Disney-Britton

THE HINDU By S. Vijay Kumar In 2011, a celebrated New York-based art dealer, Subhash Kapoor, was detained in Germany for art theft, particularly of idols from temples in Suthamalli and Sripuranthan in Tamil Nadu. He was extradited the next year to India and now awaits trial in Chennai. After his arrest, the American authorities recovered stolen Indian art worth $100 million from his warehouses and galleries, and named him “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world”. Kapoor was helped by Sanjeevi Asokan, an art dealer based out of Chennai who supplied the idols. As S. Vijay Kumar, a Singapore-based finance and shipping expert, writes in The Idol Thief, Kapoor’s “arrest caused an earthquake in the art world, the tremors of which are still being felt”. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Peter Libbey Edward P. Bass first visited Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History in 1952 when he was 6 years old. Sixty-six years later he has donated $160 million toward renovating the museum, the university announced Tuesday. Mr. Bass, a Yale alumnus, businessman and philanthropist, said his gift was motivated by a belief in institutions. “I see institutions as having the power to transmit and perpetuate a set of fundamental values, and to do so generation to generation,” he said in a phone interview. Yale, he added, is a particularly strong institution with a long history: “It’s been more than 300 years, so I have some faith.” The Peabody Museum, founded in 1866, is home to about 13 million objects — fossils, dinosaur skeletons, minerals and meteorites, and scientific instruments among them — from more than four billion years of history. It has been operating in its current location since 1925. [ More ]

REFINERY 69 By Channing Hargrove Say what you will about The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2018 Costume Institute exhibit Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination — whether it be that The Met got the fashion part wrong, or that it focused too much on Western Catholicism — but its popularity is undeniable. Since opening on the first Monday in May, the exhibition has seen over one million visitors, making it the Costume Institute’s most attended show in history, The Met announced in a press release. It’s also the museum’s third most popular exhibit ever, replacing The Vatican Collections in 1983 and following Mona Lisa in 1963. The Met’s most popular retrospective to date is the Treasures of Tutankhamun in 1978, with 1,360,957 visitors. Heavenly Bodies , which opened on May 10, is the largest exhibit both the Costume Institute and The Met has ever put on display, with 25 galleries spanning over 60,000 square feet. [ More ]

THE NEWS ENTERPRISE By Katherine Knott With the school year underway, the Kentucky branch of American Atheists has sent letters to public schools in Hardin, Jefferson and Fayette counties about religious issues. Johnny Pike, state director of the organization, said this is the first year the organization has sent such letters, and he wanted to raise awareness about common issues the association has seen. In the letter to school administrators, Pike said schools should keep school-events secular, which includes field trips. The organization particularly was concerned with field trips to Ark Encounter in Williamstown and Creation Museum in Petersburg. Additionally, he wrote school staff and employees shouldn’t lead or direct religious activities such as prayer, and said students do not have to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, citing Supreme Court decisions. [ More ]

G RAND RAPIDS NEWS By Casey Syke "Intersections" by Anila Quayyum Agha GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A fan favorite that won ArtPrize 2014 is expected to be displayed during this year's art competition in Grand Rapids. The Grand Rapids Art Museum is extending the time that the exhibit "Anila Quayyum Agha: Intersections" will be on display. The museum at 101 Monroe Center NW in downtown Grand Rapids announced two exhibits, "Intersections" and "Mirror Variations: The Art of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian" will be displayed through ArtPrize, which ends on Oct. 7. The showing of those two exhibits had originally been scheduled to end Aug. 26. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By William D. Cohan Provenance researchers like Uwe Hartmann, left, head of the research department of the German Lost Art Foundation, and art historian Kai Artinger, try to trace the ownership of art works suspected of having been looted by the Nazis. The German Lost Art Foundation operates a database of art likely looted by the Nazis, a list that has earned plaudits for helping to return works taken from Jews during the Holocaust. Established by government officials to address the sins of a prior generation, the foundation and its database alert the market to works that may have painful pasts and cloudy title. But now the foundation is being criticized for removing from public view 63 works by the Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele , as a result of lobbying by several dealers who specialize in the artist. The dealers contend the works in question were never stolen. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ernesto Londoño Lining up in Rio de Janeiro to see the “Queer Museum” exhibition. RIO DE JANEIRO — Had it gone as planned, an exhibition that opened last year in Brazil — which included a drawing of smiling children with the words “transvestite” and “gay child” stenciled across them — would likely have been a mere blip in the country’s lively art scene. Even after the show was closed, the storm of criticism kept the project in the news, inciting a heated, monthslong national debate about freedom of expression and what qualifies as art. After nearly a year of arguments, the exhibition — which also included a painting of the Virgin Mary cradling a monkey, and sacramental wafers with words like “vagina” and “penis” written on them in neat cursive — reopened this month in Parque Lage, a public park in Rio de Janeiro that is also home to a renowned art school. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Stephen Sawyer's "Calvary" Ernest finished the Whole30 diet plan this week motivated by a philosophy shared by painter  Stephen Sawyer , that “ God lives inside us .” Our next step was to celebrate. So, on Tuesday, we had a tasting party with seven types of vodka: Crystal Head ,  Chopin , Russian Standard , Absolut , Ketel One , Cîroc , and Tito's . According to Organic Facts , the “Health benefits of vodka include better cardiovascular health, reduction in stress...." So, vodka has health benefits, but excess has the opposite effect, and we’ve been excessive. Our bodies are temples, and that’s why Stephen Sawyer's depiction of Jesus as an addict is our news of the week .

SMITHSONIAN By Brigit Katz Image of the 12th-century Buddha statue (Metropolitan police) Back in March, Lynda Albertson went to the European Fine Arts Fair in the Netherlands, on the lookout for stolen antiquities that sometimes surface at these kinds of events. Albertson, CEO of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art (ARCA), soon caught sight of bronze Buddha statue that aroused her suspicions—and her hunch about the relic’s shady provenance proved to be correct. As Gianluca Mezzofiore reports for CNN, the 12th-century Buddha has been identified as one of 14 statues that were swiped from the Archaeological Museum in Nalanda, eastern India in 1961. And on Wednesday, which is also India’s Independence Day, the statue was handed over to Indian officials during a ceremony in London. [ More ]

THE HINDU By Tejal Pandey Veteran modernist artist Madhvi Parekh’s first Mumbai retrospective is reflective of a relentless pursuit of painting and passion Madhvi Parekh’s works segue into a parallel universe. A world of fantasy, where the strange and the familiar co-exist with the real and the surreal. Where man and nature become one. With faces assigned to each — people, gods and demons or even plants, animals, stars, every personified being in Parekh’s canvas, tells a tale rich in colour and texture. Her renderings are at once figments of her own imagination, as also pastiches of myriad Indian art forms. From the dotted surfaces of her earlier work, which resemble intricate Kantha thread-work or the patterns on a Kalamkari fabric, to the geometric forms akin to Gond or Madhubani folk art, her work revels in its rural leanings. It’s also evocative of our tradition of storytelling through art, seen so often in miniatures, patachitras and phads. [ More ]

CBN NEWS By Mark Martin 2018 Alpha Omega Prize Finalist:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XQ5S8WL "Calvary" by Stephen Sawyer The painting is titled, "Calvary," and it's a dramatic depiction of what appears to be a heroin addict shooting up Jesus with the drug. The addict uses a syringe to stick a needle into what looks like the arm of Jesus, who is standing behind him with an expression of agony. The painting, a work of Christian artist Stephen Sawyer, is going viral. "Naming a painting has a lot of value – trying to come up with a name that honors the story you're trying to tell," Sawyer told CBN News. "And so in the painting what you see at first glance – some people see the junkie shooting up; some people see the junkie shooting up in Jesus' arm," Sawyer continued. "But the truth is, I was trying to demonstrate the fact that, God does live inside us, and those two arms are the same arm." [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Farah Nayeri “Albarelli” jars made of enameled ceramic are decorated with an interlacing pattern of flower stems and foliage and incorporate the the historical emblem of Florence. Credit: Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times FLORENCE, Italy — They were made in Syria six centuries ago, and stand elegantly in a row of vitrines at the Uffizi Gallery here: five ceramic jars that once contained treatments, ointments and scents from the faraway Orient. These “Albarelli” jars are decorated with an interlacing pattern of flower stems and foliage. And at the center of each one is a lily — the historical emblem of Florence. The jars tell the story, in a nutshell, of “ Islamic Art and Florence from the Medici to the 20th Century ,” an exhibition running through Sept. 23 that maps the long-lasting and reciprocal exchanges between the city and the Islamic world. [ More ]

ARTSY By Alina Cohen Donatello David, 1428-1432 Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence While centuries of scholars have parsed the meanings and symbols within Italian Renaissance artworks and architecture, their mere existence also testifies to the era’s power structures and distribution of wealth. The very act of commissioning an artist to design a building, sculpture, or painting signified the patron’s taste, erudition, financial status, and ambition. In retrospect, it’s easy to denigrate the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church throughout the Renaissance. They preached the value of humility while rewarding the wealthy and commissioning elaborate, expensive art and architecture. Yet it’s harder to deny that its money contributed to awe-inspiring cultural advances and artifacts. [ More ]

ARCHITECT'S NEWSPAPER By Jack Balderrama Morley The Nevelson Chapel in the Citigroup Center in midtown Manhattan will be restored and upgraded this fall. (Thomas Magno Photography) Tucked away in the corporate international style Citigroup Center in midtown Manhattan lies a spiritual sanctuary designed by one of the 20th century’s great artists. The Chapel of the Good Shepherd , also known as the Nevelson Chapel, is the work of Louise Nevelson, a flamboyant New York City sculptor who rose to prominence for her postwar abstract assemblages that turned street detritus into enigmatic works of art. An interdisciplinary team is restoring the space, both conserving the painted relief sculptures that line the walls and installing modern mechanical systems to better condition the room. The Nevelson Chapel is a privately owned public space (POPS) in the Citigroup Center, which opened in 1977 and features a distinctive raised base and a slanted roof. The building was landmarked in 2017...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Virgin and Child, with Saints and Donor, 47.3cm × 61.3cm, early 1440s. Frick Collection, New York. Left to right: Saint Barbara, Jan Vos, Virgin and Child, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary For the first time in twenty-four years and only the second time in their history, two masterpieces of early Netherlandish painting commissioned by the Carthusian monk Jan Vos will be reunited in a special exhibition at The Frick Collection. These works—the Frick’s Virgin and Child with St. Barbara, St. Elizabeth, and Jan Vos , commissioned from Jan van Eyck and completed by his workshop, and The Virgin and Child with St. Barbara and Jan Vos (known as the Exeter Virgin, after its first recorded owner), painted by Petrus Christus and now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin—will be shown with a selection of objects that place them in the rich monastic context for which they were created. The exhibition pays tribute to Vos as a patron and offers insight into the role such images played in sha...

LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS By S. Brent Plate Mark Rothko (1903-1970), Black and Red on Red, 1962. Oil on paper laid on canvas. 29⅝ x 21⅝ in (75.3 x 54.9 cm). Private Collection © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko ARS, NY and DACS, London When written in the same sentence, the terms “religion” and “art” tend to turn the contemporary secularized gaze back in time to Renaissance imagery. But while modern and contemporary artists have continued to embrace, or rail against, their spiritual inklings or their own religious pasts and presents, and while curators have responded by tapping into these sources, those  writing  about the arts — historians, critics, and journalists — have kept their secular gaze narrowly focused. Critics and journalists rarely diverge from the secular gaze when it comes to using art and spirit in the same sentence. And, perhaps ultimately, critics will start paying more attention. [ More ]

FORBES By Tom Teicholz Decorated Text Page (Book of Exodus) from the Rothschild Pentateuch, France and/or Germany, 1296courtesy of the Getty Museum LOS ANGELES, CA---No ordinary biblical manuscript, the Rothschild Pentateuch is notable for, as Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum said recently, “Its richly illuminated pages – a great rarity in the thirteenth century – make it a work of outstanding quality and importance that represents the pinnacle of artistic achievement of its day. It will be one of the most signal treasures of the Department of Manuscripts and indeed of the Getty Museum overall.” In advance of the current exhibition, “Art of Three Faiths: Torah Bible, Qur’an,” where the Pentateuch is now on exhibit, The Getty Museum was kind enough to let me examine the manuscript in one of the Getty’s workrooms. To be in the presence of such an amazing cultural and religious artifact, so well preserved, and to examine it closeup was head-spinning and intoxicati...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Censored version of "The Lost Antiquity." The original uncensored version is printed in three sizes, as follows: 18 x 20 inches (Edition of 5); 30 x 34 inches (Edition of 3); and 40 x 45 inches (Special Single Edition). Troy Schooneman's new full frontal nude portrait "The Lost Antiquity" is now available for purchase as a strictly limited Edition of 9 prints only. The Lost Antiquity is inspired by the beautiful life-size Hellenistic sculpture knows as "The Barberini Faun", which is located in the Glyptothek in Munich, Germany. Schooneman's portraits are influenced by many of the master painters and sculptors of the Renaissance, possess a timeless quality and are exquisitely sensual; luminous with rich, saturated colors and infused with an almost surreal painterly quality. Last year, Schooneman was noted as an Alpha Omega Arts News of the Week for his " Jesus & Thieves " series. [ Purchase ]

CNN By Meron Moges-Gerbi, CNN "The Morning Bride" by Aida Muluneh When you look at Aida Muluneh's work, it's clear where her passion lies: Ethiopia. The photographer has been telling the story of Ethiopia long before it started trending this year. The country has undergone tremendous change in 2018, most of which stems from the election of its new 41-year-old Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, one of the most progressive leaders in the country's history. Muluneh's work has garnered international attention and her photographs have been displayed at MoMA, at Toronto's Aga Khan Museum and at the largest European photography festival in Baden, Austria. Muluneh was born in Ethiopia, a child of the diaspora. Her education brought her to the United States, where she graduated from Howard University, in Washington DC. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Dan Flavin, Untitled (For Ksenija), 1994. Dan Flavin , who died in 1966, took an everyday fluorescent light and made it extraordinary. Using tubes of varying lengths and colors, he created sculptures that don't just hang there. They fill spaces with a spiritual glow. That’s how we felt about so many everyday things this week: Aretha Franklin’s passing; a spicy new dish; meeting Angelina Ballerina and Kolongi Brathwaite ; Kasey tuning 5; Greg’s mom turning 81; and the return of the homophobic  cake baker . The week reminded us to look beyond the decorative to witness the mystery. Flavin said he never intended to make a spiritual connection, but it happened, and that’s why Dan Flavin's "Untitled (for Ksenija)" is our  news of the week . 

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Lina Sinjab and Anne Barnard Tal El Mlouhi, a blogger detained since 2009. This is Hiam, a 65-year-old woman smoking a cigarette and sipping matteh, a warm herbal drink popular in Syria. It is a moment of solitude in a soul-crushing place; the bed is a prison bed. Hiam spent two and a half years in prison, most likely for the simple reason that she came from an area that rebelled against President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The artist who drew her, Azza Abo Rebieh, was one of 30 women sharing a cell with Hiam in the Adra prison in Damascus. Then 36, Ms. Abo Rebieh was on her own surreal journey through the Syrian security system, detained because of her art and her activism. Risking arrest, she painted graffiti murals about the protest movement. [ More ]

ARTDAILY Dan Flavin, Untitled (For Ksenija), 1994. Schenkung von Heiner und Philippa Friedrich im Angedenken an ihre Eltern Erika und Harald Friedrich und Dominique und John de Menil © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018. Photo: Lenbachhaus, Ernst Jank. MUNICH.- The Kunstbau, which was designed by the architect Uwe Kiessler, opened in 1994. The new subterranean space enhanced the Lenbachhaus’s ability to mount large special presentations. For the inaugural exhibition, Dan Flavin (1933–1996) created the installation Untitled (for Ksenija) , 1994. Conceived specifically for the gallery, this late work is an imposing example of Flavin’s ongoing creative engagement with the dynamic interplay between light art and architecture. Flavin was a leading protagonist of minimalism, a movement in visual art defined by the radical reduction of the formal repertoire to simple geometric structures. Formal and resolutely unequivocal, they always relate to their environments, making the viewers’ perceptions ...

ARTNEWS By Alex Greenberger Jasper Johns, Untitled, 1991, watercolor, pencil, and graphite on paper. The Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation has given the Jewish Museum in New York a gift of more than 70 artworks and $10 million, with funds set to go toward the endowment of a curatorial position and the upkeep of the institution’s collection. The gifted works include more than 30 pieces from the collection of the late New York School artist and his wife (including pieces by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Claes Oldenburg) as well as more than 40 works by winners of the foundation’s Barnett and Annalee Newman Award, such as Julie Mehretu, Mark Bradford, and Sarah Sze. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Robin Pogrebin A growing number of people of color in New York City’s curatorial world include, from left, Rujeko Hockley, Marcela Guerrero, Adrienne Edwards, and Christopher Y. Lew of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Credit Bryan Derballa for The New York Times For decades the country’s mainstream art museums have excluded people of color — from their top leadership to the curators who create shows to the artists they display on their walls. Now, eager to attract a broader cross-section of visitors at a time when the country’s demographics are changing — and, in New York, facing an ultimatum linking city funding to inclusion plans — a growing number of museums are addressing diversity with new urgency. The Ford Foundation, with the Walton Family Foundation, last November committed $6 million over three years toward diversifying curators and management at art museums nationwide. The effort funded 20 programs, including those at Lacma; the Art Institute of...

NORTHERN KENTUCKY TRIBUNE A unique cinema-graphic experience awaits Creation Museum guests with the new 3D film “In Six Days.” This 22-minute 3D film on the six days of creation has been adapted from the full-length 3D film “Genesis: Paradise Lost,” shown earlier this year in movie theaters across America. “In Six Days” uses the best in 3D projection and eye-wear, including state-of-the-art “active 3D glasses” that employ infrared technology. The Special Effects Theater at the Creation Museum, which has been enjoyed by millions of guests as a fun experience at the popular attraction in northern Kentucky, reopened this morning. After 11 years, this high-tech theater has been totally refurbished with the newest in technologies, including the latest in 3D equipment.[ More ]

CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY Cake artist Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado. Credit: Alliance Defending Freedom Denver, Colo.--- Less than three months after winning a Supreme Court case backing his religious freedom of expression, Colorado Christian cake artist Jack Phillips is finding himself at the center of yet another cake and faith-based battle. A new complaint was recently filed against Phillips with the Colorado Civil Rights Division after an attorney approached him and asked him to make a cake celebrating the anniversary of a gender transition. The attorney requested that the cake be pink on the inside and blue on the outside, representing a transition from male to female. Phillips declined to make the cake based on his religious beliefs. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Palko Karasz Clockwise, from top left: A clay cone with a cuneiform inscription; a white marble amulet in the form of an animal; a fragmentary ceremonial weapon made from gypsum; and a white quartz stamp with a seated sphinx. They will be displayed at the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. Credit British Museum LONDON — The looting of ancient artifacts was so widespread in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 that it became symbolic of the chaos that followed the American invasion. More than 15 years later, Britain returned a handful of objects, some up to 5,000 years old, that were seized by the police from an art dealer in London in 2003 and identified by staff from the British Museum only this year. The dealer, who has now gone out of business, had no documents to prove he owned the items legally, the museum said in a statement. They were held unclaimed by the London police for more than a decade, and passed to the British Museum for analysis th...

HYPERALLERGIC By Sarah E. Bond The newest mosaic to be excavated from the late Roman synagogue at Huqoq is from the north aisle and depicts the spies of Moses carrying clusters of grapes to explore Canaan, as referenced in the Bible, Numbers 13:23 At the ancient site of Huqoq, near the Sea of Galilee in modern Israel, a number of stunning mosaics depicting biblical, astrological, and historical narratives have been uncovered in a Jewish village that flourished during the late Roman empire. The colorful and large number of mosaics found in a synagogue challenge traditional views about Jewish art of the period as symbolic rather than representational of biblical texts, bland, and in decline during the period. In 2012, during excavations at the site’s synagogue, rich polychromatic mosaics that vividly depict various scenes from the Hebrew Bible began to come to light. [ More ]

THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER By Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer A Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative class held at the Cleveland Museum of Art in June is one of many new diversity initiatives launched by the museum with a formal new plan.  CLEVELAND, Ohio - Helen Forbes Fields , a trustee at the Cleveland Museum of Art , said that she recently saw a guard turn away a young black man when he pushed open the North Lobby doors as the museum was about to close. Forbes Fields described the incident as one example of why the museum needs the new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan that it is formally announcing today. "We've got work to do," she said. Two years in the making, the plan outlines broad changes in how the museum will hire and train employees, buy goods and services from vendors, collect and exhibit art, and educate students. The goal is to eliminate barriers for historically underrepresented groups in every aspect of the museum's operations. [...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Alastair Macaulay Ms. Mudgal’s acting is wonderfully eloquent, entirely stylized, utterly convincing.CreditAndrea Mohin/The New York Times Radha, goddess and lover, consumed by love for Krishna, has awaited his arrival all night long. But when he comes, his eyes are heavy with sleepiness and his lips are dark with kohl from the eyes of another woman. Radha disregards his excuses. She tells him to leave her alone. Radha here is Arushi Mudgal . And her dance monologue, “Ashtapadi — Yahi Madhava,” is taken from a 12th-century Sanskrit poem, the Gita Govinda, by Jayadeva. The item — perhaps seven minutes long — was part of Ms. Mudgal’s 90-minute solo recital on Monday at La MaMa, the opening dance event of Drive East , New York’s annual festival of Indian dance and music. The genre practiced by Ms. Mudgal is Odissi, deriving from the temple-dense Odisha or Orissa on India’s eastern coast. [ More ]

THE HINDU  A Savara tribal artist with Edisinge art at Addakulaguda hamlet in Srikakulam district. | Photo Credit: BYARRANGEMENT The Savara tribal art — Edisinge — that once flourished in the Eastern Ghats, is on the verge of extinction owing to the change in the religious profile and lifestyle of the community. Until 2011, the number of Edisinge artists was below 15 in Srikakulam district, home to the Savara tribe in Andhra Pradesh, with a population of above 1.05 lakh. “We started the Savara Art Society in 2011 to revive our art as some of the surviving artists are too old to practise it,” Savara Raju of Addakulaguda hamlet told The Hindu over phone. Mr. Raju, 26, who inherited the art from his father China Sumburu, trained a batch of 30 youths of their tribe through the SAS, but barely three are now actively practising it. [ More ]

ABOUT HER By Amrita Singh I used to draw faces, figures and portraits, but I wasn’t satisfied,” she says. “When I researched Islamic art and geometry, as well as Western artists like Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Mondrian, I saw how these artists became too spiritual and deep. It’s about abstraction and I think language is abstract as it is. And, I wanted to abstract it more.” In Lulwah Al Homoud’s most recent exhibition at Tabari’s Artspace, titled, “Beyond the Grid”, she showcases a number of large-scale minimalist art pieces that portray geometric forms of optical art. Her inspiration is derived from written language and Arabic calligraphy, which through her body of work, break the rules of traditional geometric patterns, creating new design codes and patterns. [ More ]

ARTDAILY An undated handout picture released by the British Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in London on August 15, 2018, shows a 12th century Buddha statue stolen from India 57 years ago that is to be returned to the Indian High Commissioner in London. LONDON (AFP).- A 12th century bronze Buddha statue stolen from an Indian museum 57 years ago has surfaced in London and is now being returned to the country, police said Wednesday. The statue with silver inlay was one of 14 stolen from the Archaeological Survey of India site museum in Nalanda in the east of the country in 1961. It was spotted at a trade fair in Britain in March this year, prompting an investigation by the Art and Antique Unit of London's Metropolitan Police. They alerted the owner and dealer, who are not accused of any wrongdoing, and who agreed for it to be returned to India. The statue was handed over to the Indian High Commission in London in a ceremony on Wednesday. [ More ]

SOTHEBY'S |  SELECTS GOD PRESENTING EVE TO ADAM ON THE LEFT PANEL. Across three mighty panels, Hieronymus Bosch’s raucous and confounding scene of heaven and hell continues to provoke debate, influence popular culture and attract millions of visitors to the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, its home since 1933. The oak-panel triptych features a large center scene flanked by two smaller hinged-panels that, when closed, display the formation of the earth on the third day as according to the biblical creation story. A jewel of the Prado’s collection, The Garden of Earthly Delights had been with the museum since 1933, when it was sent from the Escorial monastery for restoration. In 1936 it was put on loan for safekeeping. [ More ]

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE By Lolly Bowean The design for the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park was unveiled May 3, 2017. The Obama Foundation raised nearly $233 million mostly from private donors last year and spent about $1.5 million of that on local businesses including Chicago public relations, marketing and consulting firms, caterers, printers, contractors and other local businesses, according to its first annual report, which was released Thursday morning. The group hosted eight public meetings, held training events in three major cities and developed a fellowship program for 20 ambitious social entrepreneurs with innovative projects. The foundation spent more than $22 million on operating expenses, with a little more than half of that money used for its programs. [ More ]

BUSINESS INSIDER By Joe Perticone Artist John McNaughton's painting title, "Crossing the swamp" (2018). Painter Jon McNaughton's works have drawn considerable attention online — from pro-Trump conservatives, and yes, even the art world. McNaughton is known for fawning depictions of President Donald Trump, other Republicans, and religious figures. He is also known for his outlandish paintings of former President Barack Obama and Democrats, who are often depicted conducting heinous acts like burning the US Constitution or excoriating Jesus Christ on the floor of the House of Representatives. He has received high praise for his work from many Republican elected officials. His painting of the biblical figure Moses hangs inside the Louisiana Department of Justice Building. An edition of the same painting was the subject of an auction by South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan, a conservative Republican. [ More ]

TRYCICYLE By Julia Hirsch Visual artist David Orr in the Philosophical Research Society’s library. Photograph by Emily Shur. Angelenos have a well-kept secret. For the last two years, the PRS Library has been a second home to artist-in-residence David Orr . An LA-based visual artist, Orr spent countless hours photographing one-of-a-kind religious and philosophical texts from the center’s archives. He then digitally recombined the results to create his latest exhibition, Illumined , an abstract series of mandalas on display at the library’s new art gallery through September 16, 2018. Orr’s kaleidoscopic images—which refract words from sages such as Pythagoras, Plato, the Buddha, Confucius, Aristotle, Jesus, and Muhammad—explore the wide-ranging “belief systems we build to make sense of the world,” Orr told Tricycle . [ More ]

HARBINGER TIMES “The Heart of the Earth – B Version” On Saturday 21st July 2018, the public remained enthralled while admiring for the first time the original of the sculpture in marble dust and meteorite fragments made and exhibited during the art biennial of Saint Paul de Vence by painter and sculptor Cesare Catania . The sculpture, entitled “The Heart of the Earth – B Version”, was installed right at the entrance to the French art capital and represents in one single object all the elegance and harmony of simple tridimensional polygons intertwined with each other: the pyramid and the sphere at the center of everything. It’s a sculpture of contemporary art that connects to a previous work of art in wood and acrylic made by the same artist between 2012 and 2015, entitled “The Heart of the Earth – A Version”. [ More ]

FRIEZE MAGAZINE  By Kadish Morris Akram Zaatari, ‘The Script’, 2018, installation view, New Art Exchange, Nottingham. Courtesy: the artist; photograph: Reece Straw YouTube, for Akram Zaatari , is a garden which he regularly visits and observes. Scrolling through pages of the video website as if strolling through the grounds, he scans then picks the most compelling clips, later arranging them for study or display. The works featured in the renowned Lebanese artist, photographer and archivist’s latest exhibition, ‘The Script’, is the result of years of sifting through publicly-shared content generated by people from the Arab world, most of which contains activities that have proliferated via copycat re-enactment resulting in ad hoc sub-genres that reveal perhaps previously undocumented facets of the communities that sustain them. [ More ]

FRIEZE By Mimi Chu Detail from Main image: Tapestry with Scenes from the Life of Christ, Central Germany, possibly Eichstatt, c.1480, wool, linen wefts with an undyed wool warp, 61 x 234 cm. Courtesy: Sam Fogg, London In Sam Fogg gallery’s latest exhibition of medieval and renaissance textiles in London, a German tapestry went on public display for the first time in its recorded history. Dated at around 1480 and woven from wool and linen in varying colours and configurations, it unrolls to reveal five scenes from the Life of Christ, vertically separated by column-like bands. Read from left to right, the scenes chronicle Christ (identified by his cruciform halo) appearing to his followers after his resurrection. While there is no direct evidence of how it was originally used, its excellent condition suggests it was displayed only on rare occasions – probably hung at an altar on certain feast days or presented to esteemed guests as a talking point. [ More ]

ARTDAILY This monograph is the most immersive journey into Bruegel’s unique visual universe. NEW YORK, NY.- The life and times of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/30–1569) were marked by stark cultural conflict. He witnessed religious wars, the Duke of Alba’s brutal rule as governor of the Netherlands, and the palpable effects of the Inquisition. This monograph is a testament to Bruegel’s evolution as an artist, one who bravely confronted the issues of his day all the while proposing new inventions and solutions. Rather than idealizing reality, he addressed the horrors of religious warfare and took a critical stand against the Catholic Church. To this end, he developed his own pictorial language of dissidence, lacing innocuous everyday scenes with subliminal statements in order to escape repercussions. [ More ]

ARTNEWS By Andy Battaglia As part of a program providing funds to “small and midsize” arts organizations in seven cities across the U.S. for general operating support and training in arts management, Bloomberg Philanthropies has selected 45 grantees in Atlanta. Other cities active in the Arts Innovation and Management (AIM) program’s current cycle are Austin, Baltimore, Denver, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., with $43 million allocated for grants overall. The program, started in 2011, has so far granted $108 million to more than 500 organizations. In a statement, Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, said, “The arts inspire people, provide jobs, and strengthen communities. This program is aimed at helping some of the country’s most exciting cultural organizations reach new audiences and expand their impact.” [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Halima Aden wears Melinda Looi,(b. 1973, Malaysia) for Melinda Looi (est. 2012, Malaysia). Photography by Sebastian Kim SAN FRANCISCO - Contemporary Muslim Fashions is the first major museum exhibition to explore the complex and diverse nature of Muslim dress codes worldwide. Organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco , this pioneering exhibition will examine how Muslim women—those who cover and those who do not—have become arbiters of style within and beyond their communities and, in so doing, have drawn attention to the variations and nuances of their daily lives. The exhibition opens with an introduction to the modest fashion industry (currently valued at $44 billion per year). The exhibition’s final section explores high-end fashion designs that have been customized to accommodate Muslim women’s diverse modesty considerations. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Verneida Iva Britton holds an ice cream cone as she celebrates her 80th birthday on Tybee Beach, Georgia. Photo by Debbie Caldwell-Britton-Crum-Smith Eighty years ago this week, Ernest's mom was born, and what did she want to do to celebrate? She wanted to spend a week at Tybee Beach, Georgia, and that's where we took her! The  Book of Ephesians 6:1-4  reminds us to "Honor your father and mother," and in January, we began giving her 12-months of birthday parties on the 7th day of each month. Celebrations have included a picnic along the Ohio River and a performance by the  Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre . Born on August 7, 1938, in Xenia, Ohio, today Ms. Verneida Iva Britton is a museum docent, a black art collector, and a writer, and she's our best news of the week !

THE NEW YORK TIMES By By Sam Kestenbaum Amar'e Stoudemire attempts to blow a shofar at J. Levine Books & Judaica in Midtown Manhattan. Credit Joshua Bright for The New York Times The halls of the Jewish Museum in Manhattan were hushed and dim as Amar’e Stoudemire stepped inside. At nearly seven feet tall, the former New York Knicks star towered over the smattering of other visitors. “When I’m not training, I study Torah,” Mr. Stoudemire said. “Study, train, study, train, study, train, study. That’s life.” Mr. Stoudemire had just announced, only hours earlier, hopes of returning to the N.B.A. after leaving two years ago, but he’d reserved the afternoon for showing his spiritual side. At 35, he is part sports mogul, part holy man. He is also taking what he frequently calls a “spiritual journey” into the Bible, Israel and Judaism. It’s a turn that has fascinated and confounded some observers.[ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Vikas Bajaj "The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan"  by Ruby Lal.  Illustrated. 308 pp. W.W. Norton & Company. $27.95. The story of Nur Jahan, the daughter of Persian immigrants who became queen of the Mughal Empire, approaches the status of legend in South Asia. She has been the subject of comic books, a Bollywood movie and innumerable tall tales. What has been missing is an accessible biography that explains how a woman came to amass power and influence in a patriarchal dynasty that ruled much of what is now India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Ruby Lal sets out to fill in some of those gaps with “Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan.” [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Holland Carter The Future Buddha (bodhisattva Maitreya), a late 18th- or early 19th-century copper sculpture, in front of “Silhouette in the Graveyard,” Chitra Ganesh’s montage of news clips of wars, protests and forced immigrations, interspersed with dancing skeletons. Credit David De Armas/Rubin Museum NEW YORK---It flies and flows and creeps. You measure it, spend it, waste it. It’s on your side, or it’s not. We’re talking about time, and so is the Rubin Museum of Art , one of the biggest-thinking small museums in town. The Rubin is devoting its entire 2018 season and all six floors of galleries to time as a theme, with an accent on the future, a future which is making some of us nervous these days. If you’re a Buddhist — and much of the historical art at the Rubin is Buddhist, from the Himalayas — time is an especially complex subject because it’s not linear. It’s layered and cyclical, with past, present and future snarled up together. And that’s the way...

ARTDAILY  Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, called Sandro Botticelli (b. 1445, Florence; d. 1510, Florence) and Workshop, Madonna and Child, ca. 1490, tempera and gold on panel, 28 7/8 x 22 5/8 x 3 7/8 in. (73.5 x 57.5 x 10 cm), collection of Museo Stibbert, Florence, Italy, Inv. 16209. MADISON, WI .- Drawing on a selection of outstanding panels and complete cassoni—elaborately decorated wedding chests—together with textiles, majolica ware, paintings and other domestic items, this exhibition explores and illustrates life, love, and marriage in Renaissance Florence. Many of the objects—all from the Stibbert Collection in Florence—have never crossed the Atlantic Ocean before, and a Botticelli madonna and child painting is among the treasures. Interactive stations within the exhibit, including family heraldry, gaming tables and tarot cards, will give visitors an immersive Renaissance experience. Serving as status symbols, they demonstrated the family’s wealth and position ...

ARTDAILY Star, 1960-1962. Gesso and oil on wood with iron-and wooden-wheels; 76 x 18 x 13 inches (193 x 45.7 x 33 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1963 (K1963:9). © 2018 Morgan Art Foundation Ltd. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. BUFFALO, NY.- Recently the Albright-Knox Art Gallery opened Robert Indiana: A Sculpture Retrospective . The exhibition provides an in-depth exploration of one of America’s best known, but least understood artists. It will remain on view in the South Galleries of the museum’s 1905 Building through Sunday, September 23, 2018. With his career-defining LOVE sculpture, Robert Indiana (American, 1928–2018) created what is perhaps the most beloved public artwork of the twentieth century and one of the most iconic works in all of art history. Indiana’s works created prior to LOVE in the early 1960s were quickly embraced as classics of the bur...

ARTDAILY "Decorated Text Page" (Sūrat al-An‘ām 6: 121–122), from a Qur’an, Tunisia, ninth century, Artist unknown, The J. Paul Getty Museum (The J. Paul Getty Museum) LOS ANGELES, Ca---The J. Paul Getty Museum recently announced the acquisition of the Rothschild Pentateuch, a manuscript of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Torah. Its acquisition, coupled with works already in the Museum’s manuscripts collection, allows the Getty to represent the medieval art of illumination in sacred texts from the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Art of Three Faiths: A Torah, a Bible, and a Qur’an , on view August 7, 2018 through February 3, 2019, showcases three spectacular examples of each of these three: a Christian Bible and a Qur’an will be shown alongside the newly acquired Torah. [ More ]