Disney-Britton

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Manohla Dargis In "The Intern," De Niro regularly attends Jewish funerals as part of his post-retirement life HOLLYWOOD---Ms. Hathaway, who’s regularly forced to take Jules’s inner girl out for a sniffle and a sob, does her best, but it’s hopeless. Jules is less of a character and more of a fast-walking, speed-talking collection of gender grievances, some of which originate with a squirmy house husband Matt (Anders Holm). One look at that guy’s smile and you want Mr. De Niro to wipe it off. He doesn’t, but there’s no need to because Mr. De Niro owns the movie from the moment he opens his mouth, and is staring into the camera and right at you. (Oh, yes, he’s lookin’ at you.) You can’t look away, and soon you don’t want to. Certainly Ms. Meyers doesn’t want anyone to because, though she loves the idea of the successful, independent woman, she also ardently wants to make room for daddy. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Mark Oppenheimer "The 613" by Archie Rand to be released on Amazon and Barnes & Nobles on Nov 10, 2015 PUBLISHING---“The 613,” a wonderfully garish book with one painting per page, will be  published next week  (Blue Rider, $45). Most people know that there are 10 commandments, enumerated in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, and given on tablets to Moses — even if we do not necessarily know what those commandments are. But there are more: From Genesis through Deuteronomy, there are a total of 613 commandments , as counted by medieval sages. [ link ]

THE WASHINGTON POST By Lindsey Bever WASHINGTON, DC---The owners of the arts-and-crafts mega-chain Hobby Lobby, which will open a major Bible museum in Washington in 2017, are cooperating with a federal investigation “related to certain biblical artifacts,” the company says. The release of the company statement on Wednesday follows a report this week by the Daily Beast that investigators are looking into whether the owners improperly imported antiquities from Iraq. [ link ]

T - MAGAZINE By Kat Herriman Two playful designs, "Pocket Funjab" (left) and "Tennis Funjab," from the artist Meriem Bennani's "Fardaous Funjab Catalogue, Avant-Garde Funjabs by Avant-Garde Designer for Avant-Garde Women." Credit Courtesy of the artist When the New York-based artist Meriem Bennani took off this past August for a two-month stint of surfing, filming and researching in her native Rabat, Morocco, the 27-year-old commemorated the occasion by posting a quick Instagram video of herself whizzing between New York and Morocco with a single swing of the camera. Two weeks later, Bennani posted from a shoot in Barcelona: stills from the latest episode of “ Fardaous Funjab ,” her fake reality TV show centered on a fictitious hijab designer and her absurdist headpieces. Thanks to her cheeky sensibility, Bennani’s work is catching on this fall.  [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Doreen Carvajal Rodin Museum to deliver a new casting of “The Gates of Hell” to the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim for display at the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City. Four more editions of “The Gates of Hell” remain available. FRANCE---At the end of his life, the sculptor Auguste Rodin ceded his valuable art collection and plaster molds to the French state....The museum holds the rights to any works cast from its molds, allowing it to sell the pieces to raise money. French regulations cap the number of sculptures created from original molds to 12. So the museum is running out of opportunities to cast almost all of Rodin’s major works, although it can still cast from hundreds of molds for other smaller works. [ link ]

ARTNET NEWS By Eileen Kinsella Left to right: Lauren Welsh Sparrow, Dan Desmond, Maryanna McConnell. Morgan Stanley is the latest major finance firm to eye the booming global art market as a platform with enormous potential for bolstering its high net worth client business. In July, the firm launched the Blue Rider Group—artnet News recently spoke to Blue Rider Group member Dan Desmond about his team's approach to advising clients, including its focus on art world networking. "My wife and I have been focused primarily on artists of our generation and have acquired a number of pieces by Lucas Blalock, Richard Aldrich, Keltie Ferris, Justin Adian , and David Adamo. That being said we have a number of outliers.... The works in our collection are primarily abstract or conceptual." [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Vindu Goel Since the dawn of the web, companies have tried — and mostly failed — to sell fine art online. Fast-forward, and you discover that online buyers are far more willing to spend thousands — and, in a few cases, hundreds of thousands — to purchase fine art and furnishings on the Internet. Now dozens of companies, from small fry like Artsy  and 1stdibs to retail giants like Amazon and yes, eBay , hope to use the latest digital technology to improve a business that for centuries has relied on personal salesmanship. Mr. Cwilich (Artsy’s chief operating officer) said that buyers generally seemed to be comfortable paying up to $5,000 online. [ link ]

THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR Is it ever legally permissible to refuse public accommodation based on religious beliefs? As Indiana lawmakers consider expansion of the state civil rights law to include sexual orientation and gender identity, the IndyStar and The Desmond Tutu Center for Peace, Reconciliation, and Global Justice invite you to join us for a series of community conversations about what changes in the law could mean for Hoosiers. The first forum — “Do I Have to Bake You a Cake? A Conversation about Civil Rights and Religious Liberty” — is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Nov. 18 in the Shelton Auditorium at Christian Theological Seminary, 1000 W. 42nd St. Indianapolis. The event is free, but registration is required . [ link ]

ARTSY By Meredith Mendelsohn Sotheby’s New York Contemporary Art Evening Auction, 12 May 2015. Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s. For new or aspiring art collectors, auctions can provide an excellent point of entry into the marketplace. Auction salerooms are open to the public and new bidders are always welcome. One of the best things about buying at auction is the wealth of information that is made accessible via catalogues and online resources such as this one: details about provenance, exhibition history, condition, and, of course, price. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Rosyln Sulcas Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler.Credit Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Some serious downsizing is in view for Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, who will sell more than 200 works from their art collection at Christie’s auction house in February. The sale, announced by Christie’s, will include paintings, photographs, furniture and ceramics, as well as Sting’s Steinway piano. The collection, which the couple built up over 20 years....Their home and collection had “effortlessly combined luxury, rarity and color,” Andy Waters, Christie’s head of private collection sales, said on the auction house’s website. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Paul Sullivan Amr Al-Dabbagh has helped develop online courses on how to be a better philanthropist. Credit Philippe Thirion Philanthropy University is certainly off to a fast start. In the first month since its website went live, 200,000 people from 138 countries signed up for more than 400,000 online classes. Mr. Dabbagh donated several million dollars to see if a learning initiative could improve the lives of 100 million people by 2020. Through his family’s Stars Foundation, he has worked with the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, to create “massive open online courses,” also known as MOOCs, on how to be a better philanthropist and leader of a nonprofit group. The courses are taught by some top thinkers on philanthropy. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS “Our Lady of War, or The Guadalupana Co-opted,” Dia de los Muertos Festival, Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles (October 2015). CALIFORNIA---The 16th annual Dia de los Muertos festival at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles was held on Saturday, October 24th, 2015. The theme for this years event was "Shamanic Visions of the Huichol." The event included traditional procession in the home of Hollywood’s Immortals with traditional Aztec blessings; regional musical-dance group dedications; hundreds of Aztec Ritual Dancers in full costume; and 100+ Altars created by members of the community to their ancestors and loved ones. Bernard Gordillo was there and shared some of his images. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Judith H. Dobryznski The Last Supper, in an illuminated manuscript from Regensburg, Germany, circa 1030-40. Credit Getty Research Institute, Los Angele CALIFORNIA---If you’ve always thought the line about “four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie” was a bit of nonsense children’s verse, an exhibition now at the J. Paul Getty Museum will set you straight. Not far away, in another Getty gallery, there are different surprises in “ Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. ” The objects in “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry” demonstrate a focus on food even when most art was religious. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS An uncensored story of the birds and the bees, moving animal sexuality beyond the confines of reproduction and mating, NEW YORK---On the last day of creation, God created animals and people, and researchers have found that animal sex is as nuanced as it is in the human realm; and sex-for-pleasure, it seems, is not just restricted to people. Manhattan's Museum of Sex collects and preserves art and artifacts that support its mission to present the history, evolution and cultural significance of human sexuality. The museum's new "The Sex Lives of Animals" showcases life-sized animal sculptures created by New York-based  Rune Olsen to present an uncensored story of the birds and the bees.

ARTSBEAT By Randy Kennedy Thornton Dial , the self-taught Alabama artist whose best-known work — dense, chaotic wall reliefs that exist somewhere between painting and sculpture — recently entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , is moving into the Manhattan gallery ecosphere. Mr. Dial, 87, will be represented by the Marianne Boesky Gallery , whose roster includes artists like Frank Stella , the painter Barnaby Furnas and the director John Waters . In 2011, the Indianapolis Museum of Ar t presented the first major survey of his work. [ link ]

THE KOREA HERALD By Lee Sun-young A Buddha statue found at a temple site in Yangyang, Gangwon Province (Yonhap) KOREA---A Buddha statue, presumed to date back to the ninth century, has been found in Korea in what archeologists say may be an important new discovery to understanding ancient Buddhist art. The gilt bronze statue, measuring over 50 centimeters in height, was discovered at a temple site in Yangyang, Gangwon Province, where a stone pagoda and other Buddhist relics had earlier been uncovered. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, Letra Morta (still), 2014. © Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa. SWEDEN---"Rainbow in the Dark: On the Joy and Torment of Faith" is an exhibition on art, religious rituals, mysticism, spirituality and faith investigating how contemporary art challenges the outdated opposition between religious and secular societies. The exhibition is set within the context of post-secularism and explores the ways that current art addresses the appeal of religion, mysticism and the irrational. Malmö Konstmuseum: "Rainbow in the Dark: On the Joy and Torment of Faith," (October 17, 2015–January 17, 2016) Malmöhusvägen 6, 201 24 Malmö, Sweden; malmo.se

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Robert Mackey Morris Costumes FA142 Sheik Fagin Nose After a raft of complaints on social networks, Walmart on Tuesday stopped selling a large prosthetic nose, described in its online Halloween store as “perfect for an Arab Sheik.” The retailer acted just hours after the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee expressed its concern that the bizarrely named “ Sheik Fagin Nose ” would be used in “racist anti-Arab costumes.” Fagin, originally referred to as just “the Jew” when “Oliver Twist” was first serialized in 1837, distressed members of England’s 19th-century Jewish community from the start. [ link ]

TODAY ONLINE By Mayor Martin The Asian Civilisations Museum will return an 11th century bronze sculpture to Indian authorities  SINGAPORE---The Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) announced today (Oct 19) that it will be returning a controversial bronze sculpture to Indian authorities following the criminal court case surrounding its seller, New York dealer Art Of The Past. The sculpture in question, a bronze rendition of the Hindu goddess Uma Parameshvari from the 11th century, was purchased by ACM for $650,000 in 2007. [ link ]

THE GRAND RAPIDS By Rabbi David Krishef In the aftermath of another exciting Artprize competition, David asked: "There are well-known works of art that are offensive to people of various religions, like David Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly, John Adams ' The Death of Klinghoffer, or Mousa's Paradise Built on the Bones of the Slaughtered, the sculpture that the city of Grand Rapids did not approve to be exhibited at ArtPrize. I think simply being an artist is not license for ignoring all ethical boundaries. An artist who wants his or her art to be taken seriously has an obligation to tread carefully when approaching sensitive matters. [ link ]

ARTSY James Turrell, Elliptical Wide Glass, 2014. Courtesy Kayne Griffin Corcoran and the artist. CALIFORNIA---After a new Drake music video went viral last week picturing the rapper dancing amongst lightscapes that some see as an homage to Turrell—and just before the artist is honored at LACMA’s Art and Film Gala— Turrel l debuts new work at a gallery that has already been shaped by his influence. KGC , which already has a permanent skyspace and a lighting installation designed by the artist, will show Turrell’s new “Elliptical Glass” works: LED light displays covered with glass that are embedded into the gallery walls—once again testament to the artist’s keen ability to harness light. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Sigalit Landau – "Wedding Dress" A series of photographs documenting the process of consolidation of crystals on a black dress in the depths of the Dead Sea. ISRAEL---The Tower of David Museum presents the exhibition, " Jerusalem.Passages ," In cooperation with the Jerusalem Biennale of Contemporary Jewish Art . The exhibition features the work of five leading Israeli and International artists: Motti Mizrachi and Sigalit Landau , Pablo Lobato , Yenin Shilo , and Dov Abramson . The main objective of the Jerusalem Biennale is to enable contemporary artists from Israel and abroad to take a more significant role in talking about the Jewish world and the universal message of Judaism.

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS SACRED POEM LXVII by Carole Kunstadt, 9 × 9 in. – Pages from 1849 Parish Psalmody, thread, 24 karat gold leaf. Courtesy of Drawing Rooms NEW JERSEY---Since the beginning of time, art has been made for sacred and devotional purposes by all cultures. " The Divine and Sublime " is an exhibition inside a former convent that features 8 artists of differing religious backgrounds who explore the contemplative, consciousness, nature as a spiritual experience, and the sacred object. The artists include: Buhm Hong , Carole Kunstadt , Cicely Cottingham , Michael Ensminger , Pat Lay , Paula Overbay , and Robyn Ellenbogen . Victory Hall, Drawing Rooms, 180 Grand St., Jersey City, NJ; 201-208-8032; drawingrooms.org.

THE JERUSALEM POST By Noa Amouya The artist's cathedral-scale panels, ‘The Four Mothers who Entered Pardes,’ are largely influenced by Jewish and Hindu theology. (photo credit:SIONA BENJAMIN) ISRAEL---For artist Siona Benjamin , it’s a blue world. A color that usually signifies despair and hopelessness transforms itself into something else in her art: a symbol for equality, strength and independence. “Very often, I look down at my skin and it has turned blue,” the Mumbai-born descendant of the Bene Israel community says of her olive complexion. “It tends to do that when I face certain situations of stereotyping and categorizing other people.” [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Five states, according to  Daily Finance  have the opportunity to save high-end art collectors millions of dollars in sales taxes. In Delaware, one of the five, The New York Times  reports that dealers are opening warehouses to house and sell high priced artworks and avoid New York sales taxes. One example, according to the Times: "Manhattan collector who might owe, say, $887,500 in sales tax on the purchase of a $10 million painting at Sotheby's in New York, would owe nothing by shipping the art to Delaware directly after purchasing it." While the other four states: Alaska, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon are not as close to NYC collectors as Delaware, they remain closer than the traditional approach of having the artworks shipped to Switzerland to save on tax collections.

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Holland Cotter “The Holy Family With the Young Saint John the Baptist” by Andrea del Sarto NEW YORK---It’s the absolutely perfect artist, with possible hints of an insecure one, that we meet in “Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action” at the Frick Collection. In this first major solo show of his art in the United States, and in a small concurrent one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, del Sarto comes across as having an angel’s hand, a scientist’s eye and a self-punishing striver’s drive to keep trying, trying, trying to get good at what he does. The Frick show, a collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, has 45 drawings and three paintings that together cover del Sarto’s career. [ link ]

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION  By Jon Sufrin Pope Francis blesses Tim Schmalz's sculpture of Jesus as a homeless man in November, 2013. (Vatican handout) CANADA---It wasn't so long ago that a statue called Homeless Jesus couldn't find a home. The controversial bronze sculpture — a creation by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz — was at first rejected by two prominent churches, one in Toronto and one in New York. Now it can be found all over the world, in cities including Belfast, Orlando, Chicago, Dublin and Toronto, with further versions planned for London, Rome and elsewhere. It has been blessed by Pope Francis, though it has generated its share of backlash, as any worthy piece of art should (one North Carolina resident complained to his local paper that he was "creeped out" by it). [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Roberta Smith An untitled 1924 work by Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), on display in “Art Brut in America: The Incursion of Jean Dubuffet" at the American Folk Art Museum. NEW YORK---In 1951, Jean Dubuffet decided it was time to introduce his Art Brut collection in the United States. This saga forms a little-known chapter in the history of what Americans now more often call outsider art. But luckily, the American Folk Art Museum has revisited and in part recreated the Ossorio sojourn with the excellent exhibition “Art Brut in America: The Incursion of Jean Dubuffet.” The show is an invigorating crowd of over 160 pieces by 35 artists — including one stupendous large mixed-media drawing, “The Mother in Pink,” (1951), by Ossorio, which resembles a cloud dwelling pre-Columbian goddess. [ link ]

DESERET NEWS By R. Scott Lloyd, LDS Church News "Whole (Woman with an Issue of Blood)" by Paige Elizabeth Anderson | United States | Oil on panel UTAH---To get a taste of the richness in cultural and artistic diversity combined with the unity of faith of the Latter-day Saints, one need only view the exhibition of entries in the 10th International Art Competition sponsored by the Church History Museum. Entries came from 944 artists in more than 40 nations, responding to the theme “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus,” aligning with this year’s Sunday School gospel doctrine course of study. [ link ] LDS Church History Museum : " Tell Me the Stories of Jesus ," 45 North West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah; history.lds.org

RELIGION DISPATCHES By Rebecca Alpert Now that we have marriage equality, and the Pope is hugging gay friends, what more is there to say about the gay community and religion? Quite a bit, if you ask Heather White, author of " Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights ." Historians are detectives. Not all historians are as gifted (or lucky) as White, however, whose excellent and lucid account challenges three sacred cows in the study of LGBT religion, namely that the Bible condemns homosexuality, that religion has played a major role in obstructing gay rights, and that Stonewall was the moment that began the American gay rights movement. [ link ]

USA TODAY By Kamilia Lahrichi Argentine artists Emiliano Pool Paolini and Marianela Perelli polemical artwork featuring 33 Ken and Barbie dolls as religious figures, especially from Christianity, such as Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, in the POPA art gallery in Argentina. ARGENTINA---The exhibit, “ Barbie, The Plastic Religion ,” has infuriated religious organizations globally, especially Catholic ones in Buenos Aires, Pope Francis' birthplace. “Barbie and Ken have offered for decades a model of a couple that attracts children of every age to play with them and identify with them,” said Adrian Santarelli, a priest at St. Thomas More parish in Buenos Aires. “The idea of dressing (dolls) with sacred images of sacred persons alters and damages the child’s levels of understanding of the sacred." [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS The  2015 A&O Artist of the Year  will be announced on November 1, 2015, after A&O subscribers finish casting their final votes this week through October 31st. This is the 8th year for A&O's  Religious Art of Year , an annual recognition of art, artists, and clergy provoking dialogue about religion through art. What began on October 1st as a list of the 31 Most Popular Posts of 2015 , has been narrowed by A&O subscribers to the Final 8 ( See below). Only A&O subscribers (through 5pm today) will recieve today's final ballot.

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By Disney-Britton This is the final week of voting for A&O's 8th Religious Art of the Year , and if you are a subscriber you will receive your ballot today! It coincides with our viewing of the movie Steve Jobs and A&O's most popular post of the week on a virtual diorama to contemplate religious themes. In this world of Apple and realtime 3D, A&O explores why religious art still matters. We provide the best and worst of it, and we look for others doing the same. That's why the Kickstarter campaign for " Cathedral-in-the-Clouds " (above) by  Auriea Harvey  &  Michaël Samyn  is our  NEWS OF WEEK .

USA TODAY By David Gibson, Religion News Service VATICAN CITY---A momentous and divided gathering of global bishops ended Saturday by endorsing measures that could lead to greater participation of divorced and remarried Catholics in the church, while the 270 churchmen declined to take up the even more controversial issue of how and whether to be more welcoming of gays. [ link ]

CHRISTIANITY TODAY By Alissa Wilkinson Poster for Steve Jobs movie paints a lonely figure HOLLYWOOD---Let's be straight: " Steve Jobs " shouldn't have worked as a movie. The setup is fully experimental, all talking from start to finish; Michael Fassbender doesn't look a thing like Jobs; it's loaded with geekspeak, even for a movie about the most famous man in personal computing history. Also, its protagonist shows every sign of being an antihero, and as a culture, we're kind of over antiheroes. I'm giving it three stars because I think, at the end of the movie, it could have been better at everything it tries to do. But it does work, and I'm still not sure why. [ link ]

THE GUARDIAN By Aaron Rosen Turning anxiety into art … Mounir Fatmi’s Connexion. Photograph: Thames & Hudson UNITED KINGDOM---The art that makes people uneasy differs, of course, from faith to faith. Understandably, Jews are selective about what goes on display in synagogues – But it’s rare for Jews to judge art in the public sphere by its adherence, or lack thereof, to Jewish law. The question of artistic offence is hotly discussed when it comes to Islam. The media tends to caricature Muslims as quick to anger at the slightest artistic offence. One productive response is to turn this anxiety into art. In a recent sculpture, Mounir Fatmi wired a copy of the Qu’ran and the New Testament together with a tangle of brightly coloured electrical cables, which was interpreted as a holy-book bomb. [ link ]

ARTNET Drake in Hotline Bling. Photo: via iTunes. Drake recently set off a slew of memes when he dropped a new video that features the rapper dancing inside several glowing, boxy environments reminiscent of the work of septuagenarian light artist James Turrell . "I fuck with Turrell," he boasted to a Rolling Stone reporter back in 2014, a few weeks after seeing the exhibition " James Turrell: A Retrospective " at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Turrell released the following statement: “While I am truly flattered to learn that Drake fucks with me, I nevertheless wish to make clear that neither I nor any of my woes was involved in any way in the making of the Hotline Bling video." [ link ]

QUARTZ An artisan in Kolkata sandpapers an idol of the Hindu goddess Durga before applying paint on it.(Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri) INDIA---For almost a week every autumn, Kolkata worships, eats, dances and drinks in celebration of the Hindu goddess Durga’s return to her paternal home. But Durga Puja—rather “pujo” as a Bengali will likely correct you—isn’t just a Hindu festival. At the heart of it, nonetheless, is the mother goddess’s idol, carefully handcrafted by expert sculptors over many weeks. She is decorated, dressed, worshipped, photographed and adored during the festival. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Aurelien Breeden and Isabel Kershner FRANCE---The United Nations’ cultural heritage agency adopted a resolution on Wednesday that criticized Israel for mishandling heritage sites in Jerusalem, but it left out a contentious clause that would have classified the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, as a part of Al Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City. It “strongly condemns” what it calls “Israeli aggressions and illegal measures against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to their holy site, Al Aqsa Mosque” and “firmly deplores the continuous storming” of the mosque compound by “Israeli right-wing extremists and uniformed forces.” [ link ]

NUVO MAGAZINE By Rhonda Baughman "Water By The Spoonful" by Wisdom Tooth Theatre Project INDIANA--- Quiara Alegría Hudes ' 2012 Pulitzer-winning play won that major award for a reason: it's breathtakingly brilliant. Many reviews note the play concerns an Iraqi war veteran coming to terms with his soul-shattering time in service - and the play is about that BUT it's about so much more. You don't hand this script to newbs — this heavy material requires, begs for, an audience capable of handling heavy material. At 2.5 hours, with a brief intermission, there is synchronicity for everyone. The intimate once-a-church and now-the-Basile Theatre was the perfect venue for such an intense piece, which is actually part of a trilogy. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEW YORK---Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to announce Carlos Vega’s solo exhibition at the 24th Street gallery, "Faith Need Not Fear Reason," which celebrates a unique moment in history when Christianity, Judaism, and Islam briefly coexisted peacefully. The gallery will exhibit this dynamic body of work for the first time in New York, which includes works from Vega’s recent solo exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art earlier this year.  Jack Shainman Gallery , 524 West 24th Street, New York, NY; (212) 645-1701; jackshainman.com

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Huan Zhang, Family Tree, 2000 OHIO---Colombus, Ohio welcomes "US IS THEM," a powerful exhibition of 75 paintings, sculptures, photographs, and video by a group of 42 international artists, including Adi Nes , Shirin Neshat , Kehinde Wiley  and others whose work confronts issues of politics, religion, and racism. The exhibition is organized to reflect timely and potent issues of social justice and current affairs across the world. T he Pizzuti Collection is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization presenting temporary exhibitions of contemporary art from the collection of Ron and Ann Pizzuti. The Pizzuti Collection: " US IS THEM ," (Ends April 2, 2016), 632 N. Park Street, Columbus, Ohio; (614) 280-4004; pizzuticollection.org

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Jack Healy COLORADO---Despite its deep opposition to same-sex marriage, the Mormon Church is setting itself apart from religious conservatives who rallied behind a Kentucky county clerk, Kim Davis, who cited her religious beliefs as justification for refusing to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In a speech this week about the boundaries between church and state, Dallin Oaks, a high-ranking apostle in the church, said that public officials like Ms. Davis, the clerk in Rowan County, Ky., had a duty to follow the law, despite their religious convictions. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Majnu Ka Tila's "ABSUR -CITY -PITY -DITY" runs October 29 – December 5, 2015 NEW YORK---Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to present Vibha Galhotra’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Majnu Ka Tila , 2015 is a tapestry comprised entirely of ghungroos, small metal bells worn on women’s bodies in traditional Indian dance. The short film Manthan , 2015 invokes a legend from Hindu mythology in which the gods churn the ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality.  Jack Shainman Gallery , 513 West 20th Street, New York, NY; (212)645-1701; jackshainman.com

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ken Johnson Sue de Beer’s installation at Boesky East. Credit Courtesy of the artist and Bill Orcutt/Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York NEW YORK---Sue de Beer’s video “ The Blue Lenses ” is hallucinatory, obliquely political and intensely poetic. Shot in Abu Dhabi, it plays on the Western tradition of Orientalism, which imagines the Middle East as an exotic zone of magic and eros. Partitions perforated in Islamic architectural patterns, a thickly carpeted floor, big bean bag seating and a blue tint on the gallery’s storefront windows provide an atmospheric setting for viewing the two-screen, 20-minute projection. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By David W. Dunlap The building at 1865 Broadway, which housed the headquarters of the American Bible Society for 49 years, will soon be demolished and replaced with an apartment tower. Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times NEW YORK---Soon, 1865 Broadway will be gone, after only 49 years. An incongruously delicate entrance pavilion, by Fox & Fowle Architects, was added in 1997. That year, an art gallery opened in the building that expanded in 2005 to become the Museum of Biblical Art . With the departure of the American Bible Society , however, the museum had to close this year, despite having attracted record crowds for a show of sculpture from the age of Donatello . [ link ]

THE HINDU By Samuel Jonathan The 125-feet tall Dhyana Buddha statue at Amaravati.- Photo: T. Vijaya Kumar INDIA---At a time when the foundation stone for Amaravati is laid on Thursday, an iconic work of art, the 125-feet-tall Dhyana Buddha statue there is becoming the face of ‘Brand Amaravati’. The statue, which is on a 4.5-acre site on the Krishna bank, is set to become the crowning glory in the Capital region. The 125-feet-tall statue embellished with sculptures from the Amaravati School of Art and was sculpted by the Joint Director of Social Welfare, Guntur, R. Mallikarjuna Rao. [ link ]

CLEVELAND JEWISH NEWS By Carlo Wolff Photo / Zev Fisher Photography OHIO----The Sarajevo Haggadah, an illustrated Spanish manuscript that has traversed Europe and points east since the calfskin parchment was created in the 14th century, will be the focus of “Music of the Book,” Merima Kjulco’s work for accordion, piano and video. The well-worn manuscript won’t attend the Oct. 28 performance at the Cleveland Museum of Art; it is locked away inside the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, a city that continues to speak volumes to Kjulco, an artist so busy performing she had no time for an interview. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Cathedral-in-the-clouds cathedral dioramas Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn are about to start their first non-game art project since they founded Tale of Tales. It's called Cathedral-in-the-Clouds and the Kickstarter campaign launched yesterday describes their plans in detail. For 12 years, Harvey & Samyn have tried to fit into the commercial game industry. But now, the pair have decided to change course. Cathedral-in-the-Clouds, still uses game technology, but for an entirely different kind of amusement. The idea is to create virtual dioramas for the purpose of contemplation. Inspired by Gothic and Renaissance art, many of these dioramas will depict religious scenes.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL  By Maxwell Anderson Earlier this month the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), a professional body representing the leading art museums in North America, issued “Protocols for Safe Havens for Works of Cultural Significance from Countries in Crisis.” The protocols offer museums a framework to provide shelter for works of art at risk owing to “war, terrorism or natural disasters,” a definition that includes Islamic State-looted objects. Owners of works at risk can request safe haven at an AAMD member museum. In turn, museums will not seek permanent title or ownership, but instead act as temporary stewards. Once a conflict-related or natural threat has waned sufficiently in the afflicted area, the works will be returned. [ link ]

THE GUARDIAN By Vanessa Bell Barbie and Ken dolls dressed as, among others, the Virgin Mary and martyred Saint Sebastian in the Barbie: Plastic Religion exhibition in Buenos Aires. Photograph: Hector Rio/AFP/Getty Images ARGENTINA---After almost a year’s delay following opposition and outcry from churchgoers and rightwing activists, Emiliano Pool Paolini and Marianela Perelli , two artists from Rosario in Argentina, have finally unveiled "Barbie: The Plastic Revolution," part of the Saints and Sinners exhibition at a small gallery in Buenos Aires’ La Boca district. Some are displayed in customised Mattel packaging, others in illuminated cabinets. Crucified Ken is nailed to a wooden cross, complete with flowing locks and loincloth, while Buddha Ken sits on the floor in the lotus position. All of the works are for sale, and dolls are also available to order. [ link ]

T-MAGAZINE By Charlotte Di Caraci In Farsi, the word for carpet, pronounced farsh, means ‘‘to spread,’’ and it’s not hard to imagine why so many designers this season have enveloped models in the intriguing patterns and flowing silhouettes of the Islamic world. Geometric ornamentation had its roots in the Greek and Roman eras, but reached its pinnacle in the Islamic Golden Age, when artists, influenced by mathematicians, astronomers and scientists of the time, elaborated on the motifs to stress unity and order. Circles represented the infinity of Allah and the square the four elements of air, fire, water and earth. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Joshua Barone William Kentridge's work " More Sweetly Play the Dance," (2015). Credit Courtesy of the artist and George Eastman Museum NEW YORK--- William Kentridge , the South African artist known for his animated films and forays into theatrical design, will soon take a sort of permanent residence in Rochester, N.Y. Just weeks before his production of Alban Berg’s “ Lulu ” opens at the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Kentridge has given the definitive collection of his archive and art — films, videos and digital works — to the George Eastman Museum there. The museum, founded in the 1940s, has one of the world’s largest and oldest photography and film collections. [ link ]

FORWARD By Talya Zax, Forward’s culture intern. Poster for the production NEW YORK---Several Jewish-oriented theaters around the country, including Boston’s Israeli Stage and Atlanta’s Jewish Theatre of the South, have already produced ”Hard Love.” This production, however, is remarkable because TACT has no religious affiliation, and Lerner is the first Israeli playwright whose work the company has produced. “I enjoyed examining the play as a Jewish man who has faith, dealing with a man who doesn’t,” said Mack’s co-star Ian Kahn, who plays Zvi, Hannah’s Orthodox-turned-atheist former husband. “He’s very questioning,” Kahn said. “It is Jewish to question life; the joy of being a Jew is to question everything.” That questioning is at the heart of Lerner’s play. [ link ] “Hard Love,” presented by The Actors Company Theatre, is at the Beckett Theatre through October 31. Ticket information can be found at tactnyc.org

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Samuel G. Freedman During orientation at Harvard Divinity School here in 2013, Angie Thurston wandered amid the tables set up by the various campus ministries. Catholic, Methodist, Muslim — they mostly served to reinforce the sense that Ms. Thurston did not fit into an organized religion. Now in her final year at Harvard, Ms. Thurston is a central figure in a boomlet of students who are secular or unaffiliated with any religious denomination, commonly known as “nones,” attending divinity school. While Harvard may be the center, nones can be found at other divinity schools around the country, especially those inclined toward theologically and politically liberal Protestantism, like Chicago Theological Seminary. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS The Academy Awards won’t take place until February, but Indiana's Heartland Film Festival is already giving shape to its shortlist with Bugalria's entry , "The Judgment." The film is about Mityo and his son Vasko who live in a poor area, near the Bulgarian-Turkish-Greek border. Finding himself at a dead end, Mityo agrees to work for his demented former commander from his time in the military: His job is to smuggle illegal immigrants from Syria across the border and into the European Union. Tickets for scheduled screenings with talent for the "The Judgment" are available for tonight through Friday, Oct. 23 in Indianapolis.

MALIBU TIMES Detail of one of Krasner’s original oil paintings many of which are in private and public collections worldwide. CALIFORNIA---"Jewish Visionaries in the Arts," an exhibit featuring the works of Russian artist and Malibu resident Ann Krasner , will be on display at the UCLA Hillel beginning Oct. 22. The exhibit will be part of a triple art opening dedicated to Jewish visionaries in American culture, art and music. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Editorial Board France is in the grips of yet another crisis involving the country’s particular version of secularism, known as laïcité. But this time, it’s a food fight. In March, Gilles Platret, the mayor of Chalon-sur-Saône, said the town’s public schools could no longer offer a pork-free option at lunch. This is worse than disingenuous. Forcing children to choose between eating pork and going hungry is a perversion of the principle of secularism. In fact, making an issue of what children eat for religious reasons is simply one more way to stigmatize and marginalize France’s minority Muslim communities, as well as its Jewish population. [ link ]

NEW YORK TIMES By Associated Press The Word of Life church occupies a former schoolhouse in New Hartford, N.Y., about 100 miles west of Albany. NEW YORK---A 17-year-old boy who was brutally beaten inside a church alongside his older brother was released from the hospital and planned to testify at a hearing against at least one of his attackers, the authorities said on Monday. The boy, Christopher Leonard, and his 19-year-old brother, Lucas, were pummeled with fists and kicked on Sunday, Oct. 11, and into Monday morning by their parents, a half sister and other members of their small and secretive church to get them to confess their sins and seek forgiveness, the authorities contend. Lucas Leonard died in the beating. [ link ]

ARTNET By Amah-Rose Abrams Ray Johnson Buddha's Fingernails (1973) and Bernardo Daddi Saint Dominic (1342) were on display at Richard Feigen Photo: courtesy Richard Feigen As it has in prior years, Frieze Masters offers some interesting takes on the traditional art fair booth. This year, Richard Feigen collaborated with JP Molyneux Studio to create the atmosphere of a collector's palazzo, showing works which spanned many eras by Joseph Cornell, Bernardo Daddi, Max Ernst, and Ray Johnson, echoing Helly Nahmad's stand from this past year, but with a very different overall effect. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Dave Itzkoff A despairing Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) in a screen grab from the trailer posted on YouTube. HOLLYWOOD---The “Monday Night Football” broadcast on ESPN offered vivid displays of pyrotechnics; stunning collisions between bodies of astronomical size; and supernatural feats that could only be explained as manifestations of an all-encompassing metaphysical force when the trailer for “ Star Wars: The Force Awakens ” made its debut at halftime. (Some exciting things might have also happened in the game between the Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles — we didn’t really pay attention to that part.) Did you manage to get your tickets before all the movie -theater websites crashed? [ link ]