Latest news with #TheArtNewspaper
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
An Ancient Rock Art Site Is Under Threat as Australia Extends the Life of a Gas Plant
The Australian government recently extended the life of a liquified natural gas project near a 50,000-year-old rock art site in a remote area of the country, prompting an archaeologist to raise alarms about additional environmental damage. On May 28, Australia's Environment Minister Murray Watt conditionally approved a request by Woodside Energy to extend the life of its North West Shelf gas plant for four more decades until 2070. The conditional approval followed a six-year review 'dogged by delays, appeals and backlash from green groups,' according to Reuters, and the project's existing approval was set to expire in 2030. More from Robb Report Heaven Hill Just Added a New Bourbon to Its Unicorn Old Fitzgerald Whiskey Brand Some of America's Top Chefs Will Be Cooking at This Year's Citymeals on Wheels' Tasting Event McLaren's New Supercar Is an Ode to Its Historic 1995 Win at Le Mans The North West shelf gas plant is located on the Burrup Peninsula (also called Murujuga), an area on the remote Western coast of the country where an estimated one million petroglyphs are also located. University of Western Australia archaeology professor Benjamin Smith noted the site's images includes the world's first depictions of human faces and Murujula is unique for how many items of ancient rock art are located in one place. 'Just to put it in context, the oldest rock art in Europe is some 34,000 years old,' he told The Art Newspaper, noting that pollutants from the plant extension will put all of the petroglyphs at 'grave risk'. Reuters also reported that Watt said the approval of project extension was subject to strict conditions, 'particularly relating to the impact of air emissions levels', and the impact of emissions on the Murujuga rock art was considered as part of the government's assessment process. 'I have ensured that adequate protection for the rock art is central to my proposed decision,' Watt said. Woodside Energy was given 10 days by Watt to respond to confidential conditions on air quality and cultural heritage management before the environmental minister would make his final decision on the requested extension for the project. Smith told The Art Newspaper that until those conditions are known, the archaeology professor will 'keep up the pressure' on the newly re-elected Labor government of Anthony Albanese. 'As a scientist, I'd like to see those conditions be strict; we need to ensure that the operations don't continue to damage the rock art,' Smith told The Art Newspaper. 'The first time we'll see those conditions is when they're made public and by that point it's too late (to change them).' In 2023, ecological concerns about the North West Shelf gas project on the Murujuga rock art prompted one activist to spray paint Woodside's logo onto an artwork on display at the Art Museum of Western Australia in Perth. Joana Veronika Partyka pled guilty to criminally damaging the painting by Frederick McCubbin, but then fought a charge of counter-terrorism after claiming her personal belongings were raided by authorities after she had declined to give access to her electronic devices. She had pled not guilty to failing to adhere to an order to allow access to her data. Best of Robb Report The 10 Priciest Neighborhoods in America (And How They Got to Be That Way) In Pictures: Most Expensive Properties Click here to read the full article.
Business Insider
13-05-2025
- Business Insider
Egypt trounces infamous trafficking network to recover 25 rare antiquities
Egypt is set to reclaim 25 stolen rare antiques following a three-year recovery campaign involving the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Egypt's consulate in New York, and US law enforcement authorities. Egypt recovered 25 rare antiques as part of a three-year campaign involving international law enforcement. These artifacts, spanning millennia, include items such as a gilt wooden coffin, Greco-Roman corpse image, and Ptolemaic gold coin. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has returned over $6.5 million worth of goods to Egypt since 2022. These artifacts, which span millennia of Egyptian civilization, were delivered to Egyptian officials in New York in early May 2024. Earlier in the month, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg stated that eleven antiques altogether valued at $1.4 million had been restituted to Egyptian officials. The Manhattan DA's office has returned 27 goods totaling over $6.5 million to the Egyptian government since 2022. Currently, among the 25 objects recovered is a gilt wooden coffin from around 332-275 BCE. After changing hands several times, it was taken from Manhattan's Merrin Gallery in 2023. The collection also contains a Greco-Roman corpse image from Fayoum, temple remnants thought to be associated to Queen Hatshepsut, miniature ivory and stone sculptures, a granite foot piece from the Ramessid dynasty, and finely carved jewelry reaching back nearly 2,400 years. The collection also includes elaborately created jewelry from roughly 2,400 years ago, a granite foot part from the Ramessid dynasty, Egypt's zenith of power, and miniature ivory and stone sculptures. In addition, a unique gold coin going back more than two millennia to the time of Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great's generals and the founder of ancient Egypt's final royal dynasty, is set to be returned. Recent loss of Egyptian artifacts Amid the chaos of the 2011 revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, several cultural assets vanished. Thousands of priceless artifacts were taken during the widespread looting of museums and archeological sites, and many eventually turned up in private collections or on the international black market. Some of Egypt's stolen artifcats as earlier reported by The Art Newspaper, were part of a bigger investigation into the Dib-Simonian trafficking network, which includes high-profile persons like as former Musée du Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez. The network enabled the sale of plundered cultural treasures to organizations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The ring's leader, Serop Simonian, was arrested in Germany and will be transferred to France in 2023. 'Egypt has an incredibly rich cultural history that we will not allow to be diminished by selfish looters and traffickers.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Koyo Kouoh, history-making curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale, has died, age 57
Editor's Note: This article was originally published by The Art Newspaper, an editorial partner of CNN Style. The curator Koyo Kouoh, a giant of the contemporary art world who tirelessly championed African artists and became the first woman from the continent to curate the Venice Biennale, died on Saturday, age 57. Her death, in a hospital in Basel, Switzerland, was announced in a statement by the Biennale. While the official cause was not disclosed, her husband, Philippe Mall, said she had died of cancer following a recent diagnosis, according to The New York Times. Kouoh had been appointed in December to curate the next edition of the Biennale, the world's most prestigious international art exhibition. In its statement, the organization said: 'Koyo Kouoh worked with passion, intellectual rigour and vision on the conception and development of the Biennale Arte 2026. The presentation of the exhibition's title and theme was due to take place in Venice on May 20.' It added: 'Her passing leaves an immense void in the world of contemporary art and in the international community of artists, curators and scholars who had the privilege of knowing and admiring her extraordinary human and intellectual commitment.' Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, said in a statement: 'I express my deep condolences for the untimely and sudden death of Koyo Kouoh.' Asked how her death might affect the next Biennale, a spokesperson told The Art Newspaper: 'We'll know on May 20.' The spokesperson clarified that the conference was still scheduled to take place on that date. The Biennale is scheduled to run from May 9 to November 22, 2026. The organization had cast Kouoh's appointment as reinforcing its cutting-edge reputation. In December, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the Biennale's president, praised her 'refined, young, and disruptive intelligence' in a press statement. In the same announcement, Kouoh called her appointment a 'once-in-a-lifetime honor and privilege,' describing the Biennale as 'the center of gravity for art for over a century.' She expressed hope that her exhibition would 'carry meaning for the world we currently live in — and most importantly, for the world we want to make.' Kouoh was born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1967, and moved to Switzerland at 13. After studying administration and banking, she worked as a social worker assisting migrant women before immersing herself in the art world and returning to Africa in 1996. In Dakar, Senegal, she founded RAW Material Company, an independent art center. In 2016, she joined the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, serving as curator and executive director. There, she became a leading advocate for Black artists from Africa and beyond, curating, among other projects, a major retrospective of the South African artist Tracey Rose in 2022. Beyond Africa, she won acclaim for exhibitions such as 'Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the Works of Six African Women Artists,' which opened at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels in 2015, and 'Still (the) Barbarians' at the 2016 Ireland Biennial in Limerick, which explored Ireland's postcolonial condition in the context of the 1916 Easter Rising centenary. 'Kouoh did not leave a title for the Biennale, but she did leave a grammar: the urgency to rewrite the rules of the curatorial game,' wrote Artuu, an Italian art magazine, in its obituary. 'Koyo Kouoh's theoretical legacy… does not propose new aesthetic models to frame, but undermines the very foundations of cultural hierarchy. It does not offer easy solutions, but asks uncomfortable questions: Who decides what is 'art'? Who has the right to tell? What is left to say when language itself has been historically colonized?' Read more stories from The Art Newspaper here.
Time of India
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
The lab-grown brain of a late music composer creates music after his death
In recent years, the boundaries between life, technology, and creativity have been blurred due to advancements in Artificial Intelligence. What was limited to just doing predictable tasks, now writes poetry, composes music, and does human conversation with uncanny precision. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now As machines learn to 'think,' humanity finds itself grappling with some questions worth a deep thought, where does creativity truly originate? Can machines imagine like humans do or are they simply copying what they've been fed? AI has been used to revive voices from the past, by using the digital simulations of deceased artists, actors, and musicians, and these trials have raised ethical side effects about identity and the permanence of creative legacy, along with a major impact it can have on mental health. But what happens when it's not AI, but science that projects an artist beyond death? Can an artist's creative spirit continue to exist after death? This is a philosophical and scientific question at the heart of Revivification, a bold yet hauntingly beautiful project that fuses art, neuroscience, and bioengineering. Created by Australian artists Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson, and Matt Gingold, along with neuroscientist Stuart Hodgetts of the University of Western Australia (UWA), The project Revivification invites people to witness a mini-brain composing music in real time. What does this project involve? The project centers around an incubator housing a lab-grown 'in-vitro brain,' or cerebral organoid. This organoid was created using blood donated by legendary composer Alvin Lucier shortly before his death in 2021. According to the team, 'Revivification was created with his full knowledge and consent; his donation of biological material was a conscious choice to participate in this posthumous collaboration.' Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The signals from Lucier's mini-brain are transmitted through 20 curved brass plates surrounding the space, producing sound via transducers and actuators. The installation does not aim to replicate Lucier's past compositions but to explore the lingering potential of his biological creativity. 'What we've created isn't preservation or simulation,' the team told The Art Newspaper, 'but a form of 'postmortem play' where Lucier's biological material creates in unpredictable ways.' The project was made possible through the now-closed SymbioticA lab at UWA and Harvard Medical School, where Lucier's blood was reprogrammed into stem cells and developed into the brain-like organoid. The team said the work was developed in close partnership with Lucier himself. 'Despite his frailty at 89, his revolutionary spirit remained powerful. We established a relationship that went beyond the professional realm, exploring potential artistic projects together,' they explained. 'At a time when generative AI is calling into question human agency, this project explores the challenges of locating creativity and artistic originality,' the team said. 'Perhaps its value cannot be judged by scientific protocols, yet it remains something that we as humans should place great value in.' They continued, 'Revivification is an attempt to shine light on the sometimes dark possibilities of extending a person's presence beyond the seemed finality of death.'
Irish Daily Star
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Daily Star
Donald Trump's 'major blunder' as he pays respect at funeral of Pope Francis
World leaders have gathered in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis , but some people have spotted an issue with President Donald Trump . Mourners said he made a "disrespectful blunder" during the service. Many prominent figures attended the Vatican's St Peter's Square on Saturday morning, including Prince William, Joe Biden , Britain's Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. The event comes at a fragile time, as Trump is reported to have met with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky this morning (Saturday), according to Zelensky's spokesman. A lot of eyes were on Trump as he paid respects to Pope Francis. Read More Related Articles Trump struggles to hide mystery bruise with makeup despite 'excellent health' claims Read More Related Articles Melania's passive-aggressive two-word response to Trump as they land in Italy for Pope's funeral As he approached the coffin, with his wife Melania by his side, people spotted what they thought looked like a major blunder. Attendees were able to approach the late Pope's coffin for a moment of prayer and reflection. US President Donald Trump (C) and First Lady Melania Trump (C/R) stand alongside leaders including France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Finland's President Alexander Stubb (3rdL) (Image: AFP via Getty Images) One person wrote on X: "Trump and Melania - the only two stepping over the rug where Pope Francis coffin sits when paying respect, jeeeezzz!" Another added: "OK, so I'm not the only person who noticed Trump and Melania stepping on the rug. I'm sure they were given instructions to stay off the rug. But, nooooo!" Other attendees, such as Prince William and Prime Minister Keir Starmer were seen remaining a distance away from the rug. According to The Art Newspaper , attendees should not step on the carpet beneath the coffin. This is because the carpet symbolizes holy ground, and marks a sanctified space. It is used to separate the pontiff from other people, and the tradition is said to also be shown in paintings of the period where carpets are used to symbolize a sacred space. Some social media users also weren't happy with the President's decision to wear blue. One wrote: "Trump stands out like a sore thumb in a blue suit. Should have worn black." Another said: "How disrespectful, Trump is at the Pope's funeral wearing a blue suit and he looks completely out of place." Meanwhile, Trump supporters have been praising the President, with one writing: "God Bless President Trump." One more replied: "All leaders are welcome at a Pope's funeral." US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump in the front row at the funeral of Pope Francis (Image: AFP via Getty Images) It's estimated around 200,000 people flocked to St Peter's Square in attempt to get a glimpse of Francis' wooden coffin. He will be burried in the Basilica of St Mary Major. The funeral saw some 220 cardinals, 750 bishops and priests in attendance, as well as over 4,000 other priests in the square. The service was led by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. On Monday, it was announced the 88-year-old Pontiff had died from a stroke. The funeral comes after several days of mourning for the Argentinian who is celebrated for speaking up for the downtrodden. Friday night saw the Pope's coffin sealed in a private Vatican ceremony following three days of public viewings. It's thought around 250,000 people went to see Pope Francis lying-in-state.
