Disney-Britton

THE HINDU By Suresh Krishnamoorthy One of the murals at the site. Photo: Special Arrangement INDIA---The sight of seven arrow marks understood as symbols of ‘ Saptamaatrikas ’ – seven goddesses bestow as many kinds of blessings and wealth too, a deity with a ‘trishul’ in hand as a man, probably a priest stands adjacent to an ox, reminding the viewer of ‘ox sacrifice’, a practice that is found even in this modern age by Koya tribals in forests. These and more visuals were discovered a few months ago by a historian, Dyavanapalli Satyanarayana in ‘Aksharaalaloddi’, that literally translates as ‘Valley of Letters.’ [ link ]

ARTDAILY The Calakmul Mask is a funerary piece elaborated in jade mosaic, shell and gray obsidian, whose antiquity goes back to 660 and 750 AD. MEXICO---A series of temporary exhibits called “One piece, one culture” starts with the exhibition “The Calakmul Mask. Universe in Jade.” During its inauguration, Teresa Franco, director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), added that through a single piece highly significant many elements of thought and the worldview of one of the greatest cultures could be explained: the Mayans. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "Hezro" (2014) by Eugene Lemay, digital print on canvas with granite ; 5 panels, overall: 156 x 270 in (396 x 68 cm). granite: dimensions variable NEW YORK---" Building Absence " by Eugene Lemay , is his first solo exhibition at  STUX + HALLER . Simultaneously, an exhibit of larger installation works will take place at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ. Lemay's art bears witness to a meditative, consuming darkness. His new "Monochrome" paintings in oil on canvas are central to this exhibition. "Hezron," a towering digital print on canvas with granite, is the centerpiece of this exhibition. 57 STUX + HALLER Gallery: " Building Absence " (Sept. 8-Oct. 31, 2015); 24 West 57th Street 6th Floor New York, NY; (212)352-1600; stuxgallery.com

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By Ernest Disney-Britton Gregory Disney-Britton holds our new "Labyrinth" crafted by master wood carver Brad Ubelhor of Bristow, Indiana. We purchased the carving in August at the Richard Meier-designed New Harmony Atheneum overlooking the Wabash River in southeastern Indiana. The inspiration for the work is the iconic hedge Labyrinth built by the Harmonists in the 1800s and reconstructed in 1941.

THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR Mike Berg Raunick and his wife Cara Berg Raunick, both of Indianapolis, jumped into the middle of the group that broke out in dance as the 65th Street Klezmorim Ensemble after performing a mock Jewish wedding. INDIANA---The crowd fills the Veteran's Memorial Plaza during the Festival of Faiths in downtown Indianapolis on Sunday, August 30, 2015. Demonstrations and vendors representing all types of faith were on display for people to see, hear and experience. [ Pictures ]

THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR By Cara Anthony Tashi Kylil monks from Tibet perform an opening prayer/chanting ceremony on Friday, August 28, 2015 at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis in preparation for their creation of a Peace Sand Mandala at the museum, from Saturday through Tuesday. Visitors can watch as the mandala is in progress. INDIANA---[It opened on] Saturday, “ National Geographic Sacred Journeys ” — a display four years in the making — tackles the topic of religion through the eyes of five children who are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist. Christian Carron, director of collections at the museum, describes the exhibit as a “safe place for families and children to talk about religion.” Artifacts include a replica of the Shroud of Turin, a piece of linen some believe covered Jesus’ body after he was crucified, and a throne used by the Dalai Lama in Bloomington. Visitors can touch a stone from the Western Wall where Jews pray in Jerusalem, and view fragments...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By TAHLIB, Curator Christians find healing power in the crucified Christ, a story often painted by  Flemish masters . Tibetan Buddhists find healing power in the  White Tārā , a goddess who heals at the source of disease. My mom finished the half-way point this week in eight weeks of Chemo treatments for breast cancer . Through her strong faith, our constant prayers, and her doctor's great care she's doing well. That's why " Flemish Tara " (above) by Jamex and Einar de la Torre is our NEWS OF WEEK .

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Alastair MacCaulay Yasmine Arya and fellow cast members in this dance play about the life of the Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck, directed and choreographed by Daniel Ezralow at the David H. Koch Theater. Credit Andrea Mohin/The New York Times NEW YORK---Before seeing the new dance play “Pearl,” the chief questions in my head were: “Why tell the life of the writer Pearl S. Buck in dance? And how?” Pearl Buck’s life was one of cultural dualism, combining East and West, principally in China and America, and she was an observer. You watch everything as if harmlessly distanced: Nothing much touches your own life or heart, but the eye and the mind are pleasantly diverted. [ link ]

THE MORNING CALL By Kathy Lauer-Williams Two folios from a richly decorated, illuminated Qur'an from Iran, copied and signed by its scribe in Hamadan in 1164.  PENNSYLVANIA---You have a rare chance to see some of the world's most important religious writings in Philadelphia in the next two months. The Penn Museum has opened an exhibit, "Sacred Writings: Extraordinary Texts of the Biblical World," to coincide with Pope Francis' visit to Philadelphia next month. One item is one of the world's oldest fragments of the gospel of St. Matthew. [ link ] Penn Museum: " Sacred Writings: Extraordinary Texts of the Biblical World ," (Ends Nov. 8, 2015); 3260 South St., Philadelphia, PA; penn.museum; (215) 898-4000

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ken Johnson "Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece)" (1427) by Robert Campin (Netherlandish, ca. 1375–1444 Tournai) NEW YORK--- The Merode Altarpiece , a triptych at the Cloisters, ranks among the world’s most beautiful paintings. Produced in the South Netherlands workshop of Robert Campin between 1427 and 1432, it’s also a time machine that shuttles the mind across millenniums while orchestrating a convergence of the natural and the supernatural. The nearly square central panel, only about 25 inches on a side, depicts one of Christianity’s foundational myths, the Annunciation, with hallucinatory vividness. [ link ]

ASIA TIMES By Gautaman Bhaskaran INDIA---Ironical as it may sound, even as the elephant is venerated as god in India, the animal is ruthlessly poached for its tusk which are used to make ivory and are even touted as a cure for several maladies, including baldness in men. And it comes as little surprise that 100 pachyderms were reportedly slaughtered in the forests of southern India (Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka) during the past 24 months. The picture is as grim in Africa, where elephants are being slaughtered on an unimaginable scale. In 2012, more than 35,000 of them—or close to 100 a day—were killed for their tusks. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Jaimie Holmes People tend to think of not knowing as something to be wiped out or overcome, as if ignorance were simply the absence of knowledge. But answers don’t merely resolve questions; they provoke new ones. The study of ignorance — or agnotology, a term popularized by Robert N. Proctor, a historian of science at Stanford — is in its infancy. In 2006, a Columbia University neuroscientist, Stuart J. Firestein, began teaching a course on scientific ignorance after realizing, to his horror, that many of his students might have believed that we understand nearly everything about the brain. Presenting ignorance as less extensive than it is, knowledge as more solid and more stable, and discovery as neater also leads students to misunderstand the interplay between answers and questions. [ link ]

ARTNET | NEWS By Sarah Cascone The Gospel of Jesus's Wife. Photo: Harvard Divinity School. New scientific tests indicate that the controversial Gospel of Jesus's Wife, which suggests Jesus might not have been celibate, could be authentic. The key line from the papyrus scrap reads "Jesus said to them, 'My wife . . . she will be able to be my disciple.'" When the manuscript came to light thanks to Harvard University professor Karen King in 2012, it was met with a great deal of skepticism. For now, the Gospel's authenticity is still very much up for debate. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Eva Kahn The Episcopal church was completed around 1870. NEW YORK---On a recent Saturday morning, dust choked the air, and debris rained inside the Church of the Redeemer in Brooklyn, just south of the Atlantic Terminal transit hub. Last year, the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island sold the property for $20 million, and the church is scheduled for demolition. Prices for the salvaged goods will range from a few hundred dollars each for batches of tiles to the about $10,000 for stone doorways and stained-glass portraits of saints. [ link ]

INDIANAPOLIS STAR By Olivia Lewis Like many churches nationwide, Bethel AME, located at 414 W. Vermont St. in Indianapolis, suffers from a deteriorating building, has an aging and condensed congregation, and is amid a financial crisis. INDIANA---A historic African-American church in Downtown Indianapolis was once the center of the black community, but due to financial burdens, a shrinking congregation and a deteriorating building, its future is uncertain. Before IUPUI expanded on the Westside, before the Canal Street Apartments and before the Canal Walk, there was a thriving African-American community in the heart of Downtown Indianapolis. “All of a sudden there’s this big building (the apartment complex) that’s blocking the front door of our church,” said Olivia McGee-Lockhart, the historian of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Indianapolis. [ link ]

DESERET NEWS By Sarah Jane Weaver Some 90,000 visitors attended in the Indianapolis Indiana Temple open house, which concluded Aug. 8, 2015. INDIANA---More than 90,000 Church and community members participated in the public open house for the Indianapolis Indiana Temple — the first temple in the Hoosier State and the 148th worldwide. However, it was not the number of people that toured the temple — from Friday, July 17, through Saturday, Aug. 8 — that made the temple open house a success, said Elder Paul Sinclair, an Area Seventy and chairman of the local temple committee. It was the lives of the individuals touched by the temple that made the event successful, he said. [ link ]

INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS JOURNAL By Scott Olson The 136-foot bell tower soaring over the Church of the Holy Cross cements the historic building’s standing as a neighborhood landmark. But the 1922 structure is starting to crumble. INDIANA---Repurposing aging religious structures is becoming more common, driven by increased interest from developers eager to capitalize on their architectural splendor. Examples abound in Indianapolis, particularly around downtown. Indiana Landmarks itself operates from a former church. Another former church building converted into condos was the Fletcher Place Methodist Church, built around 1880. Perhaps the most intriguing conversion of a church building is the St. Joseph Brewery & Public House at 540 N. College Ave., which opened in May. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Michael Paulson CALIFORNIA---God is on the move. “ An Act of God ,” the religion-themed comedy that played on Broadway earlier this year, will be staged in Los Angeles starting in January. The play, which depicts God — communicating through a celebrity — offering new guidance to humanity, will star Sean Hayes, best known for his role on “Will & Grace”; on Broadway the show starred Jim Parsons of “The Big Bang Theory.” The Los Angeles production is scheduled to run six weeks, from Jan. 30 to March 13, at the Center Theater Group’s Ahmanson Theater. [ link ]

THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR By Will Higgins INDIANA---It is the oldest synagogue in the city, a historic, neoclassical structure designed by renowned architects. And its future is uncertain. Beth-El Temple , tucked into the 3400 block of Ruckle Street in the Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood, has been vacant for most of a decade. The neglect is now evident. Rain cascaded through holes in the roof until the synagogue, claimed by Marion County a few years ago for back taxes, caught the eye of Indiana Landmarks. In January 2014 the preservation group bought the temple and quickly raised $200,000 for a new roof to stabilize the structure and buy some time. So there’s hope for it. Now comes the hard part: what to do with the 90-year-old building. [ link ]

CULTURE MAP By March De Luna On Sunday (August 23) it was all swept away, as the monks dismantled the mandala, dispersing the colored sands to symbolize the impermanence of life. TEXAS---Watching Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery create a visually-stunning mandala from millions of grains of colored sand is a study in patience — and the beauty of art. CultureMap contributor Joel Luks captured the monks in action at Asia Society Texas Center’s Louisa Stude Sarofim Gallery earlier this week as they first drew an outline on a wooden platform and then painstakingly laid the colored sands in an intricate pattern using a traditional metal funnel called a chakpur to create the spiritual and ritual symbol in Indian religions.[ link ]

CULTURE MAP By March De Luna On Sunday (August 23) it was all swept away, as the monks dismantled the mandala, dispersing the colored sands to symbolize the impermanence of life. TEXAS---Watching Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery create a visually-stunning mandala from millions of grains of colored sand is a study in patience — and the beauty of art. CultureMap contributor Joel Luks captured the monks in action at Asia Society Texas Center’s Louisa Stude Sarofim Gallery earlier this week as they first drew an outline on a wooden platform and then painstakingly laid the colored sands in an intricate pattern using a traditional metal funnel called a chakpur to create the spiritual and ritual symbol in Indian religions.[ link ]

PATHEOS/CATHOLIC NEWS  For those who've never studied  Andy Warhol  and his prolific body of work, they've still most likely encountered it in many of the pop icons of the late 20th Century. But while Warhol may be known best for the his visionary depiction of fame and popular culture, his art can also be understood as iconic – in another, much more literal, way. Why? Because he was an ardently practicing Byzantine Catholic, say those close to the artist and his work. While many assume he was non-religious, Andy Warhol “was far from an atheist,” Warhola told CNA. In fact, they say, Warhol's art is actually best understood through the lens of faith and iconography. “He was a practicing Byzantine Catholic, and actually attended a Roman church later in his life.” [ link ]

LOS ANGELES TIMES By Carolina A. Miranda Flemish Tara” / De la Torre Brothers / 2013 / Lenticular printing / 1 x 1.3 mCategory: Lenticulars CALIFORNIA---As far as art forms go, it doesn't get more lowbrow than lenticulars, the 2-D printed pictures that, with the aid of a rippled, plasticized coating, appear three dimensional, often with animated effects. Think of those thrift store  portraits of Jesus  that appear to be winking. Artists  Jamex and Einar de la Torre  have used this technology — generally reserved for popular religious art and advertising campaigns — to fantastic effect. In fact, a current show of their work at  Koplin Del Rio  in Culver City offers a bounty of pieces that employ the device. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Christopher D. Shea UNITED KINGDOM---Ten of this city’s [London] leading museums are diving into one another’s collections for an Instagram swap this week. Using the hashtag #museuminstaswap , each participating institution will share photos of its partner museum throughout the week, highlighting works that resonate with their own collections. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Erick Eckholm UTAH---The Mormon Church announced Wednesday that it would continue its close association with the Boy Scouts for now, ending speculation that it would sever ties because of the Scouts’s decision last month to let openly gay men and women serve as leaders. In July, bowing to growing legal and public pressures, the governing board of the Boy Scouts of America voted to permit openly gay adult leaders. That followed its decision in 2013 to permit participation by gay youths. But in a compromise aimed at preventing defections by religious conservatives — including the Mormons, who are the largest single sponsor of Boy Scout units — the board said that local sponsors with religious objections could select volunteer leaders in accordance with their own beliefs. [ link ]

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL By Lance Eplund “The Whore of Babylon” (1498) a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer at the Bruce Museum’s “The Seven Deadly Sins: Pride” (through Oct. 18) CONNECTICUT---For two consecutive days this summer, I indulged in “The Seven Deadly Sins.” Not the sins, per se, but a seven-venue collaboration (think: exhibition as pub crawl) spread throughout Connecticut and New York, involving seven members of the Fairfield/Westchester Museum Alliance. The FWMA’s inaugural group effort, “ The Seven Deadly Sins ” had each arts institution tackle one unique sin, and it ran the gamut in terms of approach, originality, quality and success. Representing about 90 artists, mostly household names, “Sins” comprised roughly 200 works from the 15th to the 21st century, in nearly every medium. [ link ]

DESERT NEWS By Menachem Wecker "I Am Its Secret (Women of Allah)" (1993) by Shirn Neshat The muzzle of a rifle peeks out from between two feet in Iranian-born artist Shirin Neshat's 1994 print " Allegiance with Wakefulness ." In the series and its "melancholic beauty," Neshat aims to show how "faith overcomes anxiety while martyrdom and self-sacrifice give the soul strength," she writes in the catalog to her current solo show at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the National Mall in Washington. U.S. museum visitors, who may not be intimately familiar with the Arab world and its gender dynamics, stand to gain a new understanding from viewing works by Arab women artists. [ link ]

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER By David Patrick Stearns Whether Written on Skin at New York's Mostly Mozart Festival or Cold Mountain at the Santa Fe Opera, reviews have been so polarized that one side is often baffled by the viewpoint of the other. People whose opinions I greatly respect think George Benjamin's British-imported Written on Skin is one of the great pieces of recent decades. I appreciate the music's craftsmanship and the opera's stagecraft in a medieval tale about a woman whose husband forces her to eat the heart of her lover. Yet it never reached me: Full of high-style framing devices (angels commenting from the beyond and characters referring to themselves in the third person), the piece kept me at a distance and seemed much more horrified with its climax than I was. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Jennifer Schuessler David Oyelowo and Kate Mara in "Captive." Credit Evan Klanfer/Paramount Pictures NEW YORK---Sacred dance from several traditions, a Hollywood premiere, panels on religion and politics, and “an evening of music and chocolate” are among the events scheduled for the three-week grand opening festival of the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture , a new arts center on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The festival kicks off on Sept. 14 with the New York premiere of the film “ Captive ,” starring Kate Mara and David Oyelowo. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Amy Qin Daily Incantations’’ (1996), by Chen Zhen. CHINA---The conceptual artist Chen Zhen was 25 when he learned that he had a rare form of anemia and might have only five years to live. Now, Shanghai is celebrating its local son with a show at the Rockbund Art Museum through Oct. 7 — “Chen Zhen: Without going to New York and Paris, life could be internationalized.” It is only the second solo exhibition of Mr. Chen’s works in the city where he was born in 1955. The first was in 2006 at the Shanghai Art Museum. [ link ]

INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS JOURNAL By Scott Olsen The building was built in 1924 as an African-American church boasting a seating capacity of 1,500 INDIANA---Van Rooy Properties plans to convert the historic Phillips Temple into market-rate apartments as part of $3.5 million-plus project that also calls for constructing a new building on an adjacent lot to the west. Indianapolis Public Schools accepted the local apartment developer’s bid of $122,500 for the dilapidated African-American landmark and adjoining property on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street downtown as part of a strategy to shed ownership of holdings beyond functioning schools. [ link ]

INDIANA DAILY STUDENT By Sanya Ali INDIANA---The Labrang Tashi Kyil Monks of Dehra Dun, India, have a long history of practicing Buddhism and spreading cultural awareness wherever they visit. The monks have made three trips to the United States in recent years. Their most recent tour, which began at the end of July, will include a stop at the Venue Fine Art & Gifts. The Venue has become partners with the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center to introduce these monks for a look into their culture and practice. [ link ]

ISRAEL | HAYOM By Prof. Aviad Hacohen ISRAEL---Jerusalem has been rocked by two new developments: the Yes Planet multiplex's decision to have screenings on Shabbat , and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat's heavy-handed enforcement of laws that require grocery stores to close on Jewish holidays . This increased enforcement of Shabbat laws in Jerusalem may restore Shabbat's rightful place by it a source of national pride once again. Although some circles in Israeli society believe the Shabbat belongs to them, no one has ownership rights on this institution or on the idea it represents: a day of rest, not just in the spiritual or holy sense. It has been an inalienable asset of the Zionist movement from its early days. [ link ]

ARTNET | NEWS By Eileen Kinsella Bruce Nauman, Double Poke In The Eye II (1985). Image: Courtesy of Sperone Westwater Gallery. Bruce Nauman is considered a towering and influential figure in postwar American art. Currently, Nauman's neons—paired with Adel Abdessemed's machete sculptures—make an ominous opening to the main exhibition of the 56th Venice Biennale , “All the World's Futures," curated by Okwui Enwezor. For all the respect and attention given to Nauman and his work, he is not exactly the type of eight-figure fixture at auction that his contemporaries are. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Robin Pogrebin and Graham Bowley Bernard Berenson, exemplar of the old-school art adviser. Credit David Lees/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images For decades, art advisers were a small club of professionals who personally helped build collections for clients, using their scholarship and connoisseurship. Their role was to consult and offer expertise, rarely to make deals. But the rapidly changing art market — characterized by soaring prices, high fees and a host of wealthy new buyers from Wall Street and abroad — has prompted scores of new players to jump into the pool, from young art-world arrivistes to former auction-house executives with an abundance of expertise and connections. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Katherine Q. Seeyle The 200-year-old Cathedral of St. John in Providence, R.I., which will become a racial reconciliation center and a museum focused on the North's involvement in slavery. Credit Charlie Mahoney for The New York Times RHODE ISLAND---One of the darkest chapters of Rhode Island history involved the state’s pre-eminence in the slave trade, beginning in the 1700s. More than half of the slaving voyages from the United States left from ports in Providence, Newport and Bristol — so many, and so contrary to the popular image of slavery as primarily a scourge of the South, that Rhode Island has been called “the Deep North.” That history will soon become more prominent as the Episcopal diocese here, which was steeped in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, establishes a museum dedicated to telling that story, the first in the country to do so, according to scholars. [ link ]

ARTDAILY "Creation" - Genesis Frontispiece by Donald Jackson with contributions from Chris Tomlin DELAWARE---Today, the Biggs Museum of American Art announced that it will host the " Illuminating the Word: The Saint John's Bible " exhibition from December 4, 2015-March 27, 2016. This international exhibition features 70 pages of The Saint John's Bible , the first monumental hand-illuminated bible to be commissioned by a Benedictine monastery in over 500 years.  [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Fernanda Santos An F.B.I. agent checked a cross for any signs of explosives at Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church in Las Cruces, N.M., on Sunday. Credit Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times NEW MEXICO---Two homemade bombs exploded early this month during busy Sunday services at Roman Catholic and Baptist churches here, while a third, undetonated explosive was discovered on Friday near a leaking sprinkler valve at a Presbyterian church, fueling unease in this placid city in southern New Mexico, the second largest in the state. Still, more than two weeks after the explosions, the local and federal authorities have yet to uncover a plausible motive, a potential suspect or a clear link among the churches other than their shared Christianity. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ellen Barry and Mansi Choksi A portrait of Manikchand Lodha, a member of the Jain religion in Pune, India, who took a vow of santhara and fasted until he died on Aug. 16. Credit Serena De Sanctis for The New York Times INDIA---On a bed in a corner of a large sitting room, surrounded by a crowd of reverent visitors, the family’s 92-year-old patriarch, Manikchand Lodha, was fasting to death. It was the culmination of an act of santhara, a voluntary, systematic starvation ritual undertaken every year by several hundred members of the austere, ancient Jain religion. Mr. Lodha had begun the process some three years earlier, after a fall left him bedridden. This is a thorny constitutional question for India, which enshrines both the right to life and to religious practice. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Trip Gabriel IOWA---When Senator Ted Cruz speaks to as many as 2,000 conservatives at a Rally for Religious Liberty on Friday night , he will feature on stage Iowa’s equivalent of the Christian bakers and florists who became cause célèbres by refusing to provide services for same-sex weddings. Richard and Betty Odgaard, a Mennonite couple who would not rent their event space for a gay wedding in 2013, incurring a $5,000 fine from the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, have had their cause taken up by Mr. Cruz as he seeks support from Iowa’s many evangelical voters. Mr. Cruz, the Texas Republican, has blamed “liberal fascism” for driving the Odgaards out of business. [ link ]

ARTDAILY In this file photo excavations revealed portions of a stunning mosaic floor decorating the interior of a synagogue. Photo: Jim Haberman. WASHINGTON, DC---Ancient artifacts that have yet to be unearthed in Israel could turn up on display in a museum dedicated to the Bible opening in Washington in 2017. In a statement Tuesday, the Museum of the Bible said it will fill its entire top floor with a selection of priceless items from the Israel Antiquities Authority under what it called a "multi-year agreement." Privately funded, the $400 million Museum of the Bible , three blocks from the Capitol, is "dedicated to the impact, history and narrative" of the holy book. Its holdings already include the so-called Green Collection of nearly 40,000 objects that include rare texts and artifacts going back to biblical times. [ link ]

T MAGAZINE By Pico Iyer Ise Jingu is a Shinto shrine said to be the most sacred shrine in the country. JAPAN---The Japanese are different from you and me. They don’t confuse books with their covers. Every twenty years , the most sacred Shinto site in Japan — the Grand Shrine at Ise — is completely torn down and replaced with a replica, constructed to look as weathered and authentic as the original structure built by an emperor in the seventh century. The motto guiding Japan’s way of being might be: New is the new old. And a culture based on impermanence — the wisdom of its oldest spiritual principles borne out by centuries of warfare and earthquake and fire — is less attached to the stuff that doesn’t last than to the values that do. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By TAHLIB, Curator The Labyrinth in New Harmony, Indiana With fewer than 800 residents today, New Harmony, Indiana was created by the Harmonists  in the 1800s. These Christians believed that Adam was originally created with both sexes, and when the female portion was separated to form Eve, disharmony followed. The Harmonist solution was a life of celibacy while building a new utopia . This weekend, it's also been my birthday place. We spent the weekend taking leisurely strolls with our dog, daily scoops of artisan  ice cream , and touring its little churches. There are a few unique art galleries, plenty of public art, and walking trails and labyrinths  for prayers. The A&O logo was born here, and that's why the hedge " Labyrinth " is our NEWS OF WEEK .

WOODTV.COM MICHIGAN—Although she went home with the largest amount of money ever awarded to one artist in a single ArtPrize competition, Anila Quayyum Agha is continuing her career in teaching. Shortly after taking down “Intersections” last October, the GRAM moved the piece to its third floor Wege Gallery, where it remained on display until late January. “Intersections” is expected to remain at the Dallas Museum of Art until Aug. 23. The public relations manager for ArtPrize tells 24 Hour News 8 that they will announce the next stop for “Intersections” by early September. [ link ]

NPR | ARTS & LIFE Once we dematerialize art and make it a springboard for other interests, philosophy and theology among them, we hardly have to look at it. In May, a 1955 painting by Pablo Picasso was sold at auction for more than $179 million, the highest price at auction ever. And attendance at major art museums is booming. "The art world has never been healthier, if you measure the intensity of the human experience of what art has to offer," says Michael Lewis, an art history professor at Williams College. In the current issue of Commentary Magazine , Lewis argues that we shouldn't be fooled by the gleaming appearance of the art world today. He tells NPR's Scott Simon that most Americans have in fact become indifferent to art. [ link ]

THE GUARDIAN By Nigel M Smith Bless you, John Oliver . On Sunday, the British satirist and host of Last Week Tonight, eviscerated mega-churches, which earn millions every year by preying on the vulnerable to donate hefty, tax-free donations – but are somehow exempt from paying taxes. “This is about the churches that exploit people’s faith for monetary gain,” he declared on his HBO late-night program, before launching into a 20-minute segment that revealed the findings of a seven-month investigation conducted by his show. Oliver wrapped up the segment in fitting fashion: he formed his own church. He claims to have filed paperwork for establishing  Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption  last week, a process he called “disturbingly easy”. [ link ]

THE GUARDIAN By Mark Sweney Muslim Drag Queens: Asif Quaraishi, who performs as Asifa Lahore. Photograph: Phil Fisk/Channel 4 HOLLYWOOD---Police are on alert in case of a backlash after Channel 4 airs a documentary featuring the UK’s first gay Muslim drag queen. Asif Quaraishi , an activist for the so-called “Gaysian” community who performs in clubs as the glamorous Asifa Lahore, has received death threats in the past and is concerned about the public reaction to Muslim Drag Queens when it airs on Monday night. The documentary, which follows the difficulties faced in the lives of three gay Asian drag queens and explores the largely clandestine gay Asian community in the UK, is narrated by Sir Ian McKellen . [ link ]

BLOOMBERG VIEW By Leonid Bershidsky "Descent From the Cross" by Vadim Sidur RUSSIA---When a group of Orthodox Christian fundamentalists attacked an art exhibition in Moscow on Friday, they exposed some of the contradictions of the ideology underlying President Vladimir Putin's regime. The exhibition, "Sculptures We Do Not See," features works by Vadim Sidur, Nikolai Silis and Vladimir Lemport, Soviet nonconformists who did their best work in the 1950s and 1960s. Sidur, who liked using scrap -- drainpipes, rusty shovels, rib-cage-like radiators -- in irreverent sculptures, was also fond of Christian imagery, but not in its traditional form. [ link ]

STLYE BLUE PRINT  By Heidi Potter A first glance into the great room KENTUCKY---Walk down East Main Street in Louisville and you will notice a beautiful church on the corner of Main and Shelby streets. It’s no longer a working church and is currently being used for commercial and residential space following a $3 million renovation. Three apartments and an event space can be found inside the beautiful Gothic  Marcus Lindsey United Methodist Church at 801 Main St. It is this space that Speed Art Museum Director Ghislain d’Humieres decided to call home when he moved here almost two years ago. [ link ]

JERUSALEM POST Eliahou Eric Bokobza’s latest exhibition at Beit Hatfutsot – The Museum of the Jewish People. (photo credit:RON ARDEH) ISRAEL---Eliahou Eric Bokobza's vivid and vibrantly colored paintings are not only deceptive and disarming but unlike much of what is taken for “serious” art on the contemporary Israeli art scene. Hassidic rabbis, a voluptuous belly dancer, a bar mitzva boy, and a pink flamingo – these are just some of the characters and figures that inhabit the exotic world of Eliahou Eric Bokobza’s latest exhibition at Beit Hatfutsot – The Museum of the Jewish People. [ link ]

AMERICA BLOG By jon Green The Republican National Committee really isn’t getting their own message when it comes to rebranding the party for the 2016 election. On Monday, the organization endorsed the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), designed to directly undercut the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v Hodges ruling. The bill, which was introduced in the House in June, would specifically protect businesses and non-profits who choose to discriminate against same-sex couples on the basis of their religious beliefs, crucifying the concept of public accommodation. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Roderick Conway Morris "Virgin in Prayer" (1640) by Sassoferrato at The National Gallery ITALY---Today you might be able to grab five grams for about $360 in Manhattan. But, during the Renaissance the wealthy art patrons wanted the rich almost neon-like blue in religious paintings. A noble color, beautiful, the most perfect of all colors,” Cennino Cennini said of ultramarine, the pigment made from powdered lapis lazuli , in his “Book of the Arts,” written around 1400. The color blue was little used in the classical Roman world, perhaps because the hue was identified with the attire and body painting of barbarian races. Possibly because the color was devoid of pagan religious associations, the depiction of the Virgin Mary in blue became popular from the 12th century. [ link ] Lapis Lazuli. The Magic of Blue. Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Through Oct. 11 .

INSIDE INDIANA BUSINESS By Any Ober INDIANA---Indianapolis-based art education fundraising organizer Art to Remember is marking its 20th anniversary. The company says it has raised more than $6.8 million over the past three years for schools throughout the United States. The company helps schools raise money by allowing parents to purchase products personalized with their children's artwork. It says the money raised through Art to Remember fundraisers "may be the entire budget" for an art teacher's classroom. The original owners, Don and Jane Brackney, sold Art to Remember to fellow central Indiana resident Bill Boncosky. [ link ]

AQUILA-STYLE With the fall of Al-Andalus in 1492, and the abolition of Arabic in Spain shortly after, this script had to go underground, with documents hidden in false walls SPAIN---You might have heard of al-Andalus, that 800 year period of Islamic Spain where the arts and sciences flourished beyond the wildest imaginations of the time, but have you ever wondered how all that knowledge was transmitted? Andalusi script, said to be Europe’s only indigenous way of writing the Holy Qur’an, is a style that is at once arrestingly beautiful and astonishingly easy to pick up. To do this unsung script justice, a new multimedia label called Barzakh is seeking to tell its story, and the story of the Andalusi Muslims it worked so hard for, through a documentary film set in Andalusia itself. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ben Hubbard A 2002 picture of Khaled al-Asaad in front of a rare sarcophagus from Palmyra SYRIA---For decades, he was the bespectacled caretaker of some of Syria’s greatest archaeological treasures. Now, months after his home fell to the jihadists of the Islamic State, Khalid al-Asaad , the retired chief of antiquities for Palmyra, has fallen, too. After detaining him for weeks, the jihadists dragged him on Tuesday to a public square where a masked swordsman cut off his head in front of a crowd, Mr. Asaad’s relatives said. [ link ]

ANBA By Marcos Carrieri FRANCE---Famous for its collection and for the numbers of visitors it receives each year, since it tops the seven million mark, the Louvre Museum, in Paris, has now a hall reserved for only the Islamic art. Created in 2012, it’s located in one of the internal patios of the building. The collection has more than 14,000 objects, some of them not on display. The majority of the pieces that portray the artistic expression of the Islam, however, are on display for the general public. [ link ]

BLOUIN | ARTINFO By Archana Khare-Ghose A 15th century gilt copper repousse of Bodhisattva Manjusri from Nepal. The 45-cm tall idol is inset with jewels. It will be on display at art dealer Mehmet Hassan's 25th anniversary exhibition at Parcours des Mondes fair in Paris in September (Mehmet Hassan Asian Art) FRANCE---When Mehmat Hassan, London-born and Bangkok-based dealer of Asian art, decided to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his work, he chose to host an exhibition at the 14th edition of the annual Parisian fair Parcours des Mondes . Hassan chose this fair over any other because, he says, “…it is regarded as the most important fair for non-Western art. Mehmet Hassan Asian Art will showcase “Art From The Himalayas And China” at the Parcours des Mondes at Galerie Anne + Just Jaeckin, 19, rue Guenegaud, 75006 Paris, from September 8 through 13 [ link ]

THE TELEGRAPH Elsah artist Danne Rhaesa created the pictured piece titled "Force," and it is made of stone and concrete.  ILLINOIS---The 26th Cedarhurst Biennial Art Competition Exhibition opened this week at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts where an Elsah sculpture won second place in juried show. Elsah resident Danne Rhaesa won second place for a stone and concrete sculpture titled “Force,” and made last year. he jury team selected the 63 works of art for the Cedarhurst Biennial exhibition and ultimately the award winners for the competition from a field of 297 entries submitted by regional artists. [ link ]

TIMES STYLE MAGAZINE By Alice Gregory Photograph of the Sea Ranch Chapel at night by Peter Sidel l CALIFORNIA---The idea of enforced tastefulness rings all sorts of alarm bells in me — but only, if I’m being honest, when considering it in the abstract. There’s a certain luxury in surrendering oneself to absolute niceness. When I drove up there earlier this year, I stayed at the Sea Ranch Lodge , one of the development’s first buildings, and for 48 hours did little more than stare at the shore from bed, wander between mostly empty rooms on a slightly elevated catwalk slick with moss, and eat meals from a glass-walled corner of the restaurant. As otherworldly as the place is, it also felt strangely familiar. In many ways, Sea Ranch is the urtext for all that is most coveted today: fresh, local food, minimalist clothes, midcentury interiors. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Irina Chmyreva Women cooking sacrificed geese during a religious ceremony in the sacred woods. Credit Tatiana Plotnikova RUSSIA---(Despite) centuries of oppression that continued during the Soviet Union, some Russian Pagans living in remote settlements still hold fast to their beliefs. Tatiana Plotnikova , a Russian photographer, has documented some of the most sacred Pagan sites near isolated villages in the Mari El Republic, along the Volga River. The Mari Pagans’ religion is based on respect for the elements of nature, and they hold their religious gatherings in sacred groves in the forest where they pray, cook and eat. [ link ]