Latest news with #MonaLisa
Time of India
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Was Mona Lisa based on Leonardo da Vinci's male lover? A brief history of queerness
There's an uncanny resemblance between da Vinci's John the Baptist and his Mona Lisa: Were they modeled after the same person? (Photos: In 1476, a young Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was investigated by the Florentine moral authorities. Someone had anonymously accused him of fornicating with a 17-year-old sex worker. But the charges were dropped because of a lack of evidence. German literary historian Dino Heicker, the author of a book about the history of queerness," says there are contemporary sources that prove Leonardo loved men and was particularly taken with an apprentice 28 years younger than him named Gian Giacomo Caprotti, whom he nicknamed Salai ("little devil"). They lived together for many years. A few years ago, Italian art historians thought they had found proof that the world-famous Mona Lisa was not a depiction of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a Florentine merchant, but of Caprotti instead. He modeled for da Vinci several times and researchers say that the resemblance is unmistakable. Additionally, the letters L and S (for Leonardo and Salai) can even be seen in the eyes of the Mona Lisa, as well as the endearing words, "mon salai," which could also be an anagram of "Mona Lisa. " But the Louvre Museum, where the world-famous painting hangs, isn't convinced of the theory? Da Vinci and his companion took their secrets to their graves. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like AirSense 11 – Smart tech for deep sleep ResMed Buy Now Undo In 1550, Leonardo's first biographer, Giorgio Vasari, wrote that the painter took "peculiar pleasure" in the beautiful boy, the word "peculiar" functioning as a euphemism for da Vinci's queerness. The biblical city of Sodom as a den of iniquity "When a majority defines what is normal and abnormal and declares a binary gender model to be the norm, this creates a difficult environment for minorities who feel differently," Heiker says. In his book, he lists some of the draconian punishments that were inflicted upon queer, non-binary or transgender people in the past. They were accused of indulging in what was referred to at the time as an "unnatural" lifestyle and at times put in chains, stoned, castrated or even burned at the stake. Those meting the punishment sometimes used the Bible to legitimize their persecution of queer people, especially the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah — these cities were destroyed by God because of "sinful" behavior. The term "sodomy" has also been used as a synonym for homosexuality. This story "provided the blueprint for centuries of stigmatization toward other kinds of people." In 1512, the Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa ordered his dogs to maul Indigenous people in America, accusing them of having committed "the horrible sin of sodomy." Varieties of love in antiquity On the other hand, there were also societies in which many forms of queerness were generally accepted. For example, during antiquity, it was common for men to have a male lover in addition to wives. The Roman emperor Hadrian was so heartbroken by the death of his beloved Antinous that he had him posthumously declared as a god, and erected numerous statues and places of worship to honor the beautiful youth. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said that lawmakers on the island of Crete had come up with something very special to celebrate new births: pederasty, or "boy love," when an older man took a young man into his home to train him sexually. "Sexual favors were expected from the younger man, but this was not viewed disparagingly by society," explains Dino Heicker. Love between women was also commonplace. On the island of Lesbos, the poet Sappho paid homage to the beauty of the female form in her verses. And models for a variety of different kinds of love were found in the world of the gods — especially Zeus, the father of the gods, and the epitome of queerness. This term did not exist at the time, but he transformed himself into women, animals, and even a cloud in order to have sex with the object of his desire. In ancient times, there was nothing considered wrong with men having sex with other men or boys, "as long as they played the active role," says Heicker. "The penetrated man, i.e. the inferior man, was considered effeminate and was considered socially inferior." In the Roman Empire, people liked to accuse their political opponents of being sexually passive, because "it was a way of tarnishing their honor." A 'crime against nature' The spread of Christianity brought an end to the leniency towards same-sex love. The bishop and Benedictine monk, Petrus Damiani (1006-1072) was one of the most influential clergymen of the 11th century. He railed against fornication, which he saw spreading even in monasteries: "The befouling cancer of sodomy," he wrote, "is, in fact, spreading so through the clergy or rather, like a savage beast, is raging with such shameless abandon through the flock of Christ. " Sodomy, he was convinced, was the result of diabolical whispers. Among the samurai warriors in Japan and at the Chinese imperial court, there was a more relaxed attitude towards queerness; same-sex love was common among men. In 1549, the Jesuit priest Francisco de Xavier noted: "The Buddhist priests constantly commit crimes against nature and do not even deny it. They openly admit it." The LGBTQ+ who's who In later centuries and modern times, various LGBTQ+ figures — including among royalty — achieved fame. Heicker's book lists the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), the Irish writer and playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the US writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) and also Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, two Irish women who retreated to a remote valley in Wales around 1780 and who were eyed suspiciously as the "Ladies of Llangollen." They were all just trying to find happiness in their own way. The diaries of Anne Lister aka 'Gentleman Jack' The English landowner Anne Lister (1791-1840) left behind a set of diaries that was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2011. "In these 26 volumes, she writes in detail about lesbian sex and her relationship with women," explains Heicker. Lister developed a secret code so that no uninitiated person could read her confessions, which were not deciphered until 1930. In her village, she was often referred to as "Gentleman Jack" but was largely left undisturbed. Lister's writing had a significant influence on the direction of British gender studies and stories about women. The third gender From the Mahu on Tahiti to the Muxes of the Zapotec people in Mexico, the Hijras in South Asia and the Lhamanas of the Zuni culture in north America: for thousands of years, across cultures, people have felt they belonged to the third gender, identifying neither as men nor as women. "There was much greater diversity than the narrow, binary gender model would have us think today," says Heicker. "The Zuni, for example, do not assume that gender is innate, rather they see it as a social construct. " In Germany today, the third gender is referred to as "diverse." "Queer people, especially in Germany, have had to fight for freedoms previous generations could only dream of," says Heicker. "In 1994, Paragraph 175( which criminalized sexual acts between men, Editor's note ) was finally removed from the penal code. Same-sex marriage has been legalized, and sexual discrimination is now an offence. On the other hand, and here comes the big but: these achievements must continuously also be protected, especially in the face of attempts to turn back the clock."
Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
The Louvre makeover that will push up price of seeing Mona Lisa
A baking summer's afternoon at the Louvre. Milling around the Mona Lisa are maybe 150 people, all with their phones held high above their heads so they can snap that enigmatic smile. Meanwhile, in the vast galleries surrounding Leonardo's masterpiece, an eternal throng of visitors from every corner of the globe trudges wearily on — most, this far into the gallery, seemingly oblivious to the glorious art around them. Paris's great museum has about nine miles of galleries, spread over 403 rooms. You enter it from beneath IM Pei's celebrated glass pyramid, which on a day like this behaves like a giant magnifying glass for the blazing sun. Many visitors probably won't venture more than half a mile into the heart of the museum. But in this huge, former royal palace there is one tranquil room. Far from the madding crowd, Laurence des Cars, 59, the first female director of the Louvre in 228 years, sits in her book-lined office, the picture of the formidable, Sorbonne-educated Parisian intellectual she is. If she is physically distanced from the heaving mass of humanity trudging round her domain, however, her brain is constantly occupied with it. 'One of my first decisions when I became the director in 2021 was to limit our daily admissions to 30,000,' she says. 'You know that, just before Covid, the Louvre was getting ten million visitors a year? When I got here the staff said, 'Please let's not go back to that because some days we were up to 45,000 visitors.' And that figure is too much. Even now we are saturated. The building is suffocating. It's not good for staff, visitors or the art.' Last month the Louvre's staff emphasised their grievances by going on a spontaneous strike (a 'mass expression of exasperation', their union official said), leaving thousands of tourists outside with no idea why they weren't being let in. 'It wasn't a strike,' des Cars says firmly. 'It was a meeting with the unions because of the conditions and especially the heat. I put in place immediate measures to make things better and we reopened that afternoon.' All the world's top museums — from the Vatican in Rome to the British Museum in London — are facing this same problem: huge congestion, especially around the handful of masterpieces that every tourist has heard of. But the overcrowding is felt most acutely by the Louvre, which still receives more visitors (8.7 million last year) than any other museum, yet has some of the worst facilities. We know this because six months ago a memo outlining its problems was leaked to a Paris newspaper. It caused a stir not just because it was addressed to Rachida Dati, France's culture minister, but because it was written by des Cars. She was jaw-droppingly frank. 'Visiting the Louvre is a physical ordeal,' she wrote. 'Visitors have no space to take a break. The food options and restroom facilities are insufficient in volume, falling below international standards. The signage needs to be completely redesigned.' Pei's pyramid, she went on, creates a 'very inhospitable' atmosphere on hot days. Other parts of the old building are 'no longer watertight'. Nobody has revealed who leaked the memo, but it's hard to imagine des Cars being upset by the revelation because within days came a dramatic intervention from on high. President Macron announced a redevelopment project that he called the 'nouvelle renaissance' of the Louvre. It's masterminded by des Cars and every bit as radical a reshaping as François Mitterrand's 'grand projét' of the 1980s, which led to Pei's pyramid. By chance it will run simultaneously with something similar in London: the £1 billion masterplan to renovate the British Museum, a coincidence that hasn't escaped des Cars' notice. 'I talk a lot with Nick Cullinan [the BM's director],' she says. 'He's wonderful, a great professional and he's dealing with exactly the same issues.' The most controversial feature of des Cars' plan is her proposed solution to the problem of that huge rugby scrum around the Mona Lisa. She wants to remove the painting to one of several new underground galleries to be excavated under the Cour Carrée courtyard, where it will get its own entrance requiring punters to buy an additional ticket (the price is yet to be decided). • The secret life of the Louvre: inside the world's biggest museum She also envisages a second entrance to the Louvre on the far side from where the pyramid is. 'The idea of having just one entrance to this enormous museum was a nice idea in the 1980s when the Louvre had just four million visitors a year,' she says. 'But that was before the Berlin Wall fell, before the Chinese started travelling, before international tourism reached the levels we have today. We are going back to what was always the case — several entrances for the Louvre.' At the same time the museum will be given a technical makeover. That will take ten years, des Cars estimates, whereas she suggests that the Mona Lisa gallery and the new entrance will be ready by 2031 or 2032. 'We are running a competition to find an architect and will appoint one early next year,' she says. 'And the Louvre won't close at all. That's the strength of having a very large building. You can rebuild half of it and still function in the other half.' One benefit of all this, des Cars says, is that it will help people to get to different galleries more quickly, introducing more lifts and better signage. 'On the second floor we have the most extraordinary collection of French paintings anywhere in the world and virtually nobody looks at them,' she says. 'You start to think, what's wrong with Poussin? The answer is nothing. The real problem is that to get from the pyramid to Poussin takes 20 to 25 minutes, and that's if you walk quickly and don't get lost. If we can sort out these problems people will discover many new joys.' It comes at a price, though. The ten-year project is expected to cost about £700 million. Unlike the British Museum's masterplan, however, at least half the required funding is already guaranteed. 'The technical renovation will be funded by the Ministry of Culture,' des Cars says. 'As for the new galleries and entrance, our trademark licence deal with the Louvre Abu Dhabi [which des Cars spent six years helping to set up] will give us at least £175 million. The rest we will raise from corporate and private supporters.' Even here, des Cars has an advantage over her British counterparts. 'When you say the word Louvre people all over the world pay attention,' she says. The gallery has one other huge income stream not available to UK museums. It charges for admission and the ticket prices are about to go up — £19 for EU citizens and a hefty £26 for non-EU visitors, including the poor old Brits. Sounds as if we need to rejoin the EU, I say. 'Please do!' des Cars says, beaming. But what does she think of the UK's generous policy of keeping its national museums free to all, even foreigners? 'I am absolutely not allowed to make any judgment on that,' she says with a laugh, and then makes one anyway. 'I mean, it's very admirable but is it sustainable in today's world? That's a political decision. I leave you to have your debate.' • Best time to visit the Louvre: top tips for your trip The daughter and granddaughter of distinguished French writers, des Cars was a respected art historian, writing a classic study of the pre-Raphaelites before she started running big Parisian museums (she was head of the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie before the Louvre). Surely it must break her heart to see thousands of people using great art merely as background for their selfies, disrupting other visitors' enjoyment in the process? Has she considered banning the use of phones, as other art galleries have done? 'I know they are trying but I simply don't know how you do it,' she says. 'We considered it when I was at the Orangerie and the security team said, 'We can't force people not to use phones.' Also I think it's dangerous to go against the times we live in, but you can remind people that they are in a cultural space and need to respect each other, the staff and the artworks.' • Mona Lisa to get her own room in the Louvre And perhaps be a bit more curious about venturing into galleries that don't contain the most famous paintings on the planet? 'We are already making changes to attract people to less-visited parts of the museum,' des Cars says. 'For instance, we could have put our new Louvre Couture [the museum's first venture into fashion] in our exhibitions space, but instead we placed it within the department of decorative arts and now those galleries get a hugely increased number of visitors, especially young people.' As the Louvre's first female director, can she do anything to mitigate the fact that the vast majority of artworks here were created by men? 'You cannot change history but there are other ways of addressing that question. In the spring of 2027 I'm programming an exhibition on the theme of amazons, ancient and modern — from Greek women warriors to powerful women today. It will be a fascinating journey.' And how is this very powerful woman enjoying her own fascinating journey? 'When I was appointed I felt ready to run the Louvre, which sounds immodest,' des Cars replies. 'Maybe I will be a disaster and someone will have to shout, 'Stop!' I don't know.' I would be amazed if anyone did that — or at least not until the mid-2030s, when she has finished remaking the Louvre for the 21st century. Additional research by Ziba Manteghi
Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
The Mona Lisa millions — behind the scenes at the world's busiest museum
A baking summer's afternoon at the Louvre. Milling around the Mona Lisa are maybe 150 people, all with their phones held high above their heads so they can snap that enigmatic smile. Meanwhile, in the vast galleries surrounding Leonardo's masterpiece, an eternal throng of visitors from every corner of the globe trudges wearily on — most, this far into the gallery, seemingly oblivious to the glorious art around them. Paris's great museum has about nine miles of galleries, spread over 403 rooms. You enter it from beneath IM Pei's celebrated glass pyramid, which on a day like this behaves like a giant magnifying glass for the blazing sun. Many visitors probably won't venture more than half a mile into the heart of the museum. But in this huge, former royal palace there is one tranquil room. Far from the madding crowd, Laurence des Cars, 59, the first female director of the Louvre in 228 years, sits in her book-lined office, the picture of the formidable, Sorbonne-educated Parisian intellectual she is. If she is physically distanced from the heaving mass of humanity trudging round her domain, however, her brain is constantly occupied with it. 'One of my first decisions when I became the director in 2021 was to limit our daily admissions to 30,000,' she says. 'You know that, just before Covid, the Louvre was getting ten million visitors a year? When I got here the staff said, 'Please let's not go back to that because some days we were up to 45,000 visitors.' And that figure is too much. Even now we are saturated. The building is suffocating. It's not good for staff, visitors or the art.' Last month the Louvre's staff emphasised their grievances by going on a spontaneous strike (a 'mass expression of exasperation', their union official said), leaving thousands of tourists outside with no idea why they weren't being let in. 'It wasn't a strike,' des Cars says firmly. 'It was a meeting with the unions because of the conditions and especially the heat. I put in place immediate measures to make things better and we reopened that afternoon.' All the world's top museums — from the Vatican in Rome to the British Museum in London — are facing this same problem: huge congestion, especially around the handful of masterpieces that every tourist has heard of. But the overcrowding is felt most acutely by the Louvre, which still receives more visitors (8.7 million last year) than any other museum, yet has some of the worst facilities. We know this because six months ago a memo outlining its problems was leaked to a Paris newspaper. It caused a stir not just because it was addressed to Rachida Dati, France's culture minister, but because it was written by des Cars. She was jaw-droppingly frank. 'Visiting the Louvre is a physical ordeal,' she wrote. 'Visitors have no space to take a break. The food options and restroom facilities are insufficient in volume, falling below international standards. The signage needs to be completely redesigned.' Pei's pyramid, she went on, creates a 'very inhospitable' atmosphere on hot days. Other parts of the old building are 'no longer watertight'. Nobody has revealed who leaked the memo, but it's hard to imagine des Cars being upset by the revelation because within days came a dramatic intervention from on high. President Macron announced a redevelopment project that he called the 'nouvelle renaissance' of the Louvre. It's masterminded by des Cars and every bit as radical a reshaping as François Mitterrand's 'grand projét' of the 1980s, which led to Pei's pyramid. By chance it will run simultaneously with something similar in London: the £1 billion masterplan to renovate the British Museum, a coincidence that hasn't escaped des Cars' notice. 'I talk a lot with Nick Cullinan [the BM's director],' she says. 'He's wonderful, a great professional and he's dealing with exactly the same issues.' The most controversial feature of des Cars' plan is her proposed solution to the problem of that huge rugby scrum around the Mona Lisa. She wants to remove the painting to one of several new underground galleries to be excavated under the Cour Carrée courtyard, where it will get its own entrance requiring punters to buy an additional ticket (the price is yet to be decided). • The secret life of the Louvre: inside the world's biggest museum She also envisages a second entrance to the Louvre on the far side from where the pyramid is. 'The idea of having just one entrance to this enormous museum was a nice idea in the 1980s when the Louvre had just four million visitors a year,' she says. 'But that was before the Berlin Wall fell, before the Chinese started travelling, before international tourism reached the levels we have today. We are going back to what was always the case — several entrances for the Louvre.' At the same time the museum will be given a technical makeover. That will take ten years, des Cars estimates, whereas she suggests that the Mona Lisa gallery and the new entrance will be ready by 2031 or 2032. 'We are running a competition to find an architect and will appoint one early next year,' she says. 'And the Louvre won't close at all. That's the strength of having a very large building. You can rebuild half of it and still function in the other half.' One benefit of all this, des Cars says, is that it will help people to get to different galleries more quickly, introducing more lifts and better signage. 'On the second floor we have the most extraordinary collection of French paintings anywhere in the world and virtually nobody looks at them,' she says. 'You start to think, what's wrong with Poussin? The answer is nothing. The real problem is that to get from the pyramid to Poussin takes 20 to 25 minutes, and that's if you walk quickly and don't get lost. If we can sort out these problems people will discover many new joys.' It comes at a price, though. The ten-year project is expected to cost about £700 million. Unlike the British Museum's masterplan, however, at least half the required funding is already guaranteed. 'The technical renovation will be funded by the Ministry of Culture,' des Cars says. 'As for the new galleries and entrance, our trademark licence deal with the Louvre Abu Dhabi [which des Cars spent six years helping to set up] will give us at least £175 million. The rest we will raise from corporate and private supporters.' Even here, des Cars has an advantage over her British counterparts. 'When you say the word Louvre people all over the world pay attention,' she says. The gallery has one other huge income stream not available to UK museums. It charges for admission and the ticket prices are about to go up — £19 for EU citizens and a hefty £26 for non-EU visitors, including the poor old Brits. Sounds as if we need to rejoin the EU, I say. 'Please do!' des Cars says, beaming. But what does she think of the UK's generous policy of keeping its national museums free to all, even foreigners? 'I am absolutely not allowed to make any judgment on that,' she says with a laugh, and then makes one anyway. 'I mean, it's very admirable but is it sustainable in today's world? That's a political decision. I leave you to have your debate.' • Best time to visit the Louvre: top tips for your trip The daughter and granddaughter of distinguished French writers, des Cars was a respected art historian, writing a classic study of the pre-Raphaelites before she started running big Parisian museums (she was head of the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie before the Louvre). Surely it must break her heart to see thousands of people using great art merely as background for their selfies, disrupting other visitors' enjoyment in the process? Has she considered banning the use of phones, as other art galleries have done? 'I know they are trying but I simply don't know how you do it,' she says. 'We considered it when I was at the Orangerie and the security team said, 'We can't force people not to use phones.' Also I think it's dangerous to go against the times we live in, but you can remind people that they are in a cultural space and need to respect each other, the staff and the artworks.' • Mona Lisa to get her own room in the Louvre And perhaps be a bit more curious about venturing into galleries that don't contain the most famous paintings on the planet? 'We are already making changes to attract people to less-visited parts of the museum,' des Cars says. 'For instance, we could have put our new Louvre Couture [the museum's first venture into fashion] in our exhibitions space, but instead we placed it within the department of decorative arts and now those galleries get a hugely increased number of visitors, especially young people.' As the Louvre's first female director, can she do anything to mitigate the fact that the vast majority of artworks here were created by men? 'You cannot change history but there are other ways of addressing that question. In the spring of 2027 I'm programming an exhibition on the theme of amazons, ancient and modern — from Greek women warriors to powerful women today. It will be a fascinating journey.' And how is this very powerful woman enjoying her own fascinating journey? 'When I was appointed I felt ready to run the Louvre, which sounds immodest,' des Cars replies. 'Maybe I will be a disaster and someone will have to shout, 'Stop!' I don't know.' I would be amazed if anyone did that — or at least not until the mid-2030s, when she has finished remaking the Louvre for the 21st century. Additional research by Ziba Manteghi
Metro
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Banksy's manager reveals the central London building hiding his 'unseen' artwork
A girl holding a balloon, the House of Commons filled with chimpanzees and two police officers kissing. Banky's artworks are famous and adored across the world. But now his former manager and 'right-hand man' has revealed the street artist's pieces which the public know nothing about – including one in the heart of London. Steve Lazarides, who was Banksy's manager from 1997 to 2008, told Metro about an unknown treasure trove of graffiti in the Swiss Embassy. Asked whether there is a Banksy that no one has ever seen, Lazarides said: 'Yes, the Swiss Embassy car park. 'The old Swiss ambassador put on a rave in the car park. He invited Banksyand [graffiti artist] Chu. And they smashed it.' The party was held in 2001 by ambassador Bruno Spinner as part of a bid to shake-up their image. According to Lazarides, the car park – which is between Regent's Park and Hyde Park – houses '10 to 15′ separate Banksy artworks. These includes pictures of Lenin, the Mona Lisa, and monkeys. 'It was all a bit mad,' Lazarides said of the little-known event. That is not the only work by the Bristol artist which has gone unnoticed, with a show in the same year turning out to be a complete flop. Lazarides told Metro: 'We did an exhibition in Glasgow and nobody turned up. 'It show his graffiti and it got badly promoted.' The display at The Arches, which showcased his art alongside artist Jamie Reid, was called 'Peace Is Tough'. Furious at the no shows, Banksy had a daring response in mind. Lazarides explained: 'He went out the next day and he punished Glasgow.' The graffitist and left drawings 'everywhere' across the city. According to an unofficial website chronically Banksy, the exhibition featured images of monkeys firing pistols, a monkey imitating the Queen and more Mona Lisas. Lazarides spoke to Metro as he unveiled his collection of photographs and artwork, many from their time together, to collectors at an event hosted by the Grove Gallery. The pair, who are both from Bristol, met in the 1990s when Banksy was doing a feature for the magazine Sleazenation. Photographer Lazarides then took Banksy's portrait and a few weeks later got the call to photograph another piece by the now famous graffitist. The pair then worked together for a decade as Banksy's fame skyrocketed, with Lazarides snapping everything he did. The photographer has also told Metro about the moment Banksy was seconds away from being arrested and exposed by police, while spraying the word 'boring' onto the side of the National Theatre on the South Bank. Banky's art now sells for millions, but Lazarides said some of his stunts have also faded into oblivion. An example of this is actually one of his most audacious spectacles yet. In 2004, Banksy secretly planted a 20-foot statue in the middle of Clerkenwell Green in central London. The statue depicted the figure of justice as a prostitute with leather boots and a thong The work, called 'Our Lady of Justice' had a plinth which read: 'Trust no-one'. The photographer said despite the success of the event, it faded out of public memory. He explained: 'It was well attended, there were thousands of people. 'But then it just went away. No one ever really talks about it. It never caught people's imagination. More Trending 'But I thought it was one of his best things.' The secretive artist has called commercial success 'a mark of failure' and encouraged people not to buy his work. But with an estimated net worth of more than £15 million, according to MailOnline, Banksy must make his bucks somehow. And it's not from selling his most famous artworks found on outside walls. When those are up for auction, it's usually landlords and art dealers who take the profits. The artist's piece Love is in the Bin – which consists of his painting Girl with Balloon partially shredded – sold for £18.5 million at auction in 2021. Banksy instead makes money from selling prints of his iconic pieces, rather than the originals themselves. These range from unsigned, unnumbered pieces costing £400 to £800, to £40,000 or even £130,000 limited runs, according to Bristol-based artdealer Huw Lougher, industry publication Artspace reported. Celebrities like Christine Aguilera, Kate Moss and Bono have bought Banksypieces over the years. Just five years later, Jolie spent another £200,000 on a Banksy piece at his exhibition in Los Angeles, the Evening Standard reported. Such exhibitions, which have taken place from LA to London, are another key source of Banksy's income. Huge crowds flocked to his hometown for the Banksy v Bristol Museum show in 2009. Banksy's most recent artwork got far more attention. It featured a mural of a lighthouse shining with the words, 'I want to be what you saw in me' printed on it. Last summer, London went wild when Banksy unveiled nine animal-inspired works across the capital. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Coward who murdered ex's 'gentle' dad in 'revenge' for break-up jailed for life MORE: 5 areas within commuting distance of London with prices under £400,000 MORE: Experts warn London to Berlin trains 'might not happen'
The Star
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
Malaysian all-boys group Alpha continues to impress as it goes retro with new hit "P. Ramlee & Saloma"
After creating an incredible wave with their debut single "Mona Lisa (Bang Bang)", all-boy group Alpha continues to expand their discography with their second single titled "P. Ramlee & Saloma". Published under Rocketfuel Entertainment, this song is the result of a solid collaboration between talented composers Justin Seow, Mohsein Kush & RFE. Alpha is a Malaysian all-boys music group that was formed through the Big Stage Alpha program on Astro. The group consists of seven members: Izat, Rizal, Ray-D, Ariel, Daniel, Sky, and Araff. They officially debuted after competing on Big Stage Alpha, a programme that aims to develop new musical talents. They proved they have they have the talent to impress with their debut single "Mona Lisa" and now they are further impressing the masses with their second single "P. Ramlee & Saloma". The single is also the OST for the drama series "Thariq Ridzuwan: His Treasure". The song is not just a second introduction to Alpha's music, but rather an artistic manifesto that introduces their identity as a group that dares to challenge the norm and come up with a unique sound. About the group: Alpha - A new mission, a new era of music in South-East Asia Alpha is not just a name — it carries a deep meaning. 'Alpha' symbolises the beginning, the leader and the main force. In this context, Alpha is a combination of seven different characters who come together to lead a new era of South-East Asian music. Coming from different backgrounds, they are united by one dream and one mission — to elevate regional talent to the international stage through fresh, bold and high-quality music. Single debut 'Mona Lisa (Bang Bang)' - an international and global offering To mark their official debut in the industry, Alpha presented their introduction single titled 'Mona Lisa (Bang Bang)', a modern pop song with an injection of K-pop elements that is energetic, catchy and full of attitude. Created by Justin Seow, Kuizz, James Chaw, Sean Lew, Roland Lim Shi Jie, Tyler Sarfert and Prem Anand, the music video for 'Mona Lisa (Bang Bang)', which was released on July 6 also received a warm reception, with 250 thousand views on Youtube. The new boys of top local producer, Rocketfuel Top local producer Rocketfuel, who ha stop stars Hael Husaini and Nadeera Zaini, continues to explore the potential of regional talent. The launch of ALPHA is part of Rocketfuel Entertainment's ongoing initiative to elevate local and regional talent to the next level. 'We at Rocketfuel believe that South-East Asian talent should be showcased in its own mould, and Alpha is living proof that with the right guidance and platform, we can produce stars of international stature,' commented Rocketfuel Entertainment Head, Sher Leen Wee. Available on all digital platforms The single 'P. Ramlee & Saloma' is now available on all major digital streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and more. The song will also be accompanied by an official music video (MV) which can be watched on the @RocketFuelNetwork YouTube channel soon.
