Arts and Culture

New York parking garage collapses, at least one dead and four injured

New York, United States | AFP | Tuesday 4/19/2023 At least one person died and four were rushed to hospital after a multi-story parking garage in New York City collapsed on Tuesday, emergency responders said. Aerial video footage circulating on social media showed cars piled on top of one another in a jumble of cracked concrete in the financial district of Lower Manhattan. The building on Ann Street “pancaked, collapsed, all the way to the […]

AI work sparks fierce debate after winning photo award

Paris, France | AFP | Tuesday 4/18/2023 ADDS new statement from awards organiser, detail A German artist has sparked an angry row after winning a prestigious photography prize with an entry that was generated by artificial intelligence. Boris Eldagsen eventually rejected the gong from the Sony World Photography Awards after concluding that such competitions were not yet equipped to handle AI entries. The awards organisers initially accused the artist of “misleading” behaviour, but removed the […]

Michael Jordan sneakers fetch auction record $2.2 mn

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — A pair of sneakers worn by NBA superstar Michael Jordan sold for $2.2 million on Tuesday, setting a record price at auction for game-worn sports footwear, Sotheby’s announced. The basketball great wore the “Bred” Air Jordan 13s during Game 2 of the 1998 NBA Finals on the way to his sixth and last NBA championship title. The online sale cements Jordan’s position as the most valuable athlete at auctions […]

Mexican TikToker shares Maya language with new generations

by Sofia Miselem Agence France-Presse OXKUTZKAB, Mexico (AFP) — Santos Tuz bids his followers farewell with a smile in Maya and Spanish on social media, where the young Mexican teacher shares his Indigenous language with thousands of people. The 21-year-old, from the southeastern state of Yucatan, discovered his vocation to keep the words of his ancestors alive during the Covid-19 lockdown. His TikTok account @tuzsantos322 has 343,000 followers and 3.1 million likes. “Green on the […]

Basquiat-Warhol: a rare artistic duo, reunited in Paris

by Eric Randolph and Sandra Biffot-Lacut Agence France Presse Paris, France (AFP) — There are vanishingly few great collaborations in the annals of fine art. For a brief moment in the 1980s, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat showed the world how it was done. It started with a bang. Warhol, 54, met Basquiat, 22, for lunch in October 1982 and took a polaroid of them together. Basquiat took it to his studio and returned just […]

Danish artist hatches epic global troll hunt

by James BROOKS Copenhagen, Denmark (AFP) A Danish artist famous for his towering wooden trolls sent fans on a worldwide quest Monday to find his latest creation. Thomas Dambo has created a complex treasure hunt to find “Moon Mother”, his 100th troll sculpture, who he said has “crawled into the most secret spot in the forest” to give birth. His giant figures inspired by Scandinavian folk tales are often located off the beaten track to […]

Artists fight AI programs that copy their styles

by Julie JAMMOT Agence France-Presse San Francisco, United States (AFP) Artists outraged by artificial intelligence that copies in seconds the styles they have sacrificed years to develop are waging battle online and in court. Fury erupted in the art community last year with the release of generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs that can convincingly carry out commands such as drawing a dog like cartoonist Sarah Andersen would, or a nymph the way illustrator Karla Ortiz […]

Vienna museum tilts paintings to illustrate climate change threat

Vienna, Austria (AFP) Gustav Klimt’s well-known Attersee lake painting tilted by two degrees, Egon Schiele’s painting of a tree in late autumn rotated by five degrees. As part of the initiative “A Few Degrees More”, Vienna’s Leopold Museum has tilted 15 paintings by the number of degrees unchecked climate change could affect the landscapes depicted. The initiative, launched on Wednesday, comes after climate activists poured black liquid over a glass screen protecting a Klimt piece […]

Kenzaburo Oe: novelist who won Nobel with ‘poetic force’

  by Etienne BALMER / Kyoko HASEGAWA Nobel-winning Japanese novelist Kenzaburo Oe, a leading liberal voice who defended the disenfranchised and challenged the conformity of modern society, has died aged 88. “He died of old age in the early hours of March 3,” publisher Kodansha said in a statement on Monday, adding that a family funeral has already been held. Known for his pacifist and anti-nuclear views, Oe saw himself as part of a generation […]

Peru returns seized Roman coins to Italy

LIMA, Peru (AFP) — Peru on Thursday returned a collection of 73 Roman coins, some from the second and fourth centuries, to the Italian embassy in Lima, the foreign ministry said. The coins were seized from a Peruvian woman in 2021 at the international airport in Cusco, a tourist hub and gateway to the world renown Machu Picchu Inca citadel. Peru’s deputy foreign minister, Ignacio Higueras, told reporters that the collection of 73 coins “are […]

Warhol in the desert: flamboyant art icon pops up in Saudi

  by Robbie COREY-BOULET Agence France-Presse AL-ULA, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — Andy Warhol’s iconic portraits of stars such as Marlon Brando and Dolly Parton are on display in the Saudi desert, at a show intended to reframe the kingdom’s forbidding reputation. The first exhibition in Saudi Arabia for the Pop Art giant is a tribute to the late artist’s obsession with celebrity, and his seeming ability to predict the rise of contemporary influencer culture. At […]

In a low country, ski making is a high art

by Benoit NOEL Agence France-Presse Malmedy, Belgium (AFP) — In a land with no mountains and scarcely ever any snow, ski craftsmanship might not seem a priority. But Pierre Gerondal has put the limits of Belgium’s geography and climate aside and carved out a respected place in the industry. His durable made-to-measure wooden skis have attained a peak of quality and are climbing towards the summit of success. Gerondal’s workshop in Malmedy lies in Belgium’s […]