Arts news

• Cinema

  07-08-2017 20:04 via feedproxy.google.com
   
  We landed at YVR and I waited with Greg to get his suitcase and we followed signs to the Skytrain. Two men in uniform were blue dots in the distance of the clean, vast baggage claim area, and they grew larger as we got closer. Before getting to an escalator we were stopped by the two customs officers and asked for our passports. We each had our own officer to question us.
  “Where you coming from?”
  Interrogation had a deafening effect on me. I only heard the questions darting a
  
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• British Museum Raises $4.8 M. to Keep ‘Tudor Heart’ Pendant in UK

  10-02-2026 01:01 via artnews.com
  The British Museum announced that it has successfully raised £3.5 million ($4.8 million) to acquire the “Tudor Heart” pendant and keep the centuries-old object in the UK.The museum described the Tudor Heart as “unlike any object in the British Museum collection or elsewhere in the UK.” The 24-carat-gold pendant, which is accompanied by a 75-link gold chain, is currently the only known piece of jewelry to survive from the period of Henry VIII’s reign during his
  
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• Michaels Sues Artist Who Claimed the Craft Store Giant Used His Work Without Permission

  09-02-2026 23:46 via artnews.com
  Street artists have found themselves in legal conflicts for years with fashion brands and other companies that employ their work in advertising and social media campaigns. Some have won settlements after legal battles with these companies, which claim they do not need to contact the artists for their works, which often appear in public and sometimes are created illegally.Now, Chicago artist Jordan Nickel, who goes by the moniker Pose, finds himself in a legal conflict with arts and crafts retail
  
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• First Art Basel Qatar Closed with Institutional Acquisitions, Mid-Market Strength, and Measured Sales Momentum

  09-02-2026 23:28 via artnews.com
  Art Basel Qatar closed its inaugural edition this week with numbers that suggest Doha has quickly established itself as a serious market platform. Getting there required patience.Selling in Doha was always going to unfold differently. The Qatari royal family was given a private walkthrough on Monday, the day before VIP preview began. Sorces told ARTnews that galleries were told that any work placed on hold would either be confirmed as sold or released within 24 hours. Yet even on
  
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• Political Bribery Investigation in South Korea Involving Lee Ufan Painting Draws to a Close

  09-02-2026 22:48 via artnews.com
  A bizarre saga involving a painting attributed to Lee Ufan and Kim Keon-hee, the wife of South Korea’s impeached and jailed former president Yoon Suk-yeol, may be drawing to a close.Kim Sang-min, a former chief prosecutor, had previously been accused of purchasing Lee’s From Point No. 800298 in 2023 for around 140 million won (about $100,000) and then gifting the work to the former first lady in exchange for political favors. On Monday, he was acquitted of violating the Improper Soli
  
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• Long Misidentified, Object in Museum Is Oldest Drilling Tool Found Yet in Egypt

  09-02-2026 21:52 via artnews.com
  A small metal object excavated almost 100 years ago has been identified as the oldest known drilling tool yet found in Egypt. The news was reported by Archeology Today.The artifact came from a predynastic cemetery at the archeological site of Badari in Upper Egypt and dates to the late 4th millennium BCE. Part of the grave goods of an adult male, it is made of copper alloy and measures only about two and a half inches.A 1924 catalog entry at Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, wher
  
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• Ai Weiwei Says London’s Royal Academy Sought to Eject Him After Post–October 7 Tweet about Jews

  09-02-2026 21:36 via artnews.com
  In a new interview with The Guardian in advance of his forthcoming book On Censorship, artist Ai Weiwei talked about experiencing censorship not just in his native China but also in the West—including an incident involving his membership in London’s Royal Academy.After chronicling some of his storied challenges and acts of defiance against China’s communist regime, Ai told writer Lanre Bakare he feels “the same kind of surveillance, same kind of censorship in the west.&rd
  
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• Meet the Speakerhead Wiring the Art World for Sound

  09-02-2026 20:08 via artnews.com
  Editor’s Note: This story is part of Newsmakers, an ARTnews series featuring conversations with the figures shaping how the art world is changing right now.One of the standout works in “Art of Noise,” an exhibition of music-related design at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, is a listening room devoted to a sound system built by Devon Turnbull, also known as OJAS. In the past few years, Turnbull has garnered attention as a high-fidelity evangeli
  
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• Debbie Harry, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Al Green Appear in New Factory Images Acquired by the Smithsonian

  09-02-2026 19:54 via artnews.com
  The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art has added more than 400 rarely seen images of famous figures who passed through Andy Warhol’s Factory, from David Hockney and Debbie Harry, to Georgia O’Keeffe and Paloma Picasso. According to the institution, the images were captured by the artist Ronald “Ronnie” Cutrone as stereoscopic slides, pairing two photographs to create the illusion of three-dimensional depth.
  Cutrone, a performer (with the Velvet Underground, not
  
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• Bedoya: The Imagination Of Democracy

  09-02-2026 19:40 via reader.giarts.org
  We already carry muscle memory: voting, organizing for fairness and equity, creating the beauty of art expressed in what we share between us — images, songs, movements, designs, or letters — shapes the will of the people and creates knowledges and visions of a fully manifested democracy. – GIA Arts
  
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• Spotify Adds Physical Books To Its Service

  09-02-2026 19:20 via hollywoodreporter.com
  The tech platform is launching Page Match, a tool that will allow readers to scan a page of a printed or e-book using their phone and continue listening to the audiobook version where they left off. – The Hollywood Reporter
  
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• Dreaming of Creating a Giant Public Artwork With Google? Artist Judy Chicago Doesn’t Recommend It.

  09-02-2026 19:14 via artnews.com
  For just about any artist, a major, permanent public commission from a giant global corporation might seem like great news. The artist might expect big budgets, massive exposure, and a ribbon-cutting with the mayor and CEO. Even Judy Chicago, an icon of feminist art who has had solo exhibitions at institutions from New York’s New Museum to San Francisco’s de Young Museum and whose massive piece The Dinner Party (1974–79) is on permanent view at the Brooklyn Museum, anticip
  
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• Longtime Musician: The Music Industry Is Broken

  09-02-2026 19:02 via guitarworld.com
  I’ve spent roughly 20 years in the Australian extreme metal scene – clubs, festivals, support slots with bands like Napalm Death, Psycroptic and Gorguts – and I can tell you this: the industry isn’t just tough. It’s quietly chewing up the people who keep it alive. – GuitarWorld
  
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• MFA Boston Denies Targeting DEI Staff in Cutbacks, Former French Culture Minister Jack Lang Stepping Down: Morning Links for February 9, 2026

  09-02-2026 18:47 via artnews.com
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The HeadlinesFACING PUBLIC BACKLASH, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has denied targeting DEI employees when it fired 33 people, including the institution’s only Muslim curator, Nadirah Mansour, only Native American curator, Marina Tyquiengco, and only Black curator, theo Tyson, reports Artnet News. After news of the layoffs effective Jan. 30, 130 staff
  
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• Davone Tines On Defining A Role In Classical Music

  09-02-2026 18:40 via theguardian.com
  What’s too often missing for Tines in opera and classical music is an investigation into why treasured artworks remain valuable and what they may say today. What he’s not interested in, he concludes with a knowing cackle, is being “slapped into someone’s production of Don Giovanni. – The Guardian
  
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• The Meaning Of Serious Leisure

  09-02-2026 18:23 via theconversation.com
  The idea of serious leisure was coined in 1982 by sociologist Robert Stebbins, who described the unique characteristics of more structured leisure pursuits. The more we understand about why people do the things they do, the more they can benefit from their pursuits. – The Conversation
  
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• Italian Culture Ministry Revealed as Buyer of $15 M. Painting Pulled from Sotheby’s Old Master Sale

  09-02-2026 18:09 via artnews.com
  Days before it was set to go on sale during Sotheby’s Old Masters auction on February 5, a double-sided panel by the Italian Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina was withdrawn from the high-profile evening sale. Today, Sotheby’s revealed that the Italian Ministry of Culture purchased the painting for $14.9 million before it could reach the auction block.Ecce Homo and Saint Jerome in the Desert (ca. 1430–79) had a $10 million–15 million estimate and was being promoted
  
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• The Books Ecosystem Is Dying

  09-02-2026 18:02 via theatlantic.com
  In a sense, the decline of book reviews, like the decline of newspapers themselves, is a story about disaggregation. Newspapers used to bundle several functions together in a way that made them both useful and profitable. – The Atlantic
  
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• How Architects Are Returning To The Earth

  09-02-2026 17:44 via theguardian.com
  Today, as architects seek to improve the sustainability of a sector that is responsible for more than a third of global carbon emissions, the concept of using rammed earth sourced from, or near, the grounds of a proposed building site is attracting attention. – The Guardian
  
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• Artist Who Represented Ireland at 2024 Venice Biennale to Face Trial for Protest Against US Military

  09-02-2026 17:21 via artnews.com
  Eimear Walshe, who represented Ireland at the 2024 Venice Biennale, will face trial starting tomorrow for a case centering around the artist’s involvement in a protest against the US military staged at an airport in their home country.Walshe will appear in court alongside Áine Treanor and Aindriú de Buitléir, who, alongside Walshe, are known as the Shannon Three. Their protest was staged in 2024 at the Shannon Airport in the country’s southern County Clare, where
  
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• As ICE Roils Minneapolis, Minnesota Public Radio’s Numbers Soar

  09-02-2026 17:20 via niemanlab.org
  “(The network) finished the fourth quarter of 2025 as the No. 1 local public radio outlet in the United States in terms of web traffic. … In December, MPR’s traffic was 41% higher than that of the country’s No. 2 public radio website, WNYC’s Gothamist.” – Nieman Lab
  
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• If You Want To Keep Full Access To Discord, You’ll Have To Give Them Some Of Your Biometric Details

  09-02-2026 17:00 via theverge.com
  The (very) popular social media and community site will now require a facial scan or government ID scan for age verification. After an incident in October where a third-party vendor breach exposed thousands of government IDs, it’s possible that not every user will trust this plan. – The Verge
  
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• Quantum Theatre – Artistic Director

  09-02-2026 16:33 via artsjournal.com
  Quantum Theatre seeks a visionary and dynamic Artistic Director to succeed Founding Artistic Director Karla Boos upon her retirement at the end of 2026.
  Quantum creates bold, thought-provoking theater in Pittsburgh, often in non-traditional spaces where the environment is integral to the storytelling. The next Artistic Director will bring a clear artistic vision for advancing Quantum’s legacy and the experience to direct and/or produce ambitious experimental work, build creative teams, an
  
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• Music Agents Demand Casey Wasserman Leave His Agency Over His Epstein Ties, Or They Will

  09-02-2026 16:30 via thewrap.com
  In addition, Chappell Roan (“Pink Pony Club”) is said to be leaving the agency whether he steps down or not. And “pressure against Wasserman has been mounting. Two LA Council members demanded that Wasserman resign from the chairmanship of the LA28, the city’s Olympic committee.” – The Wrap
  
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• Large Software Analysis Says Turin And Philly Paintings Aren’t Actually By Van Eyck

  09-02-2026 16:00 via theguardian.com
  The AI-supported “findings supported scholars who had suggested that both versions were studio paintings – produced in the artist’s workshop but not necessarily by him,” but surprised some art historians, who now wonder whether an original exists somewhere. – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• Experiments With Deliberately Drunk Music Making, Wagner Edition

  09-02-2026 15:45 via nytimes.com
  “Conservatory-trained musicians are expected to execute written texts flawlessly while sounding convincingly fluid and expressive. Loosening inhibition can seem like a solution to both anxiety and excessive rigidity. But alcohol is a blunt tool.” – The New York Times
  
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• It’s Not Easy Being The One Charged With Creating New Stained Glass Windows For Notre Dame

  09-02-2026 15:30 via theguardian.com
  Tabouret: “It’s not very French to change stuff, so I thought that interesting as well as brave and fresh. They specifically wanted figurative painting, which also isn’t very French.” But church authorities eventually gave her a lot of artistic freedom. – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• Wallace Shawn May Be The Only Playwright To Be Recognized And Shouted Out Across New York

  09-02-2026 15:15 via nytimes.com
  Of course, that’s usually because of his acting career (especially his iconic role in The Princess Bride). – The New York Times
  
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• How The Town Of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Created The Sounds Of A Generation

  09-02-2026 15:00 via npr.org
  Alabama had no professional recording studios before a man named Rick Hall created FAME. Then the town became songwriting and recording central. “They were like, well, we can work in the aluminum factory, or we can find a way to make a hit record. I know which is more fun.” – NPR
  
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• Directors Guild Anoints Paul Thomas Anderson

  09-02-2026 14:45 via latimes.com
  Other Directors Guild winners: Amanda Marsalis for an episode of The Pitt, and the guy who directed Game 7 of the World Series. – Los Angeles Times
  
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