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ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB   Today, my friend, Dr. Leon Boothe forwarded this YouTube video , first published on Jan 13, 2013 "Under The Stars - Live In Maastricht V." He wrote: "I have not forwarded anything for along time due to a number of reasons, but this is one of those WOW! moments. Enjoy!" Most of us remember this performance from "Sister Act" with Whoopie Goldberg , but it's also worth remembering the original secular romantic-love story by Little Peggy March from 1963.

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Manohla Dargis A scene from “Maleficent,” featuring Angelina Jolie. HOLLYWOOD ---Angelina Jolie makes a fabulous monster. As the title character in “ Maleficent ” — a divertingly different rethink of an awfully old story — she breezes through the movie, part superstar, part superfreak. She wears them like a crown in this live-action postscript to the visually stunning 1959 Disney animated musical “ Sleeping Beauty .” This time, the focus isn’t on the beautiful, blond Aurora, who falls into a deep, bewitched sleep after pricking her finger on a spindle, but rather on the sinister scene stealer who cursed her in a fit of pique and a puff of acid-green smoke. “Maleficent” tells a new kind of story about how we live now, not once upon another time. And it does so by suggesting, among other things, that budding girls and older women are not natural foes, even if that’s what fairy tales, Hollywood and the world like to tell us. [ link ]

NYT: ARTSBEAT By Dave Itzkoff Touring production is "Canceled" without explanation. Courtesy of Tickemaster.com A high-wattage and eclectically cast new North American touring production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” has been abruptly canceled, just over a week before what would have been its first performance. In a brief statement on Friday, an affiliate of the production company S2BN Entertainment announced “the cancellation of the Jesus Christ Superstar Arena Spectacular Tour” and said that all purchased tickets would be refunded. This production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice rock opera was begun with some fanfare in April , with a cast that was to include Ben Forster , the winner of a British reality-TV competition, as Jesus; Brandon Boyd of Incubus as Judas; Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child as Mary Magdalene; and John Lydon , the lead singer of the Sex Pistols, as King Herod. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By ALYSON KRUEGER The Rodi Gallery, parked in Astoria Park in Queens. NEW YORK---Around the United States, art is on the roll. Inspired by the success of food trucks, gallery owners like the Grahams , who are based in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., have been taking their show on the road. For the last year, they have traveled to populated spots like the meatpacking district of Manhattan, the Peekskill train station and Astoria Park in Queens.  In interviews, mobile owners say they are trying to avoid the confines — and politics — of the gallery system; to help people think about art in different ways; or to reach more communities, especially those with young and old people who tend not to visit art districts. But art critics, scholars and gallery owners ask: Is it possible to become a force within the art world without commercial representation? [ link ]

THE ATLANTIC  By Steven Heller A 1942 Szyk work depicting Hitler as the Anti-Christ. (courtesy Irvin Ungar) CALIFORNIA---Forty years ago, the young rabbi Irvin Ungar found himself enamored with the work of a Polish émigré illustrator, Arthur Szyk . A new documentary created in part by Ungar, Soldier in Art: Arthur Szyk , has screened in six film festivals and is scheduled to show at the Laemmle Theatres in West Los Angeles and Encino, May 30 through June 5. The film shows Szyk’s visual commentary on American democracy, the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust, and the rebirth of the Jewish people in Israel. Almost without exception, Szyk’s art was never ambiguous or abstract. “It almost always had a common theme,” Ungar says. “Freedom, not tyranny; justice, not oppression—which, when combined with the uniqueness of his style, is why Szyk became one of the leading political artists of the first half of the 20th century.” [ link ]

JWEEKLY WASHINGTON, DC---The White House will dedicate a Harvey Milk stamp on its first day of issue. The “forever” stamp — valid for first-class postage even in the event of price hikes — was to be issued May 22. It features a photo of Milk, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, taken in 1977, the year he made history when he became the first openly gay elected official from a major U.S. city. In November 1978, Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were shot and killed by a former colleague of Milk’s on the Board of Supervisors. Memorial services for Milk, a secular Jew, were held at congregations Sha’ar Zahav and Emanu-El.  [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ken Johnson The head of St. John the Baptist on a plate (circa 1470-1500). NEW YORK---A hotly debated issue among theologians in medieval Europe concerned what has since been called “the cult of images.” Proponents of images argued that they were educational and edifying. Iconoclasts feared that people would become enthralled by images and fall into the sin of idolatry. The debate about images was not just academic. It had profound, and sometimes violent and tragic, consequences in the real world, especially for art and artists. One sad chapter of that history is resonantly told by “Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture From the Victoria and Albert Museum,” a beautiful and fascinating exhibition at the Museum of Biblical Art. [ link ] Museum of Biblical Art: “ Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture From the Victoria and Albert Museum ,” (Ends Junes 8, 2014); 1865 Broadway at 61st Street, New York, NY; (212) 408-1500; mo...

JWEEKLY By lyn davidson “Further East: Library Cave” (part 1) by Andrea Guskin CALIFORNIA---Judaism and Buddhism have both been major influences in the life and art of Guskin, one of 31 Bay Area artists exhibiting in “Facing East: A Jewish Orientation” at the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco. The show, which runs through Aug. 3, features painting, sculpture, paper, textiles, graphic arts and mixed media. Her three-piece collage uses tape, thread, paint, maps, scraps of Hebrew lettering, and photographic transparencies that capture images of shadows she and her children found at home. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ken Johnson Mary Carlson’s glazed porcelain Mary Magdalene, with glass beads. NEW YORK--- Mary Carlson’s wonderfully soulful little ceramic sculptures in this show represent Adam and Eve and various Christian saints. From four and six inches tall, they are made of white porcelain and glazed in watery colors that appear faded by time, as if they’d been made many years ago and were recently found in a thrift shop. Titles indicate they are based on figures from famous paintings. "Paradise" at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Through June 21. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ben Brantley A scene from the Wooster Group's "Early Shaker Spirituals." NEW YORK---The gift of being simple has never been widely associated with the Wooster Group, whose austere and profoundly affecting “ Early Shaker Spirituals ” opened on Thursday night at the Performing Garage in SoHo. So to find the Wooster Group paying plain-spoken tribute to the Shakers, a sect celebrated for its religious ardor and unadorned aesthetic, feels like a setup for a joke. Abstemiousness is also a hallmark of the Shaker religion, a celibate 18th-century offshoot of the Quakers and now nearly extinct. A Dionysian spirit is reined in and refined until it becomes a precise worldly expression of something impalpable and divine. That’s what the Wooster Group, like the Shakers, has aimed for. May their lessons, too, be preserved for the generations to come. [ link ]

MIAMI HERALD By AP MICHIGAN---A Syrian-American hip-hop and spoken-word artist is performing in Detroit as part of the Poetic Voices of the Muslim World project. Omar Offendum is scheduled to appear Friday evening at the Detroit Public Library. The Saudi Arabia-born, Washington, D.C.-raised and Los Angeles-residing artist has toured the world and helped raise money for humanitarian relief organizations. Poetic Voices of the Muslim World is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB William Blake's Dante running from the Three Beasts (1824-1827) illustration for The Divine Comedy by Dante  AUSTRALIA---The National Gallery of Victoria presents an exhibition showcasing its collection of works by William Blake . The exhibition includes watercolours, single prints and illustrated books. Due to the material’s light sensitivity, these works are only infrequently exhibited and the exhibition provides the rare opportunity to see the Gallery’s complete holdings of Blake’s work which span his full career, from his earliest to his latest years. The NGV owns thirty-six of the 102 watercolours Blake executed in the 1820s to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy, which are regarded as among the artist’s finest and most impressive creations. Founded in 1861, the National Gallery of Victoria is Australia’s oldest public art gallery.

CHRISTIAN POST By Alex Murashko Image of TIME Magazine courtesy of WM Events Christians should intentionally and intelligently do more to engage current culture through the arts, says Anthony Horvath , the executive director of Athanatos Christian Ministries , an apologetics ministry. "If you want to understand the power of culture, look at how gay ' marriage ' went from being unfathomable to unstoppable in less than ten years. That doesn't happen by accident," Horvath recently said. "We want to help authors and artists understand how their work can address emotional and intellectual objections to the Christian faith and then help them do so, and similarly, goad apologists into considering how they can carry out their work through cultural engagement, rather than limiting themselves to argument," Horvath said. [ link ]

JEWISH JOURNAL By Edmond Rodman Detail of Shechina on “Angel Wall” CALIFORNIA---In a City of Angels, with murals and figures of the agents of heaven fluttering everywhere, as we approach Shavuot and the time of Matan Torah — the receiving of the Torah — you would think that finding a place to have a revelatory moment would be as easy as stepping outside. On the night of June 3, many Jews here will celebrate the first night of Shavuot by traveling to their own Mount Sinais, climbing a metaphorical mountain of ideas, impressions and words that will be presented to help them imagine what it means to receive the Torah. According to a midrash, the Jewish people slept the entire night before receiving the Torah. [ link ]

ARTDAILY People visit an exhibition dedicated to Michelangelo at the Capitoline Museum in Rome on May 27, 2014 as part of the celebration of the 450th anniversary of the death of the Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. The exhibiton is held from May 27 to September 14, 2014. AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLI. ITALY---The exhibition Michelangelo. Incontrare un artista universale, covering the life and work of this colossus for all times, is to be held at the Musei Capitolini on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of the death of Michelangelo Buonarroti in Rome on 18 February 1564. In the heart of the city, in that very Piazza del Campidoglio which the genius of Michelangelo made unique in the world, over one hundred and fifty works, of which around seventy by the Tuscan artist, from many of the leading cultural institutions in Italy and elsewhere, are to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the death of an artist who was so magnificent as to have a lasting influence not only on th...

BAYOU BONE BUZZ Exterior view of Saint John Berchmans Catholic Church in Cankton, founded 1925 LOUISIANA---Parishioners at St. John Berchmans Catholic Church are just now becoming aware of the nearly century’s old religious art treasures which were hidden from their view for nearly 50 years. Exposed for the first time since the small village church underwent a remodeling project during the 1960s are 25 circular paintings. Monsignor Russell Harrington, pastor of St. John Berchmans since 2012, said until he began his own investigation, few of the current churchgoers recalled the paintings, which feature prominent scenes, psalms and passages found in the Bible and New Testament. [ link ]

THE COMMONS ONLINE Ruth and Naomi by Arthur Szyk. Courtesy of Contemporary Jewish Museum VERMONT---On Tuesday, June 3, from 7 p.m. to midnight, Brattleboro Area Jewish Community (BAJC) will offer a fun evening of study for the holiday of Shavuot and to mark June as Gay Pride Month in Brattleboro. On Shavuot, it is customary to stay up all night to study Jewish texts. In honor of Gay Pride Month in Brattleboro, the community will study the contemporary midrashic (interpretive) reading of this text as a story of lesbian love and commitment between Ruth and Naomi. They’ll also consider Naomi as a stranger in a foreign land, Ruth as a convert, and Ruth and Naomi as powerful women who use gender relations to their advantage. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB "Noah's Landing" by Victor Atkins. Acrylic, oil and oil crayon on canvas - 83" x 107". Courtesy of the artist PENNSYLVANIA---Retired abstract expressionist, Victor Atkins debuted a new collection of paintings for the first time since 1988 this month at the White Stone Gallery in Philadelphia. The solo exhibition " Come and Play ," ends June 13. For Atkins, this show is a celebration of his child-like joy in the unforeseen renewal of his artistic passion. In the mid-80's he gave up pursuit of a commercial artistic career and opened a bike shop in West Chester, PA, but while there his church community began commissioning his abstract work, and reignited his artistic career. Established in 2002, White Stone Gallery is located at 1817 Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, PA.

PAKISTAN OBSERVER "The Islamic Dream Land" by Javed Qamar PAKISTAN---Artciti Gallery has organized an exclusive exhibition of Calligraphy paintings by Javed Qamar . The exhibition will continue till Saturday, May 31, 2014. Calligraphy artist have presented inspir-ing religious art pieces featured on verses of Holy Quran. On the occasion of inauguration, a large number of citizens of Karachi besides art critics were present. Javed Qamar presented ‘Quraani Ayat’ in gold and ink. De-spite using a difficult medium, the calligraphy was amazingly beautiful. The art piece was encased in a circle, with purple, light blue, light brown and black. Calligraphy exhibitions are rare, and mostly art galleries and artist are focusing on others theme. Javed Qamar was inspired by 16th century calligraphy art. [ link ]

ARTDAILY A fine and rare large gilt-bronze figure of Buddha Shakyamuni FRANCE---Almost 400 works of art from China, Tibet, Nepal and Japan will be offered in the Sotheby's Asian Art Sale in Paris on June 10th 2014. Many of the pieces come from private European collections and have never been offered on the market before. They comprise fine Chinese ceramics, jades and scholar's objects as well as Tibetan and Nepalese religious paintings and sculpture, and Japanese lacquerwork. Asian works of art formerly in the collection of Baron Antoine Allard (1907 - 1981). [ link ]

DISCOVERY NEWS By Jennifer Viegas Detail of one mural from Angkor Wat CHINA---Over 200 paintings dating to the 16th century were recently discovered at Cambodia’s Temple of Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious monument. Angkor Wat is already famous for its spectacular bas-relief friezes depicting ceremonial and religious scenes, so this newly uncovered series of images only adds to the temple’s importance. This map of the temple shows, in red, where the newly found paintings are located. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Lorne Manly Amy Brenneman plays the wife of a small-town police chief. Credit Paul Schiraldi/HBO BROADCASTING---“ The Leftovers ,” which debuts on HBO on June 29, is not a David Lynchian exploration of small-town evil. The creation of Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, based on the novel of the same name by Mr. Perrotta, it is an intimate family drama that traffics in issues like faith and loss and grief and how to proceed after an enormous tragedy. “This show is about the condition of living in a post-apocalyptic world where, if you look out the window, it doesn’t look like the apocalypse happened,” Mr. Lindelof said. “But it did.” [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS ILLINOIS--- Conference participants this week at the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the University of Chicago explored Buddhism and ancestor veneration, and their relationship in Chinese art. The conference had two interrelated purposes. The first was to conduct more systematic investigations of images, objects, architectural structures, and historical situations that reflect the interaction and interpenetration of Buddhist devotion and funerary practice. The second was to articulate broader analytical methods and interpretative approaches based on such historical investigations in order to show larger historical patterns. [ link ]

RELIGION DISPATCHES By S. Brent Plate NEW YORK---Mark Schaming is the director of the New York State Historical Museum in Albany. As the National September 11 Memorial and Museum opened this past week, Schaming was interviewed about the process of collecting and showing such highly charged objects. "We secular people may not believe we are fetishists, bowing to divine sculptures for help in fertility and war, but our responses at memorials and museums show that we at least continue to be functional animists. There is an animating force at work within the material realm. Objects may or may not be living beings, but they do a very good job of conveying information, evoking emotion, and triggering memory. Which is why objects stand at the heart of the September 11 Museum , and why objects are the primary building material of religious traditions. [ link ]

THE WASHINGTON POST By Philip Kennicott NEW YORK---In March, shortly after the Neue Galerie in New York opened its exhibition “Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937,” lines were forming outside the ornate Fifth Avenue mansion the museum calls home. So this exhibition has competing messages. The easiest, quickest and dumbest truism is that the Nazis unfairly demonized great artists, creating a pantheon of artist-martyrs whom we continue to celebrate today in part as recompense for how savagely they were treated. But the other message is that the practice of art is always deeply political, there are always winners and losers, and many artists, like other professionals, are very good at the infighting, undercutting and self-promoting it takes to climb the greasy pole. [ link ]

KOREA TIMES By Baek Byung-yeul This Buddhist statue believed to be made in the Unified Silla Kingdom is one of the highlights at National Museum of Korea's new Silla exhibition hall. KOREA---Many remember that there was a huge controversy over the Cultural Administration Heritage's (CHA) decision to loan the Maitreya in Meditation, the country's most famous Buddhist statue, to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) last year. Nevertheless, some Korean expected that the seventh century gilt-bronze Buddhist statue would wow the audience at the Met's "Silla: Korea's Golden Kingdom" exhibition, which was held from November to February in New York, displaying artifacts of the Korean Peninsula's ancient Silla Kingdom (B.C. 57-A.D. 935). The biggest highlight was the cast-iron Buddhist statue, believed to be made between the late 7th and 10th century of the Unified Silla Kingdom (668-935) period, Korea's first unified country. [ link ]

ARTNET NEWS By Alexander Forbes Bill Viola, The Martyr (2014) Photo: TV Lab via Facebook Profile: “I saw this blue glow on the screen before the actual image came up, something in my brain said I’d be doing this all my life,” says eminent video artist Bill Viola about the first time he turned on a video camera in Nicholas Wroe’s excellent look back at the artist’s career in the Guardian . Published to coincide with the unveiling of Viola’s long-term installation Martyrs (2014) at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London last week. [ link ]

T RICYCLE By Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr. This article is the fourth in the Tricycle blog series 10 Misconceptions about Buddhism with scholars Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr. One sometimes hears people say, “A war has never been fought in the name of Buddhism.” Exactly what “in the name of Buddhism” means is debatable. Not debatable is that Buddhists over the centuries have engaged in violent acts, including warfare, and have also condoned such acts. Buddhism, like other world religions, has its own justifications for violence. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Michael Paulson Crew and cast members of “Early Shaker Spirituals” NEW YORK---For three decades, the album sat on a shelf. Over the years, Ms. LeCompte, a founding member of the Wooster Group, an avant-garde theater collective, would occasionally listen to the album, “Early Shaker Spirituals,” for reasons she can’t quite explain, other than that she liked it. Now the Wooster Group is taking the album out for a serious spin....— is staging “Early Shaker Spirituals.” “This is not historical or religious or anthropological,” she added. “But there’s a love for the aesthetic and the dedication to the spiritual aspect of work, which is something that we find in our own house here. I love imagining that we sing these songs and make up these simple dances as an expression of what we do. It lifts my life up in the theater.” [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Thomas Fuller King Bhumibol during his period of service as a Buddhist monk Courtesy Royal Thai Embassy THAILAND---Thailand’s military junta said Monday that it would stay in power “indefinitely” and that its rule had been endorsed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the monarch of nearly seven decades who has semidivine status in the country. An endorsement by the king, who is 86 years old and ailing, is crucial for the coup leaders. After Thailand’s previous coup, in 2006, the top general was photographed prostrating himself before the king. King Bhumibol is above criticism both by tradition and law; insulting him, the queen or the crown prince is punishable by up to 15 years’ imprisonment under a law that has been broadly interpreted by the authorities in recent years. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Scott Reyburn Detail of The 16th-century German painting ‘‘Virgin and Child on a grassy bank.’’ Credit Sotheby’s UNITED KINGDOM---Up until the 1980s, paintings by canonical figures such as Rembrandt, Rubens and Velázquez were the main income-generators for Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Since then, they’ve fallen out of fashion with wealthy collectors, who increasingly want to buy instantly recognizable works by “brand” artists rather than connoisseurs’ paintings whose authorship might be open to question. Now 20th- and 21st-century art, and even Chinese antiques, are more lucrative categories for the salerooms. Last year, worldwide auctions of Old Master paintings raised 1 billion euros, or about $1.4 billion. Unlike the supercharged market for contemporary art, auction sales of Old Masters have actually contracted; in 2011, they stood at €1.4 billion. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Nail art for the book of Exodus by Rabbi Buechler NEW YORK--- Rabbi Yael Miriam Buechler , a daughter of Laura A. Buechler and Rabbi Howard R. Buechler of Dix Hills, N.Y., is to be married Sunday to Yair Kramer, a son of Deborah Kramer and Rabbi Michael Kramer. The bride’s father will officiate at the Dix Hills Jewish Center, where he is the rabbi, with the groom’s father participating in the ceremony. The bride, 28, who is keeping her name, is the rabbi in residence at the Lower School of the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester in White Plains. She is the founder of MidrashManicures.com in Manhattan, which conveys Torah topics through nail art done at religious institutions and synagogues. She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Jodi Rudoren Pope Francis prayed after laying a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. ISRAEL---Making history for the second day running, Pope Francis laid a wreath Monday on the grave of the founder of Zionism, becoming the first pope to do so, a gesture of support to Israel after several symbolic signals the day before that lent a spiritual lift to Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty. Francis also joined the Israeli leaders in condemning Saturday’s slaying of at least three people outside the Jewish museum in Brussels, which he called a “criminal act of anti-Semitic hatred.” [ link ]

THE WASHINGTON POST By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, May 25, 3:21 PM ISRAEL---Pope Francis and the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians have prayed together inside the Jerusalem church that symbolizes their divisions, calling their historic meeting a step toward healing the centuries-old Catholic-Orthodox schism. Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embraced one another in the stone courtyard outside the 12th century Church of the Holy Sepulcher and recited the “Our Father” prayer together once inside. It was an unprecedented moment of solemnity at the spot where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB Why do we memorialize? A new altarpiece for St Paul’s Cathedral in London is a video quadriptych of unnamed figures engulfed in flames, doused in water, buried by soil and strung up by the ankles. Installed during a week when death felt close at hand, this digital work " Martyr's " (above) by Bill Viola is my NEWS OF WEEK . Critics predict Viola's universal work will change the future of religious art. During this week, when a family member passed away;  3 shot dead  at a Jewish Museum of Belgium;  7 killed in a rampage in California; and a museum opened for  2,977 who died in NYC; we ask, how should art memorialize?

THE TELEGRAPH By John Bingham Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), a new large-scale video installation by artist Bill Viola for St Paul's Cathedral (JULIAN SIMMONDS) UNITED KINGDOM--- It is being viewed as a 21st century answer to the medieval stained glass masterpieces or renaissance frescoes depicting vivid Biblical scenes of suffering and death. St Paul’s Cathedral in London has become the first church in Britain to introduce a permanent a video art installation – complete with hints of bondage and waterboarding. Martyrs, by the American artist Bill Viola , is made up of four plasma screens installed next to the High Altar in Sir Christopher Wren’s church. The panels, arranged like a traditional altarpiece, simultaneously show four seven minute-films, in which the martyrs are subjected to torture and death through the elements: earth, air, fire and water. [ link ]

THE HINDU By Shailaja Tripathi Devotee at the Door Opening ceremony of the annual Kannaki Amman festival, Manchanthudawai, Eastern Province SRI LANKA---During the brutal civil war in Sri Lanka many found shelter in her spaces and many saw life slipping away in those same spaces as the militant outfit LTTE used some of those sites to inflict more damage. These are the shrines of the goddess Pattini-Kannaki revered by Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus in Sri Lanka. With “ Invoking the Goddess ” (presented by Ritu Menon’s Women Unlimited), the anthropologist and photographer duo of Malathi de Alwis and Sharni Jayawardena set out to document the Pattini-Kannaki cult and retell it in the context of war. The result is an assortment of 50 photographs on view at the art gallery of India International Centre. [ link ]

DALLAS MAGAZINE By Peter Simek Rock crystal ewer, Egypt, late 10th-11th century, Fatimid, mounts by Jean-Valentin Morel, Sevres (France), 1854, rock crystal with enameled gold mounts, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art TEXAS---The first object from the Kier Collection, a trove of Islamic Art that includes nearly 2,000 object and will be on a 15-year renewable loan with the Dallas Museum of Art, was unveiled at the museum this morning. The Keir Collection was amassed by the late Hungarian real estate magnet Edmund de Unger. Before passing away in 2011, de Unger penned a long-term loan agreement with the Pergamon Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin to house, conserve, and display his collection. However, earlier this year, the Dallas Museum of Art announced that it had negotiated a similar long-term agreement with the de Unger family that would see the massive Islamic collection move from Berlin to Dallas. [ link ]

GULF NEWS By Jyoti Kalsi Hazem Mahdy’s abstract photographic works resemble the geometric patterns seen in Islamic art or in fractal art UNITED ARAB EMIRATES---At first glance, UAE-based Egyptian artist Hazem Mahdy’s abstract photographic artworks resemble the geometric patterns seen in Islamic art or in fractal art, which is inspired by the symmetry in nature. But a closer look reveals that these digitally created patterns are actually composed of repeated images of the artist’s body. Mahdy’s style was inspired by a vision he saw while meditating. The image that appeared in his mind was that of a tree with roots and branches made of human arms and hands holding on to each other to form a massive grid of interconnected hands. In his last show the artist tried to create visual interpretations of this mental image by using photographs of his own arms, hands and torso to create a series of interesting patterns. In his latest show, “Atman”, Mahdy explores this concept and technique ...

GULF-TIMES Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf being seen off at Doha International Airport DOHA---President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and her accompanying delegation yesterday visited the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA). During the tour, President Ellen Johnson was briefed on the contents of the MIA which include manuscripts, artefacts and precious stones which have been collected from the three continents and other Middle Eastern states and countries such as Spain and India. The museum’s contents reflect the period extending from the 7th and the 20th Centuries. Following the tour, the Liberian president signed the honorary record of the MIA highlighting the contents of the MIA describing these collections as a wealth to the Islamic culture and heritage. [ link ]

BOSTON GLOBE Detail of Bill Viola's Martyrs (2014). Courtesy of The Guardian UNITED KINGDOM---St. Paul's Cathedral in London is playing host to a strikingly modern altar piece—American artist, Bill Viola's video installation called 'Martyrs'. [ Video ]

THE HINDU INDIA---Every artist has his own way to express his or her feelings and ideas. Illustrations and illustrators are often victims of this thinking and seen as minor artists. This idea slowly crumbles while looking at the exhibition “The Maverick’s Palette”, the first solo show of the illustrator Atanu Roy, being held at the India International Centre till May 23. The first artworks come from perhaps his biggest assignment: Magical Indian Myths. This book is not for children alone, but for everyone. Anger and violence are present in the drawing that depicts a furious Lord Shiva with his hand in Pushan’s mouth while ripping out his teeth. In the end, an illustrator uses his art to materialise imagination. [ link ]

20x200.com  Backsplash by Negar Ahkami, 11"x14" ($60) | 16"x20" ($240) | 24"x30" ($1,200) NEW YORK---Today we're featuring a brand new to 20x200 artist, painter Negar Ahkami . As a first-generation American born to Iranian parents, Ahkami's work is heavily influenced both by Persian-Islamic traditions and Western notions of the individual, personal emotions and experimentation. Like many children born to immigrant parents, Negar Ahkami's contemplations on the duality of her identity continue to inform her life—and work. She uses her art to select the aspects of each culture she wants to own, on her own terms. In Backsplash, sapphire textures and patterns sweep the frame, reflecting the influence of Persian-Islamic art on Negar's work. The stylized representation and symbolism are reminiscent of beautifully illuminated Persian manuscripts, decorative tiles and rugs. But the painting is also uniquely Western and of her imagination—a wor...

THE SENTINEL Harrisburg artist David Kern re-interpreted images in his artwork currently on display at the LGBT Center Gallery in Harrisburg. PENNSYLVANIA---For many people, a look into the past can propel them forward. It was precisely a look into the past at the great Renaissance artists that has helped pushed Harrisburg artist David K. to break out of his familiar style and techniques. David K., aka David Kern, former Carlisle resident, has spent recent years working with abstract shapes in acrylic paints. But in is his first new series in over a year and a half, Kern puts a modern twist on late 14th century and early 15th century iconic religious art works by the Renaissance masters, including El Greco, Caravaggio, Bernini and Michelangelo. “Gospel, a Modern Twist by artist David K.” opened May 16 at the LGBT Center Gallery in midtown Harrisburg. [ link ]

THE TELEGRAPH Video by Heathcliff O'Malley Scenes from Bill Viola's video altarpiece which will be installed at St Paul's Cathedral UNITED KINGDOM---A few years ago, the American artist Bill Viola got a mental block about the Virgin Mary. This is a big moment in the history of religious art. Over the last two millennia, tens – even hundreds – of thousands of religious paintings have been placed on the altars of the world in numerous different media. But this is the first time that moving images will take a prominent place in one of the great cathedrals of Christendom. He conceived the altarpiece dedicated to Mary to be about earth and birth, the other work is dedicated to The Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire Water), is about death, release and ascension. [ link ]

AHLUL BAYT NEWS AGENCY MALAYSIA---An International Center of Islamic Calligraphy is planned be opened in late 2014 in Terengganu State of Malaysia. According to Al-Yawm Al-Sabe news agency, the center costs approximately 7 million Dollars will be opened at the Islamic Civilization Park of the state. Sidhwan Adnan Wan Abdul Rahman, official director of the park said that experts of Islamic calligraphy from Turkey, Syria, and Egypt will be employed at the center. The center will host Malaysian citizens who are interested to learn this field of art and master Islamic calligraphy. Those educated there will be employed as future teachers of the center. [ link ]

THE TELEGRAPH By Mark Hudson "Water Martyr" by Bill Viola UNITED KINGDOM--- Bill Viola's video piece for St Paul's Cathedral seems to be striving for profundity, but the end result feels curiously lifeless. We expect a degree of gravitas in a work presented in a church. Yet if the dark backgrounds recall the chiaroscuro of baroque religious painting, the lighting resembles a car advert. The weightiness of the imagery is presented as self-evident, but the end result is rather flat and ponderous. I feel reluctant to pour cold water on a project that attempts to renew the tradition of churches as places of artistic wonder. The piece didn’t resonate for me, but I hope I’m in a minority of one. [ link ]

KOREA HERALD By Lee Sun-young Iron seated Buddha (National Museum of Korea) KOREA---The National Museum of Korea’s revamped Unified Silla section, which opens to the public Tuesday, displays an undisputed new star: a larger-than-life Buddha statue made of cast iron. Placed in a spacious room right in the middle of the hall, the statue overwhelms visitors with its mystic beauty and half-smile. The exquisiteness of this artifact, which dates back to the late eighth or early ninth century, however, went unnoticed until recently. The high level of interest in the statue in the Met exhibition prompted Seoul officials to take a fresh look at it. Previously it was just one of the many Buddha statues exhibited in the Buddhist art section on the third floor of the National Museum of Korea. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB Anonymous (Mexico, 19th Century) Saint Francis of Paola, 19th Century TEXAS---Today's Pope Francis is the head of the Roman Catholic faith, but his namesakes: Sait Francis of Assisi and Saint Francis of Paola were of different eras, and this summer, the El Paso Museum of Art has organized an exhibition of these historic Saint Francis' that spotlights the museum's growing collection of retablos . A retablo or lamina is a Latin American devotional painting, especially a small popular or folk art one using iconography derived from traditional Catholic church art. El Paso Museum of Art: " Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Francis of Paola " (Ends November 2, 2014) in Dorrance and Olga Roderick Gallery: Retablo Niche; One Arts Festival Plaza, El Paso, TX; (915) 532-1707; elpasoartmuseum.org

iAFRICA.COM JORDAN---Jordan, home to many Islamic and Christian holy sites, hopes a visit this month by Pope Francis will promote religious tourism and boost an industry hit hard by regional turmoil. Tourism contributes 12 percent of gross domestic product in the desert kingdom and last year saw arrivals drop 10 percent to 5.4 million with revenues falling 6.25 percent to $3-billion. Pope Francis visits the Holy Land on May 24-26 with the first stop in Jordan, home to seven million people including about 200 000 Christians, more or less evenly split between Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS NEW YORK---The Rubin Museum of Art present " From India East " through July 7, 2014. The exhibition presents sculptures from the Asian art collection of the Brooklyn Museum. The works were chosen by the Rubin Museum’s curators to trace the development of Buddhist and Hindu sculpture back to its roots in the art of ancient India. The year-long exhibition includes art from Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, and Japan. The loan was made possible by the Brooklyn Museum’s temporary closing of its Asian art galleries.

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS By TAHLIB NEW YORK---To whom do we belong? Where do we belong? For “1515 Church”, Matt Kenny will exhibit a billboard advertisement for DNA paternity testing at 55 Gansevoort . This sculpture is a replica of a sign located on a sidewalk at 1515 Church Avenue at the juncture of one of the most culturally, economically, and architecturally diverse neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Situated near victorian mansions, a major shopping area, and Prospect Park's Parade Grounds, the billboard's startlingly negative poetry suggests an alternate psychic landscape of personal crisis. An image of a baby sits above the question 'Does he really have his father's eyes?" "1515 Church" is the artist's most recent engagement with the psychological poetry of New York City's ever-changing landscape.

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Manhola Dargis HOLLYWOOD ---Melodramatic and grounded in history, “ Belle ” is enough of an old-fashioned entertainment that it could have been made in classic Hollywood. She’s based on Dido Elizabeth Belle ( 1761-1804 ), the daughter of an African woman, Maria Bell, who was probably enslaved and maybe captured off a ship by Sir John. Written by Misan Sagay, “Belle” tracks its heroine’s dawning awareness of both her own social, political and legal position and that of the black slaves who, initially, exist for her only as abstractions. The movie plays with the historical record for dramatic effect, as is often the case when the past is disinterred for entertainment, and its realism at times groans under the weight of too many passionate speeches. Yet the weave of the personal and the political finally proves as irresistible as it is moving, partly because it has been drawn from extraordinary life. [ link ]

THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER By John Faherty Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) OHIO--- Lech Walesa was a Cold War rock star. Religious and political expression were nonexistent and workers had no rights.  Nelson Mandela had superhuman resolve in his fight again the racism and violence of apartheid and was central to the end of a hateful regime in South Africa. Both men belong on the Mount Rushmore of 20th century freedom fighters, and both men will be honored this summer by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center . Walesa will come from Poland to Cincinnati to receive the International Freedom Conductor Award. Mandela, who died in December, will be represented by his great-grandson, Luvuyo Mandela. The ceremony will take place Aug. 23. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Isabel Kershner ISRAEL---With Pope Francis set to arrive here this weekend, Israeli security officials say they are bracing for possible hate crimes designed to provoke outrage and to sour the atmosphere around the visit. Mount Zion in Jerusalem, where the Pope will offer a Mass in the Cenacle, a chamber traditionally revered as the location of the Last Supper, has become a focal point of friction. Jewish extremists say that the Vatican is trying to take ownership of the space, which is in a compound that some Jews revere as the burial place of King David. After a recent spate of hate crimes, including the defacing of a church and offices at the Vatican’s Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem, the top Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, has urged the authorities to do more to crack down. [ link ]