Arts news

• Trunk bombs: South Africa's elephant street art – in pictures

  28-05-2016 18:00
  
  South African graffiti artist Falko One’s street art project, Once Upon a Town, sees lively elephant murals storming the walls of neglected neighbourhoods. “I want to make people happy,” he says. “The aim is for these communities to feel pride. The happiness in the form of the bright colours must interrupt the blandness.” The elephants, which appear to be interacting with their environment, are as much for One himself as they are for the locals. “It’s my
  
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• Spanish police make arrests over stolen Francis Bacon works

  28-05-2016 14:25
  
  Seven held over five paintings and other valuables that were taken in burglary of Madrid home last summerSeven people have been arrested in Spain on suspicion of involvement in the theft of five paintings by Francis Bacon, worth a total of €25m (£19m).The paintings were stolen last July, along with other valuables belonging to the owner, who is reported to have been a close friend of Bacon. The works, which comprise portraits and landscapes, are yet to be recovered. Related: Francis B
  
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• Caravaggio and the art of dieting

  28-05-2016 09:00
  
  The luscious banquets painted by the Renaissance master were held up as a good example of healthy eating this week by the National Obesity Forum – but were they really that nutritious?The Caravaggio diet is spread out at an inn in The Supper at Emmaus, painted in 1601 by the man himself. But does it have much in common with the jolly pre-modern gourmandising recommended this week by David Haslam of the National Obesity Forum? Claiming that low-fat diets are counter-productive, Haslam mused
  
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• Frieda Hughes: ‘I felt my parents were stolen’

  28-05-2016 07:30
  
  Frieda Hughes is a painter and poet. She is also the daughter of two giants of the literary world, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, and didn’t read her parents’ poetry until her mid-30sFrieda Hughes is thumbing through her first book of poetry, trying to find the poem she wrote about the poems her father, Ted Hughes, wrote about her mother, Sylvia Plath. “It’s called Birds. It describes the poet as a penguin, nursing the egg his wife has left him, and the skuas that kill and
  
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• Dancer, painter, soldier … Tottenham brothers on their way to the top

  28-05-2016 07:29
  
  Maryam Golding’s three oldest sons – an artist, a soldier and a ballet dancer – are all on the way to the top. Much of that, they say, is due to their parents, who brought them up to be fiercely proud of their mixed race heritageMaryam Golding rarely gets her three eldest sons together round the dinner table at her small west London flat. Her boys have extraordinary reasons to be busy. The last time the whole family was crowded into the living room, her middle son was celebrati
  
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• Vivid festival 2016 opens with powerful statement by Indigenous Australia

  28-05-2016 00:25
  
  The sails of the Sydney Opera House are splashed in light as an artwork inspired by the ancient songlines of Indigenous Australia makes its debutAt 6pm on Friday, when the Vivid festival lights were switched on for the first time in 2016 and the Sydney CBD was suddenly illuminated in bright colours, its centrepiece was a powerful cultural statement from Indigenous Australia.Over the 23 nights of the festival, the sails of the Sydney Opera House will be splashed in light. The 15 minute-long loope
  
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