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IOL News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- IOL News
France museum-goer eats million-dollar banana taped to wall
A visitor "ate" the banana that was part of Maurizio Cattelan's work "Comedian", estimated at several million euros and presented in the exhibition "Dimanche sans fin" at the Centre Pompidou in Metz, the museum said. A visitor to a French museum bit into a fresh banana worth millions of dollars taped to a wall last week, exhibitors said on Friday, in the latest such consumption of the conceptual artwork. Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan -- whose provocative creation entitled "Comedian" was bought for $6.2 million in New York last year -- said he was disappointed the person did not also eat the skin and the tape. After the hungry visitor struck on Saturday last week, "security staff rapidly and calmly intervened," the Pompidou-Metz museum in eastern France said. The work was "reinstalled within minutes", it added. "As the fruit is perishable, it is regularly replaced according to instructions from the artist." Cattelan noted the banana-eater had "confused the fruit for the work of art". "Instead of eating the banana with its skin and duct tape, the visitor just consumed the fruit," he said.
Al Etihad
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Etihad
Louvre Abu Dhabi tells fresh narratives as new masterpieces enter its ever-evolving galleries
10 July 2025 01:24 AMEINAH ALZEYOUDI (ABU DHABI)New masterpieces from across centuries and continents have joined Louvre Abu Dhabi's ever-evolving galleries, captivating both first-time and returning new selection includes works from antiquity to modernity, from a 1st-century Roman cameo and a 3rd-century Christian sarcophagus to striking modern compositions by Wassily Kandinsky, Alberto Giacometti, and Antoni the curation was the Scientific, Curatorial and Collection Management team, including Emirati professionals — Amna Al Zaabi, Fakhera Alkindi, Aisha Al Ahmadi, Mariam Al Dhaheri, and Rawdha AlAbdouli — who played a key role in developing the displays. They worked closely with international partner institutions to conduct research, secure loans, and build the collection. In an interview with Aletihad , Alkindi, a senior curatorial assistant at the museum, shares a glimpse of the meticulous process of curating artworks for the exhibition. 'Our role as a museum is to tell the stories of people that have become important from the beginning of history to this day. We always strive … to make sure that every visitor finds himself in the exhibition,' she said.A significant amount of research go into selecting and documenting the artworks, but presenting the narrative to the public is another story, Alkindi said. 'We don't present history from one academic lens; we incorporate multiple perspectives. This allows us to represent our region and others, and present a story that belongs to all of humanity,' she told Aletihad . Louvre Abu Dhabi's latest display features a blend of new acquisitions and prestigious international loans. Every piece that entered the museum had undergone full documentation, Alkindi said. Expanding the Museum's Permanent CollectionThe museum's growing permanent collection now includes a Kota Reliquary Figure from Gabon, attributed to the Sébé River Master of the Skull Head — highlighting global traditions of spiritual guardianship. Another rare addition is a Roman cameo (c. 37–41 CE), possibly portraying Agrippa Postumus, displayed among exquisite gold artefacts.A 5th-century BCE limestone Head of an Ephebe from Cyprus and a richly detailed 16th-century casket from the Kingdom of Kotte (Sri Lanka) further exemplify the museum's cross-cultural paintings include Giovanni Antonio Canal's 'The Rialto Bridge from the South' (c. 1720), Charles Meynier's 'The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis' (1800), and a portrait of Siamese ambassador Kosa Pan by Antoine Benoist (1686). A particularly vibrant acquisition is Kandinsky's 'White Oval' (1921), an abstract work demonstrating the artist's deep engagement with colour and form. Strengthening Global Partnerships Louvre Abu Dhabi continues to benefit from strong relationships with international institutions such as the Musée du Louvre, Centre Pompidou, and the National Museum of the Philippines. These partnerships have enabled the display of iconic pieces like the Sarcophagus of Livia Primitiva (c. 250 CE), one of the earliest Christian funerary sculptures, and Portrait of the Artist (1825) by Antoinette Cécile Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot, which affirms her role as a pioneering female the most significant loans is Juan Luna's Una Bulaqueña (1895), considered a National Cultural Treasure of the Philippines. Making its debut outside the country, the painting captures an idealised image of Filipina identity, strength, and powerful bronze figures -Giacometti's Femme de Venise V (1956) and Germaine Richier's L'Orage (1947–48) - explore the modern interpretation of the human figure. These are complemented by Antoni Tapies 'monumental mixed-media work Grand blanc horizontal (1962), which adds a contemporary edge to the museum's storytelling. A Living Museum Chief Curator Jérôme Farigoule emphasised the importance of rigorous research and diversifying the museum's displays.'The museum's narrative is constantly evolving, as displays are switched up regularly,' he said.'While a major rotation takes place every year to enrich the museum's collection, minor rotations take place throughout the year for sensitive artworks that cannot be exhibited for extended periods. Refreshing the collection with newly acquired and loaned artworks creates a new narrative and invites visitors to discover connections between cultures, time periods and artistic expressions,' he added. Through its new acquisitions and loans, Louvre Abu Dhabi continues to serve as a vibrant space for cultural connection, artistic dialogue, and shared human history-proving that art, across time and geography, remains a universal language. Source: Aletihad - Abu Dhabi
South China Morning Post
09-07-2025
- South China Morning Post
5 great places to stay on a Paris side trip, from the countryside to seaside
Between hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games, reopening the doors to Notre-Dame Cathedral and marking 80 years since the Normandy landings, 2024 was a banner year for tourism in France. More than 100 million travellers visited the country, spending a record €71 billion (US$84 billion) – 12 per cent more than in 2023. And the bulk of them, unsurprisingly, spent considerable time in Paris. There is reason to visit the French capital this summer too – from the David Hockney retrospective at the Louis Vuitton Foundation to the Centre Pompidou's final exhibitions before a five-year renovation begins in September. But there are always reasons to tack on a stay outside the city, either within the Ile-de-France region that surrounds Paris or slightly further afield. Here are five countryside and seaside properties that can be easily added to any Parisian sojourn. 1. Le Doyenné Travel time from Paris: 45-60 minutes by car or 35 minutes by train from Gare d'Austerlitz. If you only have a night to skip town, use it wisely and take the train 40km (25 miles) south of Paris to the village of Saint-Vrain.
Al-Ahram Weekly
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Celebrating the art of Paris Noir - Culture - Al-Ahram Weekly
A new exhibition is celebrating the contributions of African and African Diaspora artists to the Paris art scene from the 1950s until the present day, writes David Tresilian The Paris public turned out in force in March for the opening of the Paris noir, circulations artistiques et luttes anticoloniales exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, the French capital's main museum of modern and contemporary European art. With bright spring sunshine at last replacing the winter gloom, visitors to the exhibition were able to enjoy the marvelous views out across the city that can be had from the Centre's sixth-floor viewing platform before entering the exhibition itself, housed in one of the two main temporary exhibition spaces that occupy most of its roof-top level. Inside is an exhibition that takes visitors on a comprehensive tour of contributions made by African and African Diaspora artists to the Paris art scene from the 1950s until the present day. Presenting material loaned by French public and private collections, as well as collections in the Caribbean, the Americas, and some parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, it is an opportunity to see paintings, sculpture, photography, and video rarely if ever put on public display and never before curated together in a major public museum. With the Centre Pompidou closing soon for a programme of renovations that will see it out of bounds to the public for the next five years, the Paris noir exhibition, running until 30 June, is a magnificent swansong to its role as one of France and the European continent's pre-eminent museums of modern and contemporary European art. The permanent collections have already been relocated, the Centre's famous public and art libraries have been closed pending transport elsewhere, and the Centre as a whole has taken on an expectant air as if waiting for a comprehensive facelift. If the Paris noir exhibition is anything to go by, visitors to the Centre can perhaps also expect a rethink of its underlying mission during its hibernation period. This is because in the exhibition there is a an implied commitment to reframing the history of modern and contemporary European art – and the role of the French capital in promoting it – in a geographically much larger way, taking in the contributions not only of French and European artists, but also of artists from Sub-Saharan Africa, the US, Latin American, and the Caribbean who looked to Paris as a place to learn, to exchange ideas, to establish their careers, and to become more widely known. The exhibition is arranged chronologically in a circle of interlocking spaces that lead visitors from its starting point in 1950 to its ending point in 2000. It starts with the period immediately after the end of the Second World War when Paris, like the rest of Europe devastated by six years of war, though luckily physically intact, began to welcome foreign visitors. This had been impossible after 1939, and the influx of new arrivals that now took place marked a new phase in the city's history. Though it took a few years to find its feet as the economy recovered and wartime shortages were overcome, the familiar Paris of the 1950s was beginning to take shape – with existentialist philosophers re-emerging to inject new life into the city's cafes and young people in particular becoming more aware of the new society that awaited them. This would be predominantly urban in a significant break with the country's mostly rural past, avid for motor cars and consumer goods in a way unthinkable before the War, and more and more open to ideas and trends from abroad, from the novelist and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's domestication of German philosophy to the growing influence of American fashion, lifestyles, and music, notably in the form of jazz. Many of those who came to Paris from abroad immediately after the War were demobbed soldiers, members of a new generation of students not ready to accept the routines of education systems in France or elsewhere, or individuals eager to explore the new possibilities heralded by the end of the War. American writers like Richard Wright and James Baldwin, suffocating in the provincial atmosphere of the United States, arrived in Paris in 1946 and 1948, eager to find like-minded people with whom to explore new ideas. Writers and activists from France's then Caribbean and African colonies arrived in the city to work with the independence movements that would eventually help to end French colonialism abroad. The foundations had already been laid for the changes that were to come. Martinican poet and activist Aimé Césaire, author of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, an exploration of Caribbean history and identity, was educated in Paris in the 1930s, along with Senegalese writers and activists such as Alioune Diop, a teacher in Paris during the War and later the founder of the publishing house Présence africaine, and Léopold Sédar Senghor, first president of independent Senegal in 1960 but developing his poetry of négritude as a teacher in France in the 1930s. In their wake came a host of others – artists, writers, activists, journalists – from across the African and African Diaspora world, seeing, in the words of catalogue commentators Aurelien Bernard, Laure Chauvelot, and Marie Siguler, the French capital 'not so much as a geographical location than as a major and fundamental melting pot in which the Black Diaspora developed new art [and other] practices through the dynamism of meetings and exchanges.' In events such as the 1956 Congrès des écrivains et artistes noirs, 'representatives from Africa, the United States, Madagascar, and the Caribbean… worked at setting up the foundations of a post-colonial future… On the eve of the independence of the countries of the African continent and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, African Americans, Africans, and Caribbeans chose Paris, the capital of the arts, as their adopted city.' Art and artists: The exhibition is divided into thematic rooms arranged chronologically and beginning in 1950. The first, called Pan-African Paris, leads into others on Paris as a School, Afro-Atlantic Surrealism, and the Leap into Abstraction. This section of the exhibition presents paintings by Wilson Tiberio, originally from Brazil, and Paul Ahyi, originally from Benin, both living and working in Paris in the 1950s. Framing material is provided by a wall-sized display of titles published by Présence africaine, including titles by the Senegalese historian of Sub-Saharan Africa Cheikh Anta Diop, works by Césaire and Senghor, and translated works by first president of independent Ghana Kwame Nkrumah, among many others. Some artists from the Caribbean, such as Roland Dorcely from Haiti, chose to rework techniques associated with French artists Henri Matisse and Fernand Léger, the exhibition says, while others, such as Cuban painter Wilfred Lam, reworked ideas taken from European Surrealism, fusing them with an 'anti-colonialist totemism' influenced by Césaire's essay Discours sur le colonialism. A change in direction came with the 'leap into abstraction,' with African and African Diaspora artists in Paris 'reimagining pictorial and sculptural space through assemblages of discarded materials.' They were eager to experiment with collage and free inspiration, apparently in part influenced by American jazz. Perhaps related to these developments is the larger size of the paintings and sculptures in this part of the exhibition, possibly influenced by the vast canvases worked on by the abstract expressionists in the US at the time. Another explanation could be their growing habit of producing museum-size pieces, since unlike in the first rooms of the exhibition there are fewer works here that might be imagined hanging in a domestic space. Perhaps an underlying theme, not mentioned in the exhibition, could be the growing ability of these artists to work with more prestigious galleries and to place their work more easily in public collections. This would have allowed them to command higher prices, as well as wider recognition. The next rooms in the exhibition, Paris-Dakar-Lagos, focusing on the 1950s and early 1960s, and Back to Africa, on the 1970s, points to this higher profile, with some Paris galleries eager to organise exhibitions of African artists –the Congo's Poto-Poto School, the Shona Movement in Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, and the Osogbo artists in Nigeria are mentioned – 'sometimes romanticising an 'authentic' African identity' in doing so, but also allowing Paris-trained African artists to act as go-betweens for artists not based in Paris. Something similar seems to have taken place later for Caribbean artists, who, having established themselves between Martinique and Paris, extended their network to Sub-Saharan Africa as part of what the exhibition calls a 'Back to Africa' movement. One of the main destinations was Cote d'Ivoire, with the resulting Vohou-Vohou Movement seeing its practitioners making use of such connections to continue their artistic training in Paris. The Revolutionary Solidarities room of the exhibition looks at the African and African Diaspora art produced in Paris in the 1960s, in France a decade associated with major social change. Some of this, for example the 1968 student demonstrations that temporarily paralysed the country, headed in a revolutionary direction. Where one places the boundary between modern and contemporary art can be a matter of opinion, though the Centre Pompidou once placed it somewhere in the 1960s, the watershed between its level 4 and level 5 permanent exhibition spaces, now closed for renovation. One level told the story of modern European art from the end of the 19th century until the immediate post-War period, and the other took the story up until the present. Entering the next room of the exhibition, visitors may feel that they have entered the period of contemporary art, with its eclecticism, its comparative depoliticisation, its proliferation of short-lived styles, and its breaking down of the boundaries between art and advertising and art and entertainment all to the fore. Some of the paintings are of enormous size, indicating that this is an art produced for museums, if it is to be shown at all, and there is a proliferation of installations, video pieces, and conceptual art, raising questions about what differentiates this production from other works of the same period. The curators detect a new interest in history, particularly of the transatlantic slave trade practiced by the major European powers between the 17th and early 19th centuries. They point to a documentary function taken on by some works of contemporary art produced by African or African Diaspora artists working in Paris, notably with regard to experiences of immigration and poorly paid labour, and they suggest that the city may have carried over its 'melting pot' function in new ways, with the graffiti art practiced by New York artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat finding echoes in work produced in the French capital. A new Black Paris Map emerged in the 1990s, the exhibition says, with new movements emerging to stage exhibitions by practitioners across the trans-Atlantic world. A highlight is a film of American soprano Jessye Norman singing the French national anthem at celebrations marking the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989. Dressed in a French flag and filmed in front of the ancient Egyptian obelisk in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, Norman shows off her impressive vocal capacities, honed over decades of singing the 19th-century operatic repertoire. This is a fascinating and rewarding exhibition, drawing attention to figures often overlooked in standard European art history and asking new questions about how to make sense of their production, connecting it to political and societal movements as well as to the succession of artistic styles and movements often foregrounded in accounts of modern art. Paris noir, circulations artistiques et luttes anticoloniales, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, until 30 June * A version of this article appears in print in the 3 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
The National
04-07-2025
- The National
easyJet announces new route from Edinburgh Airport to Malaga
The transport firm have announced that Scottish holiday makers will be able to travel to Malaga over the winter months this year after announcing the new route. Flights are scheduled to take off on October 28, and travellers will be given the choice of flying on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Located on the Costa del Sol, Malaga, it has been described as the perfect blend of relaxation, culture, and adventure by easyJet. READ MORE: Free kiltmaking course launches in bid to preserve Scotland's cultural heritage Scottish travellers will be able to explore ancient Moorish architecture at the Alcazaba, browse contemporary exhibits at the Centre Pompidou, or take a day trip to the nearby villages in the Andalusian hills over the winter months. Jonny Macneal, Edinburgh Airport's head of aviation, said he is aware that there are always Scottish holidaymakers who are desperate to escape the rainy winter months for some sun. He said: 'Winter doesn't need to mean rain and sleet when you have some fantastic options for sunshine, such as easyJet's new route to Malaga. 'We know there are always passengers looking to escape to sunnier climates during our winter period, so it's great to be able to work with our airline partners to offer them that choice.' EasyJet passengers will be able to choose from 150 different hotels to choose from while packages from the airliner to Málaga from Edinburgh include flights, hotel, 23kg luggage and transfers. Sophie Dekkers, easyJet's chief commercial officer, said the flights to Malaga are the fifth new winter route easyJet have launched from a Scottish airport this year. She said: 'It's fantastic to be able to offer our customers yet another new winter route from Edinburgh to the vibrant Málaga in Spain, whether they're seeking a sun-soaked beach escape, a cultural city break, or simply a relaxing long weekend on Spain's Costa del Sol. 'This is the fifth new winter route we've added to our Scottish network this year, as we continue to provide even more connectivity for our customers in Scotland, along with a fantastic service and great value fares.'
