thought writing a singable English version of a 17th-century Italian opera would be a breeze, until he found himself ‘fitting a set of spanners into a velvet box made for a dinner service’L’Orfeo wasn’t quite the first opera, but the consensus seems to be that it was the first that was any good. Some still hold it to be the greatest. Monteverdi was smart enough to choose just about the best story we have; indeed it’s hard to imagine starting with any other. The tale of Orp
  
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• How to draw… a parasite

  10-01-2015 10:00
  
  From fleas to nits to thread worms, this is a great time of year to think about the bugs that live in and on us, making us itch and sneeze (but doing some good stuff too!). Parasites rule in Kate Hindley’s book Worst In Show so here’s a lesson on how to draw them! Continue reading...
  
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• Abstract art: from the radical to the everyday

  10-01-2015 09:00
  
  Mondrian’s bold grids, Malevich’s Black Square, Jenny Holzer’s top secret redacted government documents ... a new exhibition celebrates the point and edge of 100 years of abstractionLast year Tate Modern successfully reawakened interest in the Russian suprematist Kazimir Malevich. This year the Whitechapel Gallery kick-starts a groundbreaking exhibition of 100 years of geometric abstraction, Adventures of the Black Square, with an allusion to Malevich’s famous work, first shown
  
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• Make dazzling art from neon lights

  10-01-2015 08:00
  
  It can be rather dangerous to master, but neon lighting has long been a favoured medium of artists such as Tracey Emin“Essentially, there are only three risks – cutting yourself, burning yourself and electrocuting yourself,” Julia Bickerstaff, a neon veteran, informs us cheerfully.Our class of six is gathered in a draughty warehouse under a London railway arch. Julia has been making neon, or cold cathode, lighting for 27 years and will be our teacher today, along with the Yorkshire-based n
  
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• Drink and draw classes: art and alcohol can be a good mix

  10-01-2015 08:00
  
  A glass of wine can help reduce the inhibitions that might get in the way of students’ creativityNow without the booze – here are some drawing classes you could join
  I’m resting my elbows on an unvarnished, paint-stained table in a cosy craft shop and I’m expecting a naked man any minute now. Surveying the A3 paper, paintbrushes and various types of pencil, I’m distracted by the giant glass entrance doors. Won’t passersby, you know … see? The teacher smiles and says: “Life drawi
  
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• Katy Moran, Darren Banks, Sun Xun: this week’s new exhibitions

  10-01-2015 07:00
  
  From Katy Moran’s lively paintings in London to Sun Xun’s animated videos in Manchester, Skye Sherwin and Robert Clark find out what’s happening in art around the countryKaty Moran’s paintings are lively, bustling things. This show takes in the evolution of this rising British artist’s work, beginning with her small, brushy abstractions in sludgy greens and browns. Her recent creations incorporating collage are more colourful and hectic, with their cryptic titles leading their audience
  
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• As San Francisco’s Tenderloin Area Quickly Gentrifies, Where Will The Artists Go?

  10-01-2015 00:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  “More than a dozen technology companies, including Twitter, have relocated alongside the impoverished neighborhood, some buoyed by city tax breaks. The prospective changes to the Tenderloin — a noirish haunt of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade and arguably the central city’s last working-class neighborhood — have given rise to a new nickname: the Twitterloin.”
  
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