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Winston Churchill’s painting of Marrakech—given to President Roosevelt and being sold by Angelina Jolie—sells for record £8.2m

The former British prime minister Winston Churchill was a keen amateur painter and his landscapes frequently come up at auction. But his works do not sell for the sort of sums that might have persuaded him to give up the day job. Until tonight. No tonight, Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque (1943)—the only painting done…

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How pianist Jason Moran is exploring art and Black influences to get through the pandemic

The jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran was wrapping up three days of recording in Brooklyn when an angry mob of Trump supporters ambushed the U.S. Capitol. He put his phone down after reading the news and decided to get his project out immediately as a way to help the nation heal from its divisiveness….

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Entrepreneurs Bet Big on Immersive Art Despite Covid-19

Even as the pandemic takes its toll on tourism, immersive museums and experiential art centers are expanding to new cities and wooing investors willing to gamble on the future of the emerging industry. Fotografiska wanted to introduce New Yorkers to a different type of museum when it opened in December 2019 in Manhattan, welcoming visitors…

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The Biden-Harris administration must integrate the arts into our national recovery

“We are at our most inventive when we are falling.” This lesson from Liz Lerman, a choreographer and one of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ senior fellows, has stuck with me over this past year. Artists and the cultural sector have fallen harder in the past year than we could have ever imagined. The…

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Arts researchers can help America overcome its toughest challenges

As the US reverberates from devastating challenges brought on by the health pandemic and its aftermath, we urge lawmakers to seek ingenuity and energy from a source not often in the spotlight: arts researchers. In addition to being creative thinkers and makers, many artists, designers and architects are also researchers whose work reveals new insights…

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National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center has a series online events planned during Black History Month

Two exhibitions at the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce can now be experienced virtually. The museum is offering video tours of “Queens of the Heartland,” a look at 30 innovative Ohio Black women, and “The Art of Soul!,” the museum’s seventh annual art show. The exhibitions opened last fall but had to…

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‘Like witnessing my own funeral’: Michael Landy on destroying everything he owned

Twenty years and an epoch ago, Michael Landy destroyed his worldly goods, all 7,227 of them, in the just-closed flagship branch of C&A on Oxford Street in London. It was a wildly theatrical event. The mise en scène involved a snaking conveyor belt bearing tubs full of carefully catalogued objects, with a team of blue-boilersuit-clad…

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Philly needs to protect public art — and the artists that make it too

Gentrification is changing the cultural landscape in Philadelphia. Many parts of the city are experiencing rapid development, and murals, which celebrate neighborhood history and community leaders, are being destroyed, covered up, and whitewashed prematurely. The artists and communities who created these public artworks are left without a choice in the matter. While it is true…

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Actually, QR Codes Never Went Away

Roy Healy’s first tattoo wasn’t the kind people usually regret, like a future ex’s name or a quotation in a language one can’t read. Still, he was nervous about it. He had asked the artist to ink a QR code on the inside of his wrist, directing to a website he owned, and he wasn’t…

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Rich history of ancient Jewish manuscript revealed using state of the art technology

MĂGURELE, Romania — As the world turns the calendar ahead to 2021, Romanian researchers are turning the clock back to unearth the rich history of an ancient Jewish manuscript. Using state of the art camera technology, a team from the National Institute for Research and Development in Optoelectronics captured images the naked eye can’t see….

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