Art
Art News

88-year-old artist Robert Seaman finishes year of pandemic ‘daily doodles’
Seaman, who has been fully vaccinated since January, says he’ll “probably kick the bucket” before he runs out of ideas.

A new documentary offers a deep dive into the preservation and restoration of Raja Ravi Varma's artworks
Featuring Rupika Chawla, art restorer, conservator and historian, the documentary, titled Raja Ravi Varma: Restoring A Master's Glory has been made by Fulbright filmmaker Dr Anandana Kapur, an award-winning director and educationist.

From Picassos to Dalis: Facing $11B tax bill, Samsung heirs donate mass art trove
The family plans to donate 23,000 pieces from Lee’s personal collection to two state-run museums.

Chinese artist Xu Beihong's painting expected to sell for $45 million, reflecting rising value of art during lockdown
Xu frequently uses the lion in his work to exemplify his faith in the rise of the Chinese nation.

Sotheby's hosts first NFT sale where artist Pak's 'The Fungible' collection sells for $16.8 million
NFT stands for non-fungible token, an authentication certificate meant to ensure that ownership of a digital work — animations, videos, photos or music, for example — cannot be forged or otherwise manipulated.

Off-duty Italy art cops find looted 1st century Roman statue in Belgian shop
Italy for decades has worked to recover looted antiquities that have ended up in private collections, famous museums and commercial antique shops around the world.

The banality of celebrating women and cooking and art: What a Hyderabad exhibition gets wrong
The dichotomy the ‘Cooking Up A Storm: Her Sojourn’ art exhibition creates between cooking and creativity re-introduces the sexist, patriarchal idea that cooking is not creative, it is women’s work and it does not really matter.

Game Changer: Banksy painting raises $23 million for UK health charities
Christie’s said the sale price was a world auction record for Banksy.

Greek police recover ancient marble statue of ‘exceptional artwork’, investigation under way
Photos released by the police showed the statue seemed to have been buried for a long time, and bore signs of damage from digging tools.

Celebrated modernists MF Husain, VS Gaitonde’s artworks to be auctioned in first-ever sale
Set to be held online on 30-31 March, the auction will have on offer a carefully curated set artworks making an appearance in the auction market for the very first time since they were acquired directly by their present owners from either the artists themselves, or from galleries.

As Beeple's digital art piece sells for $70 million, understanding the craze behind NFTs
One purpose of NFTs is that they can be used to trace an object’s digital provenance, allowing a select few to prove ownership.

Digital art by Beeple sells for $69.4 million at Christie's amid NFT boom
Christie’s did not identify the buyer of the artwork, which consists of 5,000 individual digital pictures stitched together that Beeple created — one each day — since May 2007.

Banksy confirms Reading prison artwork as his; throws weight behind campaign to turn site into arts centre
In an Instagram video, Banksy is shown stealthily stenciling and spraying paint to create the artwork, titled Create Escape.

Lockdowns cause art sales on sites like Etsy to skyrocket, as people change their spending patterns, beautify homes
For those who are employed, buying art during the COVID-19 pandemic can also be an attempt to help support others.

2020, a year in Indian art: From virtual galleries to lost livelihoods and new artistic vocabulary, changes a pandemic wrought
Digital formats such as the online viewing rooms and virtual exhibitions, which were largely alien to the market here, have become part of a new way of engaging with the audience, and even doing business.

Re-envisioning the relationship between the artist and State: Facilitators, not benefactors, are need of the hour
The State as a modern patron needs to account for standard processes and procedures to be put in place for the complete welfare of the artist.

In Garima Gupta's 'filed under: a/muse/um', an examination of the politics of documenting, archiving
Garima Gupta's detailed pencil sketches strongly overlay the connection between the land's history of colonial intrusion into its tropics and its impact on the people today, mirrored in their engagement with wildlife trade and oil palm plantations.

Gunjan Veda on her book The Museum of Broken Tea Cups, and why Dalit artists' contributions to culture go unrecognised
You cannot invisibilise someone if you recognise their contribution. And as a society, we have always sought to invisibilise Dalits, says author Gunjan Veda

Anwar Chitrakar, a folk artist from Bengal, captures vignettes of locked down lives through traditional art
Anwar Chitrakar talks about his latest online lockdown-inspired exhibition 'Tales of our Times', and his personal journey with the folk art tradition.

At this year's Kochi Biennale, Arpita Singh's playful, surrealistic narratives seek resonance in polarised times
Through her deliberately unsophisticated style of storytelling, she creates distorted or fragmented stories, with plots and sub-plots, that speak to an equally fragile and disturbed modern life.