Arts and Culture

Japan’s second-oldest museum forced to crowdfund to pay bills

TOKYO, Aug 9, 2023 (AFP) – Japan’s second-oldest museum has raised $3.4 million through crowdfunding after reportedly being denied additional financial support to cover soaring utility bills to preserve its collection of animal and plant specimens. More than 30,000 people have donated a total of 480 million yen to the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, easily surpassing the 100-million-yen target, campaign platform READYFOR said on Wednesday. The head of the 146-year-old museum, […]

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Belgium canal city of Bruges hits ‘red line’ with tourist crowds

BRUGES, Belgium, Aug 5, 2023 (AFP) – Inhabitants of Belgium’s cobblestone-and-canal city of Bruges are clear: summertime tourism has hit capacity. “It’s really reached a red line now,” says one, 55-year-old architect Arnout Goegebuer, as he sits inside a cafe, peering out a window across a packed outside terrace. “We don’t need more tourists anymore, it’s enough — maybe a little bit less” is needed, he says. It’s a sentiment reiterated by other residents of […]

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‘Shattered Souls’ art installation shines light on Catholic church scandals

Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany : This photo taken on August 4, 2023 shows the art installation ‘Shattered Souls … in a Sea of Silence’ by German artist Dennis Josef Meseg in front of Cologne Cathedral, western Germany. With his installation, the artist wants to make the public aware of the desperate, silent cry of abused children for justice for their maltreated souls. 333 small mannequins, draped in the colours of innocence and the Curia, will […]

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Library restores Palestinian history one manuscript at a time

By Hiba Aslan JERUSALEM, July 24, 2023 (AFP) – A library in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem offers a rare glimpse into Palestinian history with its treasure trove of manuscripts dating back hundreds of years before the creation of Israel. At the Khalidi Library in the walled Old City, Rami Salameh expertly inspects a damaged manuscript as part of the effort to restore and digitise historical Palestinian documents. “The manuscripts range from jurisprudence to astronomy, the Prophet’s […]

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Violins in the sun: Stradivari’s home workshop reopens in Italy

By Brigitte HAGEMANN Agence France-Presse CREMONA, Italy (AFP) — For over three centuries, music lovers the world over have been trying to unlock the secrets of Antonio Stradivari’s prized string instruments. Budding luthiers and young musicians can now get a step closer to the master by honing their skills in his original house and workshop, which have been transformed into a center of learning and a musical pilgrimage site in northern Italy. “The Stradivarius myth […]

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South Koreans get younger as traditional age system dropped

By Cat BARTON Agence France-Presse SEOUL, June 28, 2023 (AFP) — Lee Jung-hee was set to turn 60 next year but South Korea dropped its traditional age counting system Wednesday, so the Seoul-based housewife just got a year younger — and she’s thrilled. South Korea is the last East Asian country to officially still use a method of calculating age that determines babies are aged one at birth, counting their months in the womb as […]

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US charges nine in art, sports memorabilia theft conspiracy

NEW YORK, June 15, 2023 (AFP) – An Andy Warhol silkscreen, Jackson Pollock painting and World Series rings awarded to baseball legend Yogi Berra — those were just a few of the high-value items US prosecutors charged nine people Thursday with stealing. In a plot worthy of a Hollywood film, the suspects allegedly broke into multiple museums and institutions in several US states over 20 years to pilfer objects totalling millions of dollars. The accused […]

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‘World’s best restaurant’ to reopen in Spain as museum

By Rosa SULLEIRO Agence France-Presse ROSES, Spain, June 7, 2023 (AFP) — Spain’s elBulli, repeatedly voted the world’s best restaurant before it closed over a decade ago, is set to reopen as a museum dedicated to the culinary revolution it sparked. Nestled in an isolated cove on Spain’s northeastern tip, the museum is dubbed “elBulli1846” — a reference to the 1,846 dishes ground-breaking chef Ferran Adria says were developed at the eatery. “It’s not about […]

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World’s oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible sells for $38 mn

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — A Hebrew Bible more than 1,000 years old sold for $38.1 million in New York on Wednesday, setting a record for the most valuable manuscript ever sold at auction. The Codex Sassoon — which dates to the late ninth to early 10th century — is the earliest near-complete Hebrew Bible known to still exist. It was sold by Sotheby’s following a four-minute bidding battle between two bidders, the auction […]

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France to shut Pompidou museum for five years in 2025

PARIS, May 10, 2023 (AFP) – The Pompidou Centre in Paris, one of the world’s top modern art museums, will shut down for refurbishment for five years from 2025, France’s culture minister said Wednesday. The Pompidou houses work by artists from Pablo Picasso to Wassily Kandinsky and welcomed more than three million visitors last year. But its ground-breaking “inside out” structure by architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, that displays pipework on the outside, has […]

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US climate activists smear paint on Degas sculpture enclosure

WASHINGTON, April 27, 2023 (AFP) – Climate activists attacked a famous Degas sculpture in a Washington museum Thursday, smearing its Plexiglas enclosure with paint. The French artist’s wax sculpture of ‘La petite danseuse de quatorze ans’ was attacked with stripes of red and black paint, the National Gallery of Art reported. The incident was one of the first of its kind in North America. The gallery said in a statement to AFP that the work […]

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Trinity the T-Rex claws in more than $6 million

(AFP) Zurich, Switzerland by James RYBACKI A composite Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton called Trinity, made up of bones from three different T-Rexes, sold for 5.5 million Swiss francs ($6.1 million) in a rare auction on Tuesday. The skeleton was sold at the Koller auction house in Zurich after being shipped from the United States in nine giant crates. Trinity fetched a hammer price of 4.8 million Swiss francs, rising to 5.5 million with the buyer’s premium […]

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