Arts news

• Silent soldiers across the UK mark Battle of the Somme in poignant live art piece

  02-07-2016 23:59
  
  First World War soldiers appeared in public places across the UK yesterday (1 July), marking the centenary of the bloody Battle of the Somme that claimed the lives of more than 19,000 British troops on the fields of northern France a hundred years to the day. The men, who congregated in shopping centres, high streets and at railway stations, were volunteers in a human memorial devised by the artist Jeremy Deller, who is known for his re-enactment of the Battle of Orgreave in 2001. The
  
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• Chinese art brings a political edge to Sussex

  02-07-2016 23:00
  The Cass Sculpture Foundation in West Sussex in the south of England has commissioned 16 Chinese artists to participate in the most extensive installation ever undertaken on its 26-acre site, says the curatorial director Claire Shea. A Beautiful Disorderthe foundations first major show of commissions by international artistsis the result of almost two years of research and production overseen by Shea and her co-curators, Wenny Teo from the Courtauld Institute, London, and Ella Liao from the Roc
  
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• Renowned Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli detained in Tehran

  02-07-2016 22:08
  
  The artist was due to fly to London to speak at the British Museum but had his passport confiscated without explanationAuthorities in Iran have confiscated the passport of the country’s most renowned living artist, Parviz Tanavoli, the day before he was due to speak at the British Museum. Tanavoli told the Observer that he went to Tehran’s international airport on Saturday to take a Lufthansa flight to London but border officials confiscated his passport and barred him from leaving t
  
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• Renowned Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli barred from leaving country

  02-07-2016 22:08
  
  The artist was due to fly to London to speak at the British Museum but had his passport confiscated without explanationAuthorities in Iran have confiscated the passport of the country’s most renowned living artist, Parviz Tanavoli, the day before he was due to speak at the British Museum. Tanavoli told the Observer that he went to Tehran’s international airport on Saturday to take a Lufthansa flight to London but border officials confiscated his passport and barred him from leaving t
  
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• Benjamin Patterson: the Fluxus artist who composed with ants

  02-07-2016 12:00
  
  Denied employment as a classical double-bassist because of his race, the multimedia artist, who died last week, went in a more groundbreaking directionBenjamin Patterson was there at the very beginning of Fluxus, performing his own composition at the first concert co-organized by George Maciunas in Germany, in 1962. Yet while Fluxus-associated figures such as Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik and La Monte Young have all enjoyed a certain purchase with art-world habitués (even among those who may no
  
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• Arty one-nighter in London's hidden haunts

  02-07-2016 11:27
  
  Art lovers can access buildings and sites in central London this weekend that are usually off-limits thanks to a new initiative called Art Night. From 5pm until late today (2 July), visitors can sample an installation by Turner prizewinner Laure Prouvost at Admiralty Arch on the Mall, take in a new video series by Argentine artist Cecilia Bengolea in the East Piazza of Covent Garden and savour a new work by the choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis at Two Temple Place on the Thames. The
  
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• Clive James: ‘After the death of Jo Cox, I found myself wondering if I hadn't lived too long'

  02-07-2016 09:00
  
  When I was six, I was the only man in the house – so how could I defend my mother if the bad men showed up? Little did I know I had a long life ahead in which I would hear about the bad men almost every dayAfter the death of Jo Cox at the hands of Thomas Mair, I found myself comparing two photographs and wondering if I hadn’t lived too long. One was of Jo Cox: radiant, intelligent, with no limit to the good she might have done. The other was of Thomas Mair. Here was a face with nothi
  
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• Me and my dad

  02-07-2016 08:10
  
  As fathers, black men tend to be stereotyped in the media as absent or feckless. Photographer Aaron Sylvester has taken these pictures of fathers he knows – men who are motivated and engaged, deeply involved in their children’s daily lives. They are taken from his recent project, The Forgotten Parent: The New Black Stereotype Continue reading...
  
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• A celebration of black fathers

  02-07-2016 07:15
  
  Why are there so few positive images of black fathers in the media? This was the question that inspired Aaron Sylvester’s latest project – photographs of engaged, caring dads spending time with their children. Plus, see the gallery here‘I see so many of my friends doing such a great job, day in, day out, but all I hear in the press and the public are about dads acting as glorified babysitters, rather than being proper caregivers,” says Aaron Sylvester. A photographer and
  
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• Richard Avedon Paid His Printer With Prints… And That Is A Problem

  02-07-2016 00:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The prints were Mr. Hofmann’s reward for his labor, he said, explaining that he struck a deal with Avedon in the fall of 1984: instead of money, he would be paid with a signed print of everything he produced for the project. “Dick had no conception of what people lived on, and asking him for money was difficult,” he explained. “Being paid in prints seemed the path of least resistance.” But there is a snag. None of Mr. Hofmann’s prints from the series is signed
  
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