artnewz

Artist Khaled Jarrar is selling handfuls of soil from Palestinian farmland—and has turned them into NFTs

Earlier this month, as protests erupted over the forced expulsion of Palestinian families from the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, the artist Khaled Jarrar walked from his house in the Palestinian city of Ramallah to the nearby village of Kaubar to grab a handful of dry dirt. He then walked back home, placed the dirt…

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Hermitage Amsterdam close to reaching €1m in urgent crowdfunding appeal to survive Covid-19 crisis

Faced with a “dramatic” deficit after being closed for six months by stop-start pandemic restrictions, the Hermitage Amsterdam launched an unprecedented crowdfunding appeal on 25 March: “Keep the Hermitage Open”. The museum, an independent offshoot of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, is now close to reaching its ambitious €1m target after racking up more than…

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‘A vast underwater museum’: Greece plans to open shipwrecks and other submerged heritage sites for visitors to explore

Submerged ancient cities, rows of amphorae from the fifth century BC, anchors from Byzantine shipwrecks, Second World War aircrafts: Greek seas harbour a unique heritage that is gradually becoming accessible to the public, experienced divers and casual bathers alike. In March, the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports announced plans to open 91 shipwrecks—dating from…

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At an art school in Gaza, creation prevails amid destruction

A few hundred metres from the residential tower destroyed by an IDF bomb in Gaza City on Tuesday, a new art school is literally picking up the pieces. Students at the Dar al Kalima Training Centre, housed in a refurbished mid-century house with a courtyard garden, are collecting broken glass to make stained glass art in the shape of doves….

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National Gallery of Art recruits the first woman and person of color to serve as its chief curator

The National Gallery of Art (NGA) says it has recruited the first woman and person of colour to serve as chief curatorial and conservation officer: E. Carmen Ramos, who has been the acting chief curator and curator of Latinx art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Ramos will assume the post in August. The appointment…

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‘Very aggressive and violent from the start’: Palestinian artist films police crackdown in Israeli city of Haifa

The Turner Prize-nominated artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan turned over his Instagram account to fellow artist Inas Halabi on Tuesday night as she reported live from Haifa on the continued police crackdowns on protestors in the Jewish-Arab city. Nightly demonstrations have been taking place all week after hundreds of Palestinians were injured when Israeli forces stormed…

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The Met installs a plaque on its façade honoring the Lenape people, driven out of their New York City land

Amid a general acknowledgment of its links to a fraught local history of exploiting Indigenous peoples, the Metropolitan Museum announced today that it had installed a bronze plaque on its Fifth Avenue façade recognising the Lenape. The museum says that the move follows years of research and consultation on ways to honour the Lenape, who…

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James Turrell will unveil another Skyspace this year in the Colorado mountains

The American artist James Turrell will unveil a new Skyspace this summer in the foothills of Pikes Peak in Colorado. The work will be installed on a hillside in Green Mountain Falls, a bucolic town near Colorado Springs. The work—one of more than 100 of the artist’s signature light chambers with ceiling apertures open to the sky—will…

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Looted Libyan sculpture seized at Heathrow Airport heads back home with help from the British Museum

A statue looted from Libya in 2011 has been handed over to the Libyan Embassy in London after experts from the British Museum (BM) helped identify the piece. The funerary sculpture, taken from Cyrene in north eastern Libya, was seized by Border officials at Heathrow airport in London after being brought into the UK from…

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As a Sotheby’s auction looms, scholars protest Newark Museum of Art’s plan to sell a Thomas Cole painting and other works

An open letter signed by more than 50 art historians, curators and researchers was submitted today to the Newark Museum of Art protesting its plan to sell works from its collection, most prominently Thomas Cole’s 1846 painting The Arch of Nero, organisers say. The letter, addressed to Linda Harrison, director and chief executive of the museum, denounces…

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