Culture & Arts

Photo credit: YouTube A 700-year old Chinese painted scroll fetched an astonishing price of almost US$40-million (R658-million) at an auction in Hong Kong on Thursday. The price is US$24-million (R395-million) more than experts predicted it would sell for, and makes it the most valuable art work sold anywhere in Asia this year. The 2-metre long scroll, entitled Five Drunken Princes Returning on Horseback, is by Ren Renfa, a renowned Chinese artist and government official. It was painted in the late 13th or early 14th century during the Yuan dynasty. UNPRECEDENTED BIDDING BATTLE Many of Ren’s 21 paintings are held in museums or owned by private collectors and this was a rare piece that attracted major interest from various parts of the world. According to a press release from renowned a...

Cosmas Shiridzinomwa, Rejection, 2013, Oil on Canvas, 171 x 153cm. Courtesy of Gallery Delta As a response to the challenge, 1-54 have arranged it so you can now catch the Contemporary African Art Fair show one of three ways (act fast!): In Real Life – Somerset House, Somerset House, 8-10 October 2020. (Book a time slot now!) Showcasing the work of more than 110 emerging and established artists from Africa and its diaspora, working in a wide variety of mediums and from a range of geographical backgrounds. Online Globally – through 1-54 Online, Powered by Christie’s. 7-12 October This will offer virtual booths that feature 30 works from each gallery, as well as providing a spotlight series on individual artists, all of which will be globally accessible. Christie’s London He...

Willem Dafoe was still a teenager when he decided to become an actor. At age 17, he started studying theater but found the program too theoretical. He decided to join an experimental theater group instead that toured the US and Europe. The varied work — not only on stage, but also behind the scenes — enabled him to develop concentration and precision in his acting. US director Michael Chimino offered him a first film role in the Western Heaven's Gate (1980). But Dafoe was fired from the production, and his supporting role was removed from the movie during editing. He didn't get a credit for his brief appearance in the final cut. Dafoe then gained renown with the action film Streets of Fire (1984), in which he portrayed the cool leader of a motorcycle gang. Two years later, his part in th...

  How surprised were you when you heard Louise Glück received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature? Ulrike Draesner: I was very surprised. I was sitting on the train and suddenly my phone started ringing. I was very pleased, because I respect Louise Glück's poems as original, very important pieces of work. I was also pleased that a poet was selected this time and that more light is finally being shed on poetry in general. It also reminds us again of the beauty of Anglo-American poetry. You have translated two volumes of Glück's poetry into German in 2007 and 2008. How did you approach translating her work and how do you recall the experience? It was all very exciting. I had precisely chosen Glück because she has a totally different way of working than I do [Editor's note: Draesner...

  The president of Germany's Akademie der Künste(Academy of the Arts, Adk), Jeanine Meerapfel, has been trying to determine how various artists and cultural institutions could rise up against nationalist forces in Europe, an issue she's been reflecting about ever since she took on the position in 2015. "There is an urgent need for action," Meerapfel told DW, pointing out recent events which she says serve as a reminder of the danger nationalism poses to the cultural world. At the end of August, Germany witnessed the attempted storming of the Reichstag during protests against COVID-19 restrictions. Demonstrators, many with far-right sympathies, broke through a cordon and raced up the steps of the parliament building before police dispersed them. Some of the protesters carried th...

  The European Union At present, the European Union member states generally only allow entry for citizens or residents of other EU countries and the Schengen Area. Anyone without residency or citizenship in a EU state or the Schengen Area wishing to enter from a third country must have a valid justification, though since August 6 most member countries have gradually been lifting restrictions for nationals of Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Tunisia, New Zealand, Thailand and Uruguay. Detailed information is available on the European Commission website. Complete information and resources for each of the individual 27 EU member states is also available on the EU's Reopen EU website. However, each EU country maintains its own standards for decidi...

Chrissy Teigen and John Legend lose baby after pregnancy complications. LOS ANGELES - Chrissy Teigen said she and John Legend are in "deep pain" following her miscarriage, which she announced in a heart wrenching social media post. Teigen wrote that they were "driving home from the hospital with no baby. This is unreal." "We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we've never felt before. We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn't enough," she wrote in a post late Wednesday, alongside a picture of herself in tears on a hospital bed. Another image showed her and Legend grieving together over a bundle cradled in her arms. Revealing they had chosen th...

One of the many weird things that happened in 2020 was when an 'item' song (they called it that, not us) compared pop star, actor, filmmaker and multi-millionaire Beyonce to a 'Goriya' (faired skinned woman) in a song called Beyonce Sharma Jayegi. After a massive backlash with fans apologising to the pop star, the makers were quick with an apology. They said they "never intended" the song racially, because 'Gori' or 'Goriya' has been used as a synonym for 'Girl' in Hindi cinema for ages. It never occurred to them, they said, that the song would be interpreted that way. They quickly changed the name of the song to Duniya Sharma Jayegi. Like a lot of public apologies, this too sounded like a "sorry your feelings were hurt" instead of "sorry we hurt your feelings." It also never occurred to t...

Succession star Brian Cox has jumped to the defence of JK Rowling, blaming “cancel culture” for the public backlash against her explosive trans views. The Harry Potter author faced fierce criticism in June when she hit out at inclusive language around menstruation. She later doubled down on her views in a lengthy essay posted to her own website that sent shockwaves through the LGBT+ community.  Criticism of Rowling intensified when her latest book, released under her Robert Galbraith pseudonym, included a cisgender serial killer that dresses up in women’s clothes to pursue his female victims. Now, Cox has jumped to the author’s defence, saying her swift fall from grace can be blamed on “cancel culture”. Succession star Brian Cox jumped to the defence of embattled author JK Rowling. The Sc...