The City of London Corporation, which oversees the Square Mile financial hub in the capital, has voted to remove two historic statues of British politicians with links to the transatlantic slave trade from the Guildhall building in Moorgate. The statue of William Beckford, a two-time Lord Mayor of London in the late 1700s who accrued…
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The Biden administration has entered the White House with plans to tackle climate change on “an epic scale,” aiming to lead the world in a “clean energy revolution” and slash emissions in the US to net zero no later than 2050. The new government’s commitment to climate action may boost momentum around sustainability efforts across…
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In his first day in office, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. revamped the White House’s Oval Office in Washington, DC, with artworks that aim to symbolically reflect his administration’s strides toward a more unified America. The centrepiece of the room—installed above the “Resolute desk”, the 19th-century oak desk given to the US by Queen Victoria…
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The 22-year-old Los Angeles poet Amanda Gorman, America’s first ever National Youth Poet Laureate, helped set the symbolic tone at US President Joseph Biden Jr’s inauguration on Wednesday with the reading of her new work The Hill We Climb. Gorman powerfully urged those listening to turn away from the division and destruction the country has…
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A 16th-century copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi that was stolen from a basilica museum in Naples has been recovered by Italian police. Thought to be executed by a student of the Renaissance master, the painting was found during a police search in an apartment around 7km from the Museum of San Domenico Maggiore. The owner…
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The UK government has announced new laws aimed at safeguarding historic monuments across England. The legislation, if approved by Parliament, will require individuals to have listed building consent or planning permission before removing any historic statue. The law would come into effect from March and apply to England’s 12,000 statues. Robert Jenrick, the Communities Secretary…
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As attention focuses on Joseph R. Biden Jr’s inauguration next week and the exit of Donald Trump, an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society (NYHS) invites visitors to reflect on the US presidency. One of the most popular elements of Meeting the Presidents is a re-creation of the White House Oval Office, where the commander-in-chief has exercised…
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Some German vaccination centres are offering patients an injection of art along with the coronavirus jab. In the Bavarian town of Straubing, 84 works by 42 local artists are on show in a vaccination facility established in a trade exhibition centre. Patients awaiting their turn to be inoculated against the coronavirus can pass the time…
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As law enforcement authorities across the US brace for the possibility of more violence related to Donald Trump’s defeat in the presidential election, the leaders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York today denounced the 6 January rampage on the US Capitol as “domestic terrorism” by “treasonous rioters”. “The attack on the United…
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The Champs-Élysées, a 1.9km-long avenue in central Paris, will undergo a major €250m makeover following the 2024 Summer Olympics. The renovation was announced by the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, who said the plans will transform the congested road into an “extraordinary garden”. Designed in 1697 by André Le Nôtre as an extension of the…
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