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Spectator
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Beguiling grot, TfL surrealism and Insta-art: contemporary art roundup
Last month, I got the train down to Margate to interview the Egyptian-Armenian artist Anna Boghiguian (b. 1946), whose exhibition The Sunken Boat: A glimpse into past histories was about to open at the Turner Contemporary. Long story short, the conversation did not go well: Anna reacted to my questions with some irritation, swatting them away like low-flying bluebottles. I got flustered, she got bored, and eventually so did I. We wrapped things up around the 20-minute mark and I ran away to stare into the abyss. It was a shame, because the show was, for the most part, really good. A political scientist by training, Boghiguian makes installation art that examines how the complex historical, social and political forces that shaped the modern world came into being, often taking an unorthodox point of reference as a means to work her way into the twisty narratives she spins out across her gallery-filling set pieces. There are three such here, the best of which, 'The Salt Traders' (2015), is the first thing we see. For this, Boghiguian decided to look at the history of commerce and empire through the prism of salt, a commodity once so valuable that it gave us the word 'salary'. The aesthetic is resolutely DIY and grungy as hell. The floor is covered with bags' worth of sea salt, and a good third of the space filled with a wooden structure posing as a Roman shipwreck, its sail bearing the image of a map displaying historical trade routes. There are grease-stained swathes of fabric, grimy sheets of paper onto which Boghiguian has scrawled notes on medieval economics, colonialism and god knows what else; there are also 30 worn-out beehives. Everything looks as though it's spent a decade at the bottom of a used ashtray, and that grottiness works on a visceral level. I'm still a bit annoyed, but my verdict is thus: she's 79, and she can probably do what she wants. Back in London, I heard Ugo Rondinone (b. 1964) had an exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ in Soho. The Swiss-born artist is a blue-chip favourite and a prime peddler of photo-friendly spectacle. He works across a bewildering range of media, sometimes falling back on a handful of visual signatures – cutesy sculptures that look like the Easter Island heads as imagined by Pixar; monumental Day-Glo land art – sometimes not. The only thing that really unites his diverse body of work is a slightly winsome quality, and the fact that every time I see his art, I come away feeling that something's missing: call it substance, call it ballast – hell, call it 'soul' if you like; I don't detect it. This show is probably Rondinone's most Instagram-friendly yet: the entire gallery is decked out in violently bright rainbow colours from floor to ceiling, the space interspersed with life-sized polychrome sculptures of ballet dancers in repose or mid-move. It is, in the literal sense, spectacular: the assault on the eyes will leave them adjusting to the real world long, long after you've left, and when I visited, the place was full of tourists taking selfies from every conceivable angle. Still, it left me cold. If the aspiration here is to create a kind of visual poetry, the effect is rather like watching an artist perform an after-dinner magic trick to the thunderous applause of a chalet full of oligarchs. Or worse still: like 'accessible' art as imagined by some terrifying, AI-generated curator of the future. This got me down, but not half as much as what I had in store: a 25-hour visit to Paris in order to end my marriage. I had planned to get blind drunk afterwards but was instead directed to visit Mark Leckey's exhibition at Lafayette Anticipations. If you're not familiar: Leckey (b. 1964) is a ferociously intelligent autodidact who mines the margins of pop culture without slipping into Banksy-like inanity or pseudo-academic overthinking. Instead, his films and installations blend everything down into a murky purée of sound, vision and atmosphere. That last word is key here. For starters, the whole, massive space is lit like a motorway underpass at 3 a.m. on a December morning, as muffled rave basslines and booming, slowed-down voices seemingly emanate from the bowels of the building. For a moment it feels like the worst psychedelic drug experience in history, but your senses adjust and you're suddenly on a planet where Transport for London's ubiquitous road-safety posters carry strange symbolist poetry and slogans; where a map of the artist's local park comes labelled with visionary symbols; where, in one film, shiny pink CGI-generated toys invade a hallucinatory version of Margate. Leckey is an artist so English that it's a wonder the famously Anglo-averse Paris art world ever let him in. For my sake, thank god they did.
Reuters
18-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Breakingviews - Scott Bessent debt plan has awkward historic echo
LONDON, July 17 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Outside the U.S. Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C. stands an imperious-looking statue honouring the institution's longest-serving secretary. Albert Gallatin was the Swiss-born founding father who engineered the financing of the 1803 purchase of Louisiana via an innovative international bond issue, opens new tab. That famous fiscal coup more than doubled the newly independent nation's territory and established its sovereign credit for the next century. Not for nothing does the monument bear the inscription: 'Genius of Finance'. Scott Bessent, the current occupant of Gallatin's office, faces a task considerably bigger than his illustrious predecessor's. Buying Louisiana cost $15 million, equivalent, opens new tab to around $16 billion today. By contrast, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, opens new tab the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) recently passed by Congress will increase the federal government's financing needs by $3.4 trillion over the next decade. Bessent's attempt to square the fiscal circle is reminiscent of an altogether more controversial pioneer of public finance: the 18th-century Scottish economist and speculator John Law, author of the world's first inflationary financial crash. The political stakes are high. In stark contrast to the CBO's pessimistic assessment, the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) expects, opens new tab the president's flagship economic bill to shrink future budget shortfalls by $5.5 trillion. The CBO sees the U.S.'s debt to GDP ballooning to nearly 130%, while the CEA has it shrinking to a relatively frugal 94%. If Bessent manages to realise the administration's vision, he will also have earned a statue on Pennsylvania Avenue. Over the past six months, the outlines of a four-part plan have emerged. The first part is Trump's sweeping tariffs on imports. Economists used to the U.S. championing global free trade were understandably shocked when the president unveiled the levies in April. Yet from a fiscal perspective they are beginning to work. According to, opens new tab Treasury data, customs duties brought in $64 billion in the second quarter of 2025 – nearly $50 billion more than the same period last year – with almost half of that coming in June alone. Over the longer term, trade diversion and re-shoring of manufacturing will doubtless crimp those proceeds. Nevertheless, the bounty lends credence to Bessent's prediction that tariff revenue will top $300 billion in 2025, and to the CEA's prediction that the levies will bring in $2.8 trillion over the next decade. Part two is even simpler: bet on economic growth. The CBO's baseline budget projections assume U.S. GDP will expand by less than 2% a year. The White House thinks that's a desultory underestimate. The CEA points to the artificial intelligence investment boom, rampant growth of private credit, a promised surge of deregulation, and the dynamic effects of the tax cuts and investment incentives embedded in the OBBBA. It predicts these factors will leave the U.S. economy significantly larger a decade from now than the CBO predicts. The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget accuses, opens new tab the White House of 'fantasy growth assumptions'. Bessent is not deterred. After all, stronger growth narrows the financing gap by $4.7 trillion. Part three is to force down interest rates and reduce the cost of servicing the public debt. Interest costs are now the U.S. government's second largest expenditure category, running at nearly $1 trillion a year. For months, Trump has assailed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for what he claims is excessive hawkishness, dubbing him 'Mr. Too Late', a 'major loser', and a 'stubborn mule', and probed replacing Powell before his term expires next May. The president believes the central bank should drop its policy rate to 1%. Undermining the Fed's inflation-fighting credentials would risk higher longer-term borrowing costs as investors demand a premium to hold U.S. debt. Bessent has a plan to head that off by reducing the Supplementary Leverage Ratio (SLR), which limits the size of U.S. banks' balance sheets relative to their equity capital. Relaxing this rule will enable large lenders to hold more Treasury bonds, offsetting selling by other investors. The Fed is considering the proposal. These measures inch Bessent closer to meeting the White House's fiscal expectations, but won't get him all the way. That's where the fourth and most exotic part of the plan comes in: the promotion of U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins. The GENIUS Act currently passing through Congress would open the floodgates for cryptocurrencies backed by dollar-denominated assets. A surge in stablecoins and a corresponding boost in demand for U.S. Treasury debt, Bessent believes, opens new tab, 'could lower government borrowing costs and help rein in the national debt'. If the tokens catch on with overseas users the resulting extraterritorial seigniorage will also afford Uncle Sam a new way of monetising the greenback's exorbitant privilege, opens new tab. Citi analysts expect, opens new tab the stablecoin market to balloon to $3.7 trillion by 2030, from about $250 billion today. Gallatin would recognise the first two parts of Bessent's plan - the exceptional potential of the American economy and the bumper customs revenues it brings. But pressuring financial institutions to hold U.S. government debt and championing monetary innovation go well beyond anything the financial guru ever dreamt of. They are, however, eerily reminiscent of the infamous 'System' of John Law. In 1715, the Regent of France invited the Scottish professional gambler to cure the stricken superpower of its debt-ridden malaise. Over the next four years he implemented a visionary economic strategy the like of which the world had never seen before, nor has seen since – until now. The lynchpin of Law's scheme was lockstep monetary and fiscal coordination. He founded France's first public bank and introduced a revolutionary innovation – paper money. Then he reformed the tax system and radically restructured the public debt, convincing investors to hold his novel banknotes instead. The result was that the cost of borrowing plummeted to a previously unheard-of 2%. For a brief moment in early 1720, it seemed France's problems had been solved. Unfortunately it all unravelled in an epic inflationary boom and bust. Subordinating monetary to fiscal policy while simultaneously reinventing the means of payment itself proved an unstable combination. Law was driven out of France in ignominy and retired back to the casino in Venice. No statue commemorates his genius – just a plain paving stone in a local church, opens new tab. Is Bessent a 21st-century Gallatin or the reincarnation of John Law? As the Scotsman himself might have put it: 'mesdames et messieurs – faites vos jeux'. Follow @felixmwmartin, opens new tab on X
New York Times
02-07-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Players' union boss says Sheffield Wednesday players could terminate contracts over missed payments
Professional Footballers' Association CEO Maheta Molango has confirmed that the players' union believes many of Sheffield Wednesday's senior players could terminate their contracts following the Championship club's 'serious and/or persistent' failure to pay wages on time. The four-time English champions were meant to pay June's wages on Monday but club owner Dejphon Chansiri decided to pay only the club's under-21 players, as they have the highest value in the transfer market, and a portion of the salaries owed to non-playing staff. Advertisement The Thai businessman has also paid manager Danny Rohl in full, which means Wednesday would get some financial compensation if a rival club came in for the German. Almost everyone else, though, appears to be free to leave. Under FIFA's global rules, players can terminate their contracts if they are paid late for two consecutive months, although they must give 15 days' notice in writing, during which time the clubs can rectify the situation by paying the players what they are owed. Molango, however, clarified that Wednesday's players are probably able to terminate their contracts now under the terms of the standard players' contract used in English football. 'The standard contract foresees certain situations where you would be able to terminate your contract. This is when there is a serious and/or persistent breach. This is what we will be looking at,' he said. 'Unfortunately, Sheffield Wednesday have a pattern of late payments – I think it's the third time in four months. 'We've been in touch with the players. Our role is not to tell them what they need to do, (it is) to give them the tools and say, 'this is what you could do if those criteria are met'. 'Then it is for them to assess what they want to do. I wouldn't take it for granted that just because certain criteria are met, automatically someone just terminates their contract. There are other considerations. 'It's not an easy situation, as you can imagine, because ultimately, you know, people need to be paid.' Ironically, Molango was speaking to reporters at the PFA's pre-season camp for out-of-contract players at a spa hotel near Leicester. 'For me, it's a bit shocking because normally this is stuff you see in other countries I have played in, but not in England,' added the Swiss-born Italian, who enjoyed stints with clubs in England, Germany and Spain. Advertisement 'So, we really want to be strong on that. This is something that we will not tolerate and we will be very much on top of it. It's not a good situation but we hope that somehow there could be a positive resolution to it.' The EFL has already given Wednesday a three-window transfer ban for late payments to players, staff and HMRC, and has charged Chansiri for the late salary payments in March and May. The club has appealed against these sanctions. In the meantime, the South Yorkshire side are up for sale but currently have nowhere to train, as a new pitch at their training ground is not ready to use, and no pre-season fixtures have been arranged. (Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images)
Time of India
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Who is Claudio Castagnoli? John Cena mentions AEW star in fiery promo on SmackDown
John Cena turned heads on SmackDown this week with his fiery promo that had the internet talking. While he was speaking, Cena randomly name-dropped a few familiar stars, and one of them was Claudio Castagnoli. That one mention had fans asking, where is he now, and who exactly is Claudio Castagnogli? WWE fans may remember him by another name, Cesaro. The former United States Champion was known for his insane strength, uppercuts, and powerful in-ring skills. But since leaving WWE in 2022, Claudio has taken a different path to his wrestling career. Where is Claudio Castagnoli/Cesaro now? After leaving WWE, Claudio Castagnogli or Cesaro joined All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in June 2022. He made his debut at the Forbidden Door event and quickly became a big part of AEW's roster. He joined the Blackpool Combat Club (now named Death Riders), a group that includes top names like Jon Moxley and Marina Shafir. Protect the asset. Weaken the enemy. He also won the ROH World Championship and defended it in many tough matches. Besides AEW, Claudio has appeared in the former's partner company, New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), showing that he's not tied to one company and is open to wrestling anywhere. At 44, Claudio still looks in top shape and is putting on great matches. He hasn't gone quiet since WWE, but just found a new stage to shine on. Know about the former WWE and current AEW star Claudio Castagnogli Born in Switzerland in 1980, Claudio Castagnoli started his career in Europe around 2000. He first gained fame alongside Chris Hero as part of the "Kings of Wrestling," stacking up tag titles across Ring of Honor, Chikara, and other independent promotions. His dominance continued with dozens of championships and standout matches. Claudio Castagnogli's WWE Run as 'Cesaro' Castagnoli joined WWE in 2012 under the name Cesaro. His strength and technical skill quickly made him a crowd favorite. He became the first Swiss-born star to hold a title in the WWE, winning the US Championship, Raw and SmackDown tag belts multiple times, and even the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. The reaction when I have a sip of Claudio's Cafehttps:// John Cena's surprise shout-out sparks interest During SmackDown, Cena delivered a promo many are calling his 'pipe bomb' moment. In the middle of it, he casually said: 'Hey Claudio Castagnoli! Hey Nic Nemeth! Hey Matt Cardona! How you guys doin'?' That short line made fans sit up. It's rare for WWE stars to mention AEW wrestlers on air. And the fact that Cena remembered Claudio Castagnogli by his real name made things more exciting. John Cena's full pipebomb segment. John Cena and Claudio Castagnogli had several great matches in WWE, especially during Cena's open challenge days. Their chemistry in the ring made those matches stand out. So, this reference may have been a personal nod or maybe something more. Could Cesaro/Claudio Castagnogli return to WWE? Right now, there's no official talk about Claudio returning to WWE. He's doing well in AEW and NJPW. But John Cena's name-drop has opened the door for speculation. Some fans now believe we might see Cesaro again in a WWE ring someday.
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Brad Pitt and Ines de Ramon: A Complete Relationship Timeline
METROPOLIS/Bauer-Griffin Since splitting from Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt has only gone red-carpet official with one woman: the mysterious Ines de Ramon, a Swiss-born jewelry exec who was previously married to Vampire Diaries star Paul Wesley. Not much is known about their relationship, though they've been pictured together a number of times over the years. Here's everything we know about the couple, starting with the most recent updates up top: June: Pitt and de Ramon step out for a double date with Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid in New York, per E! September: The hard launch. They hit a Venice red carpet together with George and Amal Clooney on the first of the month, then step out in NYC on September 8, 9, and 10. August: 'Brad's been working in Europe, so they've spent a lot of time there,' a source reveals to People ahead of their impending publicity tour. 'He's serious about Ines.… He's very happy and enjoys spending time with her. She's easygoing and everyone likes her.' July: Ines de Ramon is Brad Pitt's date for the British Grand Prix in Northampton, their first official outing as a couple. Pitt was filming F1 at the time, and GQ later asked if this was intentional or a coincidence. 'No, dude, it's not that calculated,' Brad said, adding, 'If you're living, oh my God, how exhausting would that be? If you're living with making those kinds of calculations? No, life just evolves. Relationships evolve.' February: She moves in. They go to the Santa Barbara Film Festival. December: Pitt turns 60 and celebrates with a 'low key' party, which, of course, de Ramon attends. (How old is Ines? Well, in 2025, either 35 or 32, depending whom you ask.) New Year's Eve: They ring in the new year together in Mexico. It's not serious, but it is exclusive. 'They are dating and having fun,' a source tells People. 'They have a good thing going on. There is no stress. Brad is enjoying it [and] is not seeing anyone else right now.' November: The pair are first linked attending a Bono concert, alongside Cindy Crawford and her husband, Rande Gerber. At the time, a source tells People that Brad Pitt and Ines de Ramon have been dating for 'a few months.' This is also the month she announces her split from Wesley. This post will be updated. Originally Appeared on Glamour
