Disney-Britton

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Artist found the dilapidated church on the Internet according to The Wall Street Journal ITALY--- A church in southern Italy dismantled by an artist who planned to rebuild it at New York's Museum of Modern Art is being returned to its original site, Italian police said Saturday. Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli last year carefully took apart and wrapped up the pretty church in the small village of Montegiordano in Calabria, built at the end of the 19th century and later desecrated -- much to the horror of local inhabitants, who said it was national heritage. Their protests sparked an investigation by the local cultural superintendent in Cosenza and the shipment out of Italy was blocked in October, with police seizing the huge crates of stones in a hangar in the local port. The church had originally been expected to figure in the heart of one of the world's top contemporary art museums, the MoMA PS1 in the Long Island City neighbourhood of New York. [...

THE SEATTLE TIMES By David Laskin The New York Times book review of "The Story of the Jews" PUBLISHING---Simon Schama’s “ The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD ” connects history, art, culture and religion in its account of the Jewish people’s history, beginning with their origins and ending with their expulsion from Spain in 1492. Telling the story of the Jews, even in two hefty volumes (the second due out this fall) and a companion five-hour PBS television series , is a daunting task, but Simon Schama is more than up to it. Massively erudite in history, art, culture, and, on the evidence of this new book, scripture and archaeology, Schama is one of those charming polymaths that only the British Isles seem to breed. Reading Schama is like sitting across from the world’s most dazzling dinner party guest: there’s nothing the man can’t brilliantly riff on, though you may be furtively glancing at your watch before the evening is over. The five-hour com...

ARTDAILY Future Buddha Maitreya, Tibet, c. 1800. Opaque watercolor on cotton, 28 x 18-3/4 in. (71.1 x 47.6 cm). Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Pratap and Chitra Pal. CALIFORNIA---The Norton Simon Museum presents its first large-scale exhibition of Himalayan Buddhist art. " In the Land of Snow: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas " brings together exceptional Buddhist sculpture and thangka paintings from India, Nepal and Tibet. Comprising nearly 40 works of art, mostly from the Museum’s collection but with several key loans, and spanning 1,300 years, the exhibition demonstrates the rich artistic history of the region. A highlight is the display of a monumental thangka, measuring over 20 feet in height, depicting the Buddha of the Future, Maitreya, flanked by the Eighth Dalai Lama, Jamphel Gyatso, and his tutor, Yongtsin Yeshe Gyaltsen. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Carol Vogel Botticelli’s “The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child,” circa 1485. Credit Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland NEW YORK---Four years ago, the National Galleries of Scotland sent their prized Titian with other paintings from their collection on a tour that started at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The tour from the National Galleries begins at the Frick Collection on Nov. 5, where 10 paintings will be on view, including Botticelli’s “The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child,” circa 1485, and John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, from 1892. Once the show leaves the Frick on Feb. 1, it will go to the de Young in San Francisco, as a larger exhibition of 55 paintings, and from there it will travel to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB At noon earlier this month, I walked down to Christ Cathedral Church for my Ashes. It was the annual holyday of Ash Wednesday , and they were offering walk or drive up blessings  right from the sidewalk. Days later my friend Leslie joined a Purim party for Jews, and a college room-mate Kumar traveled to his parents home in Huntsville, Alabama for the Holi festival . One of the most special things all believers share are holydays; a series of "annual" days of rituals where we are invited to reconnect. Many are drawn to rituals and to art that remind them of the essential importance of holydays, and especially when it resists stereotypes. That is the case with the henna-calligraphied women of Lalla Essaydi , and that's why her new show in Virginia (above) is my NEWS OF WEEK .

THE NEWS-JOURNAL By Margie Fishman "Mary Magdalene" (1859) by Frederick Sandys DELAWARE---In a rare move, the Delaware Art Museum will sell as many as four works of art, valued at $30 million, to repay debt from a facilities expansion and replenish its endowment, museum leaders announced Wednesday . Museum CEO Mike Miller said the "last resort" board action was necessary to avoid closing the museum. He acknowledged that the decision could damage the museum's reputation nationwide, resulting in possible loss of accreditation and professional sanctions that would bar the museum in the short-term from loaning or borrowing works from other museums. The move could also hamper the century-old Delaware museum's efforts to recruit a new director. Museum leaders declined to name the specific works that will be auctioned off within six months, but they said they were selected to have "minimal impact" on the museum's 12,500-piece collection. [ link ...

THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER By Steven Litt " Three Mourners from the Tomb of Philip the Bold," Duke of Burgundy, 1406-1410, made by Claus de Werve OHIO---All it took in 1958 to make the single biggest financial gift in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s history was one man, and one stroke of a pen. In its campaign to gather the $262 million it has raised so far for its newly completed expansion and renovation project, the museum has had to collect gifts or pledges from 996 individual donors, along with additional support from foundations, corporations, local support groups, the state of Ohio and the federal government. The necessity of raising millions of dollars from the public to keep the museum running eventually changed the character of the institution. It also broadened the board of trustees to include first Jews, then African-Americans — two groups that went unrepresented during the first six and eight decades of the museum’s existence, respectively. [ link ]

FOX BUSINESS NEWS By Dunstan Prial Museum of Biblical Art of NYC located in the American Bible Society building NEW YORK---The American Bible Society plans to sell the building that has housed its New York City headquarters for nearly 50 years, a 12-story structure on Broadway in one of Manhattan’s priciest commercial areas. Doug Birdsall, a former president of the American Bible Society (ABS), told the Religious News Service that the property could be worth about $300 million. In addition to serving as ABS’s headquarters, the building is also home to other evangelical ministries such as the popular Redeemer Presbyterian Church, as well as the Museum of Biblical Art and Young Life. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By A.O. Scott Russell Crowe in "Noah," directed by Darren Aronofsky. HOLLYWOOD ---“Noah” is occasionally clumsy, ridiculous and unconvincing, but it is almost never dull, and very little of it has the careful, by-the-numbers quality that characterizes big-studio action-fantasy entertainment. Through five features, from “Pi” to “Black Swan,” Mr. Aronofsky has refined his taste for extremity and his mastery of a queasy, feverish camera style. He specializes in intimate portraits of people whose sense of reality is coming undone, and Noah, played with rabid gloominess by Russell Crowe , is no exception. He tries not only to explore what the story of the flood might mean in the present age of environmental anxiety and apocalyptic religion, but also, more radically, to imagine what it might have felt like to live in a newly created, already-ruined world, and to scan the skies for clues about what its creator might be thinking. [ link ]

ARABIAN BUSINESS By Courtney Trenwith AUSTRALIA---Australia has opened its first Islamic art museum, the Islamic Museum of Australia. The museum is located in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, has five permanent gallery spaces: Islamic Faith, Islamic Art, Islamic Contribution to Civilisation, Islamic Architecture, and Australian Muslim History. It also includes an exhibition centre that will host national and international exhibitions, educational resources and a café. In a statement the Victorian government, which provided AUS$500,000 ($454,000) towards the not-for-profit museum, said it was intended to share the “rich artistic heritage of Muslims in Australia, by shining a light on the many contributions Muslims have made to culture and civilization throughout time”. [ link ]

IRISH TIMES By Lara Marlowe Video artist Bill Viola retrospective at Paris Grand Palais in France FRANCE---More than 30 screens are included in the Grand Palais retrospective of [Bill] Viola’s work, some small, some monumental. Human figures advance in slow motion through the heat of a desert mirage, come together and part. Viola’s work is about fire, water, birth, death, journeys, meetings and partings – virtually every human experience except sex. “Viola touches on universal aesthetic forms and themes,” says Jérôme Neutres, the curator of the exhibition, which covers four decades of the preeminent video artist’s work, at the Grand Palais in Paris until July 21st. [ link ]

BBC NEWS Programmes like The One Show will expand their arts coverage UNITED KINGDOM---The BBC is to feature more arts stories in programmes like "The One Show" in a bid to make the subject less elitist. On Tuesday, the corporation's director general Tony Hall [announced] new commissions including a series in collaboration with the Tate. Lord Hall [said] the arts are at risk of becoming marginalised for future generations unless more is done to get children and young people engaged. As part of the plans, acclaimed 1960s arts show "Civilisation" is to return. As well as including arts content in The One Show, the idea will be spread to other popular programmes such as BBC Radio 2's "Simon Mayo" show. Lord Hall announced last October that funding for the BBC's arts coverage would increase by 20%. The director general, who was Royal Opera House chief executive for 12 years before his appointment to the BBC, said he wanted to return the arts t...

ALABAMA MEDIA GROUP By Greg Garrison PUBLISHING---Thomas Moore, one of America's bestselling spiritual authors, has his finger on the nation's religious pulse. "What I see happening is that a lot of people are angry at the religion they grew up with," Moore said in a telephone inteview with AL.com. "Yet among the people who are angry, there's a lot of seeking going on. They don't feel they're at home. They envy the people who have a church to go to and feel good about it." Moore, in his most recent book, “ A Religion of One’s Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a Secular World ," discusses the contemplative lifestyle he lived as a monk for 12 years, but embraces a broader spiritual search using art and music. [ link ]

BUSINESS STANDARD By ANI INDIA---The National Museum is holding a 11-week-long landmark exhibition here titled ' The Body in Indian Art '. [It] asks profound questions about the way in which Indians have chosen to represent the body through millennia, across region, religion and culture. Curated by Dr.Naman P Ahuja, and inaugurated by Culture Secretary Ravindra Singh..., the exhibition has close to 300 objects on display, from 44 institutions and individuals across the country. Religious traditions that do not use the human form are also represented. Where the depiction of the body is many traditions in Jain, Buddhist and Islamic art have found 'aniconic' or non-corporeal means of expressing their reverence. [ link ]

THE BREEZE By Rachel Kenney | Contributing writer Les Femmes du Maroc #45, 2006, printed 2008, C-Print VIRGINIA---Prepare for the East to be brought to West Campus: Lalla Essaydi , the world-renowned Moroccan multimedia artist is coming to Sawhill Gallery . Essaydi’s work subverts misconceptions of Islamic traditionalism by applying calligraphy and henna to women’s bodies. In the Western world there exists a particular preoccupation with women of the East and the traditions they adhere to, most specifically the adornment of the hijab, or veil. However, Essaydi, whose works will be exhibited this year in 17 different locations worldwide, including JMU’s own Sawhill Gallery , uses her paintings and photographs of veiled Arab women to shatter these stereotypes of Muslim women and their traditions.  [ link ]

ARTDAILY Museum of religious art in the Fourviere Basilica in Lyon, southeastern France.  FRANCE---For the believer, a relic is the last memory of a saint; it is also the promise of their closeness with God. In a way, it is the intercessor between the believer and God. To pray in front of a relic does not mean “to worship a piece of flesh”. To pray in front of a relic, one has to come with humility, beseech the help of a saint to speak to God. This exhibition presents the multitude of memories of intercessor saints: the communion of saints. The exhibition runs from March 21 until June 29, 2014, Museum of religious art in the Fourviere Basilica in Lyon, southeastern France. [ link ]

TAIPAI TIMES By Holland Cotter / NY Times News Service A woman looks over a group of woodcuts titled "The Life of Christ" by German expressionist painter and printmaker Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.  NEW YORK---"Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937," at the Neue Galerie, opens with a quietly devastating compare-and-contrast. The walls of the narrow hallway leading onto the first gallery are covered with facing photomurals. The image in one dates from 1938. It shows the exterior of the Haus der Kunst (House of the Arts) in Berlin where the traveling anti-modernist exhibition called Entartete Kunst — “Degenerate Art” — has opened. The line of visitors waiting to get in stretches down the street. [ link ]

TIME MAGAZINE By Yenni Kwok INDONESIA---Indonesia has banned the release of the Hollywood blockbuster Noah, saying the biblical epic contradicts the teachings of the Koran and may mislead people. “We don’t want a film that could provoke reactions and controversies,” said Film Censorship Board member Zainut Tauhid Sa’adi on Monday, according to news portal Detik.com. “Members of the Film Censorship Board have agreed to reject [the film].” Noah, an adaptation of the Old Testament story of Noah’s Ark, stars Russell Crowe in the title role and was scheduled to be released in Indonesia on March 28 — the same date as in the U.S. [ link ]

FOX NEWS By Associated Press NEW YORK---Facing a firestorm of protest, the prominent Christian relief agency World Vision on Wednesday reversed a two-day-old policy change that would have allowed it to hire Christians in same-sex marriages in the US. The aid group sent a letter to supporters saying the board had made a mistake and was returning to its policy requiring celibacy outside of marriage "and faithfulness within the Bible covenant of marriage between a man and a woman." [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Holland Cotter Tenzing Rigdol’s “Pin drop silence: Eleven-headed Avalokitesvara.” NEW YORK--- Floating high in a small gallery above the Metropolitan Museum’s South Asian and Southeast Asian galleries, the jewel of a show called “ Tibet and India: Buddhist Traditions and Transformations ” asks how a religion fading away in one place manages to find its way to and blossom in another. The mode of transmission is, at least in part, through art. By the 11th century A.D., Buddhism’s days in its homeland, Hindu-dominated India, were numbered. Institutionally, it survived primarily within great monastic universities, libraries and ateliers like Nalanda, a religious center of learning from the fifth century A.D., which was a go-to destination for countries outside of India desirous of checking their own versions of Buddhism against authoritative sources. Tibet was one of these countries. [ link ] Metropolitan Museum of Art: " Tibet and India: Buddhist Tra...

ARTDAILY Over 370 stunning paintings from the 17th century manuscript now digitised. You can turn the pages of the digital Ramayana on www.bl.uk/ramayana More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/68947/Finest-surviving-illustrated-manuscript-of-the-Ramayana-now-digitised-and-available-online#.UzIphY1H3fQ[/url] Copyright © artdaily.org Over 370 stunning paintings from the 17th century manuscript now digitised. You can turn the pages of the digital Ramayana on www.bl.uk/ramayana INDIA---The Ramayana is one of the ancient epics of India, telling the stirring tale of Prince Rama’s quest to rescue his wife, Sita, following her abduction by the ten-headed demon king Ravana. A major partnership between the British Library and CSMVS Museum in Mumbai has brought together a vividly illustrated 17th century manuscript of the story online, digitally reuniting over 600 folios which have been split between organisations in the UK and India for the last 150 years. The project is unique...

JEWISH PRESS By Richard McBee Daniel Elijah Benjamin (Gadkar), 2012-2013 Photo-collages with gouache and acrylic paint on paper (35 x 35) by Siona Benjamin NEW YORK---Siona Benjamin has mounted a remarkable exploration into the complex and multilayered identity of Indian Jews, simultaneously tracking the personal, communal and artistic strands that constitute the very fabric of her life. This ambitious show of over 30 large works, created within the last 2 years, was inspired by work she did on a Fulbright Fellowship in 2011 that allowed her to reconnect and explore the Bene Israel community of Indian Jews in her native Mumbai. In many ways Siona Benjamin’s paintings, “Faces,” ask “What now?” in an increasingly spare Indian Jewish future. Flomenhaft Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, Suite 200, NYC; Through April 26, 2014; (212) 268-4952; flomenhaftgallery.com [ link ]

SAUDI GAZETTE By Mariam Nihal What Dana really loves about Islamic art, regardless of the diverse practices used in the art form, is that they still share a common law and the idea of symmetry, harmony and structure is always at its core. SAUDIA ARABIA---Dana Awartani, of Palestinian-Saudi heritage, is a Jeddah-based artist who sets an example for her contemporaries with a dynamic approach to Islamic art and the status quo. The artist’s work is a celebration of design, belief and construed sublimity. Her themes revolve around spirituality, sacred geometry, numerology, and the perennial philosophy that traditional arts subscribe to. “I create art that explores themes of spirituality and the ‘sacred’ through the use of historical artistic disciplines. My aim is to educate and raise awareness not only about traditional techniques of art making, which is nearly nonexistent, but also about the beauty of Islam, a side a lot of people don’t know of.” [ link ]

LIBERTY VOICES By Dawn Levesque Courtesy of the Getty Villa in Los Angeles CALIFORNIA---The Getty Villa in Los Angeles presents "Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections" from April 9 through August 25, 2014. This major loan exhibition surveys the artistic, spiritual and cultural splendor of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine art exhibition highlights 167 items that include painted icons, frescoes, sculptures, mosaics and ceramics, illuminated books and other objects. Spanning more than 1,300 years, the art and antiquities are on loan from 34 Greek archaeological and art museums like Athen’s Benaki Museum, creating the largest and most significant Byzantine collection from Greece ever assembled and presented in Southern California. [ link ]

USA TODAY By Scott Bowles HOLLYWOOD ---By Hollywood standards at least, the movie business is bracing for a flood of biblical proportions. Not since "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur" more than a half-century ago has the film industry bankrolled religious-themed pictures as it has this year, with four big-studio Christian films storming the multiplex, along with dozens of art-house titles. Audiences have been faithful to the stories thus far. "Son of God," 20th Century Fox's $22 million film about Jesus, has collected $56 million since its Feb. 28 release. " God's Not Dead " stunned analysts last weekend by taking fourth place at the box office with $9.2 million. [ link ] STORY: 'Noah' hits rough religious waters onscreen   MORE: Russell Crowe goes to the Vatican  

ARTDAILY Heidi Whitman, Heaven, Hell, and Here (Hell). NEW YORK--- Christopher Henry Gallery presents Heidi Whitman’s new body of work: "Heaven, Hell, and Here." On view from March 20, 2014 through April 20, 2014, the exhibition transforms the gallery into a paper universe of the mind’s making. A site-responsive installation housed in a church turned gallery, the three works " Heaven, Hell, and Here " are exquisitely crafted tableaus of multi-layered streams of consciousness. Dynamic, obsessive, and contemplative, they form an intuitive dialogue that diagrams the fragile connections between the physical and spiritual world. [ link ]

GENTLEMAN'S QUARTERLY By Darius Sanai Getty Images DUBAI---Are art fairs replacing fashion shows as the must-do events for the idle and not so idle wealthy? I have spent this week on the VIP programme of the Art Dubai fair, being whisked in buses filled with expensive-casual collectors, from Doha in Qatar to Sharjah's Sharjah Art Foundation to Abu Dhabi's emerging spaces. What Dubai does very well what it has always done: the fair acts as a clearing house for visitors to see the very real art attractions of the region. [ link ]

THE JERUSALEM POST Photo by courtesy of museum ISRAEL---‘Heavenly Lights: Yoram Raanan’s Contemporary Art of Ancient Jewish Symbols,” which opened yesterday, is currently showing at the Heichal Shlomo Museum of Jewish Art. This exhibition includes large expressionist canvases, as well as paintings and sculptures using painted book covers as their medium. In the heart of the Heichal Shlomo complex, juxtaposed to the existing exhibit of holy books rescued from Vilna, is a new presentation of Raanan’s book covers. Alongside the old Torah scrolls that hang like bodies wrapped for burial, Raanan’s painted, freestanding covers from the Babylonian Talmud’s Vilna edition bring a spirit of renewal into the historical exhibition. [ link ]

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL By Rebecca Bratburd 17th-18th century statue of Virupaksha, the Guardian King of the West. NEW YORK---At the Rubin Museum of Art's 10th anniversary celebration, designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia excitedly showed his friends the way to his favorite statue in the museum's permanent collection. On Thursday night, Shelley and Donald Rubin celebrated the 10th anniversary of the museum with Mr. Ahluwalia and about 650 other guests. In 1998, the Rubins founded the museum to share the art and beauty of the East with New York. It opened to the public in 2004. "The idea was bigger than the space," Ms. Rubin said. "It's very hard to turn your mind back, but China really was alien then. It was barely on anybody's radar. We grow up with Monet, Gauguin and Renoir; we all have a sense of understanding it, even knowing nothing about it. This art nobody knows." [ link ]

ABC NEWS By Rachael Zoll, Associated Press WASHINGTON--- The prominent Christian relief agency World Vision said Monday it will hire Christians who are in same-sex marriages , a dramatic policy change on one of the most divisive social issues facing religious groups. Richard Stearns, president of the international humanitarian relief group, announced the hiring change for the United States in a letter to staff. Stearns said the World Vision board had prayed for years about how to handle the issue as Christian denominations took different stands on recognizing same-sex relationships. "The board and I wanted to prevent this divisive issue from tearing World Vision apart and potentially crippling our ability to accomplish our vital kingdom mission of living and serving the poorest of the poor in the name of Christ," Stearns wrote in the letter. Based in Washington state and started by evangelicals, World Vision now has an international operating budget of nearly $1 billion a...

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL By Lance Esplund The Nazis denounced Max Beckmann's 'Departure' (1932-35). The Museum of Modern Art/SCALA/Art Resource/ARS NEW YORK---If the Führer wanted to purify German culture, he would need to make clear what was state-sanctioned and what wasn't. Visual art—a gateway target—was the perfect propagandistic tool. Once Hitler had established the "degenerate" in art and artists, he could attack all "degenerates." The most cohesive gallery, however, contrasts what Hitler deemed "Degenerate Art" with "Great German Art." The main event is an object lesson that pits [Max] Beckmann's Modernist triptych " Departure " (1932-35), a bold and enigmatic mix of regal ceremony and ritualistic torture, toe-to-toe with Adolf Ziegler's academic and allegorical triptych "The Four Elements" (1937), in which four blond female nudes display themselves in a neoclassical setting. [ link ] Neue...

WND.COM By Marisa Martin Artist Firoozeh Bazrafkan standing before her artwork DENMARK---What to wear to a poetry recital? In Denmark, it may be a flak-jacket and Kevlar helmet, especially if you are the poet. Poet Yahya Hassan and the artist Firoozeh Bazrafkan are just a few of the latest casualties of the anti-”hate”-speech statutes infamously adopted in Denmark, having appropriated them from more enlightened nations such as Iran. Hassan at only 18 has managed to inflame and divide large portions of Danish society with a few bits of rough poetry. Raised in a Palestinian Muslim household, he is an angry young man with harsh words over the experience so far. Targets of Hassan’s wrath include his parents, Islam as it is now practiced and greater Danish society in general. [ link ]

FINANCIAL TIMES By Ariella Budick ‘Eternal Wanderers’, 1919, by Lasar Segall NEW YORK---Among the many imponderables of the Neue Galerie’s splendid Degenerate Art exhibition is an uncanny sense of repeating a forgotten ritual. The show and its excellent catalogue sharpen plenty of questions and refuse simplistic answers. What, for instance, was degenerate art? The term was popularised by a doctor and rabbi’s son: Max Nordau published the bestseller Entartung (Degeneration) in 1892-93, diagnosing the condition as a mental illness caused by the traumas of modernisation. He prescribed a three-step treatment: “Characterisation of leading degenerates as mentally diseased; unmasking and stigmatising their imitators as enemies to society; cautioning the public against the lies of these parasites.” The Nazis later refined Nordau’s formulation by giving it a racial origin. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By TAHLIB "The Matriarch" by Niccolo Cosme Christians honor the mother of Jesus, but Muslims consider Mary the most righteous woman in the Islamic tradition. She is mentioned more in the Holy Quran than in the entire New Testament of the Christian sacred text. "Muslim tradition records a hadith ," described in Wikipedia , "which states that the only children born without the "touch of Satan," were Mary and Jesus." As we look ahead to "Mother's Day" we celebrate righteous women with the acquisition of "The Matriarch" (above) by Niccolo Cosme , an A&O INSPIRE ME! Artist which makes it Monday's Madonna & Child .

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB So--how did this Arts administrator find himself knee-deep in an Arts movement  launched to inspire dialogues about the world's faith traditions? Good question. For 10-years, I worked at a midwest museum, and then I fell in love. Inspired by the Underground Railroad, my fiancé and I drove to Canada to marry in a tiny church, and on the day we returned to the U.S., we read that a judge had just ruled that our "gay" marriage was now legal in New York . Six-month's later, I moved to NYC to direct a national dialogue program on marriage targeting the open-minded . When I think back, it's clear how my museum and marriage work merged to create the Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts. We praise those open to a different perspective, and that's why " The Resurrection " (above) by Eny Roland is my NEWS OF WEEK .

ARTDAILY Robert Nicol, Long Barrows, 2011. Watercolour on paper, 38 x 26cm. UNITED KINGDOM---"The Shadows of a God" is a presentation of Robert Nicol’s disorientating paintings and ceramics in which polite genres are rattled in his appropriation of small-scale media. Nicol’s scenes bustle with characters undertaking bizarre and outrageous activities. Strange confluences and Lilliputian disruption are second nature in otherwise everyday contexts. Landscapes, interiors and portraits are interrupted by nonsensical occurrences. There is very little narrative coherence across Nicol’s work. Robert Nicol (born 1980, UK) lives and works in London. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES | ARTSBEAT By Melissa Eddy Domed reliquiary from the Welfenschatz, Cologne, late 12th century at Bode-Museum GERMANY---A medieval ecclesiastical treasure acquired by the Prussian state in 1935 and later presented by Hermann Göring to Hitler as a “surprise gift” was legally purchased from a consortium of Jewish art dealers, whose heirs have no rightful claim at restitution, a panel convened by the German government said Thursday. The panel recommended that the 42 jewel-encrusted, intricately wrought silver and gold crucifixes, altars and other relics of the Guelph Treasure should remain in the possession of the state-run foundation, Stiftung Preussische Kulturbesitz, that oversees several museums in Berlin. The treasure, estimated to be worth between $248 million and $276 million, is on display in the Bode Museum in Berlin and is considered one of the main attractions in the foundation’s collection. [ link ]

TABLET MAGAZINE By Paul Fishbane Detail from Sun, Moon, and Five Peaks, artist/maker unknown, Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), 19th century. (Philadelphia Museum of Art) PHILADELPHIA---An omnipotent judge sitting at a desk, expert in the behavior of men, examines the souls of the dead, deciding the punishments in the afterlife that their misdeeds merit. Vivid, artful depictions, especially of the various castigations, effectively remind viewers to behave virtuously. This is not a poorly remembered version of Yom Kippur; it is a Korean depiction of one of the 10 kings of Buddhist hell, on view at an illuminating new show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that surveys Korean art from the Joseon Dynasty. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By David Gelles A Young Collectors dinner at the Guggenheim. Exclusive events for young donors help museums cement ties with new benefactors. NEW YORK---Across the country, museums large and small are preparing for the eventual passing of the baton from the baby boom generation, which for decades has been the lifeblood not only of individual giving but of boardroom leadership. While charitable giving in the United States has remained stable for the last 40 years, there is reason for concern. Boomers today control 70 percent of the nation’s disposable income, according to data compiled by the American Alliance of Museums. Millennials don’t yet have nearly as much cash on hand. And those who do, the alliance found, are increasingly drawn to social, rather than artistic, causes. [ link ]

ARTDAILY "Saint Menna" (L), "Saint Geninianus and Severus" (C) and "Saint John the Baptist" (R) by Paolo Veronese.  UNITED KINGDOM---' Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice ' is devoted to one of the most influential artists of the 16th century. This exhibition of 50 of his works, many of which are travelling to London from across the globe, is the most significant collection of masterpieces by the artist ever to be displayed in the United Kingdom. Paolo Caliari (1528–1588), known as Veronese, was one of the most renowned and sought-after artists working in Venice in the 16th century. His works adorned churches, patrician palaces, villas and public buildings throughout the Veneto region – and are inseparable from our idea of the opulence and grandeur of the Republic of Venice at that time. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES | SUNDAY REVIEW By Jeremy Rifkin Ji Lee; original painting by Eugène Delacroix OPINION---WE are beginning to witness a paradox at the heart of capitalism, one that has propelled it to greatness but is now threatening its future: The inherent dynamism of competitive markets is bringing costs so far down that many goods and services are becoming nearly free, abundant, and no longer subject to market forces. THE unresolved question is, how will this economy of the future function when millions of people can make and share goods and services nearly free? The answer lies in the civil society, which consists of nonprofit organizations that attend to the things in life we make and share as a community. In dollar terms, the world of nonprofits is a powerful force. Nonprofit revenues grew at a robust rate of 41 percent — after adjusting for inflation — from 2000 to 2010, more than doubling the growth of gross domestic product, which increased by 16.4 percent during the ...

THE DAILY BEAST By Ted Gioia Imagine, for a moment, football commentators who refuse to explain formations and plays. Or a TV cooking show that never mentions the ingredients. Or an expert on cars who refuses to look under the hood of an automobile. These examples may sound implausible, perhaps ridiculous. But something comparable is happening in the field of music journalism. One can read through a stack of music magazines and never find any in-depth discussion of music. Technical knowledge of the art form has disappeared from its discourse. In short, music criticism has turned into lifestyle reporting. The biggest problem with lifestyle-driven music criticism is that it poisons our aural culture. Discerning consumers who care about music and have good ears should be the bedrock of the music business, but many of them have given up on new artists because they can’t find reliable critics to guide them. [ link ]

ARTSPACE By Eric Bryant NEW YORK---The season of art market performance reports is upon us, and keeping up with them all can be an all-consuming—and sometimes baffling—affair. In the last month various entities have declared 2013 to have been both the best year ever and the second best year ever for art sales, while also (erroneously) declaring art to be that year’s worst performing alternative asset class, ranking behind wine, stamps, cars, and other collectibles in profitability. Of course, part of the problem is that each firm defines its markets differently—sometimes looking at just the auction sector, sometimes trying to compare year over year sales figures for individual artists. [ link ]

T MAGAZINE By Darren Aronofsky “Animal Planet,” by Matt Furie, one of more than 50 artworks now on display at 462 West Broadway in SoHo, New York, commissioned by Aronofsky to coincide with his upcoming film, “Noah.” NEW YORK---When I asked Russell Crowe to star in “ Noah ,” I promised him one thing: I would never shoot him standing on the bow of a houseboat with two giraffes sticking up behind him. I wanted to break the clichéd preconceptions we have from children’s toys, adverts, 1950s biblical epics and even much of the religious art of the last two millennia: the old man in a robe and sandals with a long white beard preaching in some Judean desert. I wanted Noah’s story to feel fresh, immediate and real. So when my team and I started to imagine how to bring the prediluvian era to life, we threw away all the tropes and returned to the Bible. Here was a mythological world potentially as distinct as Middle Earth: a biblical, fantastical world. Darren Aronofsky explains why he de...

PASTE MAGAZINE By Mark Rozeman Book cover for "Noah" (2014) by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel PUBLISHING---From the relentless MTV-style bombast of Pi and Requiem for a Dream to the heady, cosmic love of The Fountain to the cinéma vérité grit of The Wrestler , filmmaker Darren Aronofsky has never been one to self-edit his boundless ambitions. The director’s upcoming project, a feature film based on the biblical story of Noah and his ark, presents an intriguing challenge for Aronofsky’s auteur sensibilities. Released by Image Comics, Noah presents a lush translation of Genesis 5:32-10:1 that melds the realism of The Wrestler with the surreal imagery of The Fountain . As the novel is adapted from an older screenplay draft by Aronofsky and co-writer Ari Handel, it remains to be seen how closely this version will resemble the final cinematic product. Regardless, Noah stands as a fascinating interpretation of a classic narrative. [ link ]

LOS ANGELES TIMES By Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times Art Critic Buddha and Adorants on the Cosmic Mountain, c. 700 CALIFORNIA---Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum is well-known for having the most impressive collection of European Old Master and early Modern paintings in Los Angeles. Less familiar is the museum's exceptional Indian, Nepalese and Tibetan art. This show will chronicle the movement of Buddhism from India to the Himalayas more than a thousand years ago, bringing numerous important loans together with superlative examples of painting, sculpture, ritual and decorative arts from the Simon's own collection. [ link ] Norton Simon Museum: ' In the Land of Snow: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas ' (March 28-Aug. 25); 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena; $7-$10; (626) 449-6840; http://www.nortonsimon.org

PATHEOS By Tania Runyan Makoto Fujimura. Sacrificial Grace, 1997. Mineral pigment on paper.  I had been living a double life. I attended a large evangelical church, where I prayed, sang, and gave my money and time. At the same time, while riding the train downtown to my publishing job every morning, I wrote poems. Both of these lives manifested the “real” me, and one was not more valuable than the other. But sustaining two identities with equal passion cannot last long. One afternoon at a local Barnes & Noble, I wandered to the newsstand and spotted a new acquisition: Image: A Journal of Arts and Religion. The cover image, " Sacrificial Grace " by Makoto Fujimura , gripped me with its decided lack of grip. This abstract, color-streaked waterfall “counted” as religious art? I wanted to enter it with my arms open, allow it to drench me with its mystery. [ More ]

JEWISH DAILY FORWARD By Magda Teter A painting from Sandomierz Cathedral in Poland, depicts Jews murdering Christian children for their blood. POLAND---One could not be unmoved when a group of young clerics from the local Catholic seminary sang a popular Israeli song in Hebrew, “Hevenu Shalom Aleikhem” (“We Brought Peace”), during a Catholic service in a small (and in January very sleepy) town in southeastern Poland. What was even more remarkable was the fact that the service was taking place in the Sandomierz Cathedral, known in Poland and the West more for its notorious 18th-century painting depicting Jews killing Christian children than for its historical beauty and unique medieval frescoes. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Judith H. Dobrzynski Pages from a gilded Koran, Turkey, 18th century. Image courtesy of Financial Times. TEXAS---Sabiha Al Khemir was visiting a solar energy plant in Spain about four years ago when inspiration struck. Ms. Al Khemir, 55, recalled. “Light was everywhere.” Immediately, she hit upon the theme of light — and not light as “dhaw,” in Arabic, the visual, physical phenomenon, but rather as “nur,” which has a metaphysical dimension, as in the Quranic phrase “light upon light,” signifying God as the light of the world. That notion, she said, “is a shared metaphor between Christianity, Islam and Judaism.” The exhibition is now moving west after its run at the Focus-Abengoa Foundation in Seville. “ Nur: Light in Art and Science ,” a wide-ranging presentation of Islamic art, opens March 30 at the Dallas Museum of Art, where Ms. Al Khemir has become a senior adviser. [ link ] Dallas Museum of Art: “ Nur: Light in Art and Science ” (March 30-June 29, 201...

ASHAHI SHIMBUN By Akira Nakano, Correspondent A Korean Buddhist painting returned to South Korea from a museum in Virginia  SOUTH KOREA---Long ago taken to Japan and the United States under unknown circumstances, Buddhist paintings originally from the Korean Peninsula are returning to South Korea in rapid succession following an absence of many centuries. The production of Buddhist paintings on the Korean Peninsula flourished during the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), when Buddhist culture thrived, and in the following Joseon Dynasty. Confucianism was the basis for managing the affairs of state during this dynasty, but the masses continued to believe in Buddhism as well. There are around 300 Buddhist paintings produced in these two eras that are known to exist. Of these around 20 are in South Korea, while the vast majority are known to be in Japan. [ link ]

ARTDAILY A beautiful stone sculpture of Ganehsa. © The Trustees of the British Museum. UNITED KINGDOM---The elephant-headed Ganesha is one of the most popular Hindu gods - the creator and remover of obstacles. A beautiful stone sculpture of Ganehsa is at the heart of this Asahi Shimbun Display in Room 3 at the British Museum. Carved from schist in Orissa (recently renamed Odisha) around 800 years ago, this statue of Ganesha was originally positioned in a niche on the outer face of a Hindu temple. There are many temples dedicated to Ganesha throughout South Asia and Indian artists have depicted this loveable god for over a thousand years in different forms. [ link ]

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL By Pia Catton NEW YORK---The Archdiocese of New York is getting into the downtown theater scene. This spring, the Catholic organization will open the doors to the Sheen Center , a 25,000-square-foot arts center at Bleecker and Elizabeth streets with two theaters and four rehearsal studios available for rent. "We had been thinking that we wanted a place to showcase Christian humanism—the true, the good and the beautiful," said the center's executive director Msgr. Michael F. Hull. "We needed a place that could be dedicated to that kind of service alone." Among the Center's leadership is artistic director Jessica Bashline , a former actor and director most recently with the Manhattan-based arts-education organization Wingspan Arts . She said that while the church is the driver of the Center's mission, that mission is to be inclusive: "The guidelines have been clear—to find art that is interesting." [ link ]