Arts news

• Surrealism Beyond Borders review – A raging sea of glorious strangeness

  22-02-2022 18:34
  
  Tate Modern, LondonForget Dalí and Magritte. This sprawling survey captures the extraordinary scope of a global artistic explosion, from fantastical feminists to black power activists to Vodou painter priestsSubversive, liberating, violent, transgressive and revolutionary, surrealism was always more than a parade of melting watches and trains chuffing out of fireplaces. It was also more than a European phenomenon. For a movement that officially began in Paris in 1924, with the publication
  
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• ‘They fill me with emotion’ … Benin celebrates the return of its looted treasure

  22-02-2022 16:35
  
  Priceless treasures stolen by the French army over a century ago have finally been returned to the African nation. Our writer joins the emotional celebrationsAt first glance, it seems to be just another day in Cotonou, Benin’s largest city. Motorbike-taxis are everywhere, filling the streets of the country’s economic capital with dust and noise. But inside the swanky presidential palace, something seismic is talking place: over a century after they were looted by the French army, 26
  
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• ‘They were transforming their countries’: South Asian architecture after British rule

  22-02-2022 16:30
  
  A MoMA exhibition takes a new look at the modernist structures that defined Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka after independenceLight lands softly on concrete walls in a series of silver gelatin prints by an unknown photographer. These small, souvenir-like snapshots give glimpses into the houses of Sri Lanka’s first female architect, Minette de Silva. Here, there are no architectural drawings or models – those have been lost to time. What we see are the personal artifacts of
  
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• Want to buy a Da Vinci? I can get you nine! Eternalising Art History – review

  22-02-2022 12:03
  
  Unit London
  Using blockchain technology, this fascinating show displays perfect digital copies of works by old masters – and they’re for sale, with proceeds going to museums devastated by CovidHow do you feel when you encounter a masterpiece? Humble? Overawed? As well as being cultural havens, historically, museums have had a didactic purpose, encouraging us to think, feel and move around them in a particular way. For example, the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery in London was
  
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