Tensions ran high at three major museums last week as activists took to creatively campaigning against oil-sponsorship of the arts and cultural institutions.
Security staff at the BP-sponsored British Museum confiscated bow-ties, wigs, waistcoats, flyers and cardboard signs from forty performers from campaign group BP or not BP before they staged a “rigged gameshow” called “Who Wants to Pay a Billionaire?”. Continue reading
Once again UK artist Damien Hirst has found himself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The bad-boy of British art has been accused of plagiarising an ancient Nigerian brass artwork in his show at the Venice Biennale. “Golden Heads (Female)” features in Hirst’s exhibit “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable”, which is on display at the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana museums during the Biennale.
Nigerian visual artist Victor Ehikhamenor says Hirst’s piece copies a classical African artwork found in 1938 in Ife, Nigeria without properly crediting the original Ife craftsmen. “He just made an imitation of this art”, Ehikhamenor said in an interview. “I really found that it was dishonest that something like that is going on”. Continue reading
A UK-based photo agency has filed a lawsuit against Khloe Kardashian for posting a picture of herself on her Instagram account.
The complaint brought by Xposure Photos Ltd in the Central District of California at the end of April 2017 relates to an image captured by photographer Manual Munoz and licensed to The Daily Mail newspaper. Kardashian is alleged to have shared the photo of her and sister Kourtney dining at a Miami restaurant on Instagram on 14 September 2016 after editing out the copyright management information.
Xposure claims that by sharing the image with her nearly 67 million Instagram account followers the reality-TV star undercut the agency’s potential profits from its licensing agreement with The Daily Mail and the sale of the photograph elsewhere. Continue reading
Street art depicting a workman chiselling away at the European Union flag has been confirmed as the work of enigmatic graffiti artist Banksy.
The three-story mural appeared on Sunday morning (7 May) on a building beside the A20 near Dover’s ferry terminal. It depicts a monochromatic worker atop a ladder, which leans against an enormous EU flag. As he hammers away at one of the flag’s 12 stars hairline cracks begin to appear across the flag’s surface. Continue reading
A Turner prize-nominated artist whose creations have included fragments of a garden shed blown up by the British Army has been selected as the official artist for the 2017 election.
Sculptor and Royal Academician Cornelia Parker is the first female election artist to be chosen by the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art. She will receive a £17,000 commission fee plus travel expenses to enable her to observe the electoral campaign leading up to the vote on 8 June 2017 and produce a work of art about it. Continue reading
A painting by Camille Pissarro looted by the Nazis from a French bank vault during the Second World War returned to France on 20 April after a decades-long battle for its restitution. Continue reading
The finalists in the competition for the world’s biggest museum prize were announced on Thursday (27 April).
Five contenders are vying for the Art Fund’s UK Museum of the Year, which awards £100,000 annually to an outstanding UK institution, which has shown “exceptional imagination, innovation, and achievement”. The remaining four finalists receive £10,000 each in recognition of their achievements. Continue reading
An international conference due to be held in Geneva on Friday (28 April) could pave the way for a global roll-out of the controversial Artist’s Resale Right (ARR).
Organised by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the conference will see policy makers, artists, collective management organisations, academics, gallerists and auction houses gather to debate the effectiveness of the ARR to increase artists’ incomes. Attendees will discuss the potential for a future multi-national treaty to level the playing field in the international art market. Currently, the ARR applies sporadically throughout the world. Continue reading
David Walsh is no stranger to controversy. The multimillionaire professional gambler and founder of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Australia has been shocking visitors with his private art collection since it opened to the public in 2011. It comes as no surprise then that Walsh’s latest project, which involves the use of a bull carcass to perform a “bloody, sacrificial ritual” has stirred up a maelstrom of protest. Continue reading
When Tate Modern’s new Switch House extension opened to the public in June 2016 it dazzled the critics with its bold design and panoramic views over the London skyline. However, according to a claim filed in the High Court, not everyone has been left starry-eyed over the architectural addition to the South Bank.
Residents of neighbouring apartment blocks are suing Tate Modern for having turned their flats into ‘goldfish bowls’ after nosy tourists were spotted peering into their homes from the gallery’s 10th floor viewing platform. Voyeuristic visitors to the pyramid tower platform were even said to have photographed the interior of residents’ glass-fronted apartments and posted them on social media. One image captures a pet cat at the window while in others, residents are snapped chatting on their phones and relaxing on their sofas. Continue reading
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