Roundup: Pop Culture & the Arts ... Movies, Documentaries and Museum Exhibits

Crime and Picasso: The Shadowy Underworld of Art

There didn't seem anything particularly unusual about the sale of William Kingsland's art collection, at least at first. A well-known New York art connoisseur, Kingsland died in 2006, and the auction house Christie's was hired inthe months after his death to sell many of his paintings and sculptures. But it turned out that Kingsland was not his given name. His birth name was Melvyn Kohn, and dozens of the artworks in his collection had been stolen from museums and galleries. The most notable inc

New York Harbor Quadricentennial Saluted with Extensive Exhibition Featuring Rarely Seen Treasures

The New York Public Library celebrates Henry Hudson and Dutch acumen with Mapping New York's Shoreline, 1609-2009, a comprehensive exhibition featuring rare and extraordinary maps, atlases, books, journals, broadsides, manuscripts, prints, and an animation superimposing historical maps on a three-dimensional Google Earth model drawn primarily from the Library’s Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, and from other New York Public Library collections. Mapping New York’s Shoreline will be

Columbus Museum to Show Now and Then: Snapshots of the South

The Columbus Museum is pleased to announce the opening of the second edition in the Now and Then exhibition series, Snapshots of the South, which juxtaposes historic and contemporary images addressing a variety of enduring aspects of everyday life in the South. Including images that speak to Southerners’ longstanding connections with the land and its history, religion and the celebration of the eccentric, the exhibition evokes a unique sense of place as projected through the lens of cameras both

Rare Roman Coins Acquired for British Museum with Art Fund Help

Two very rare gold coins of the little known Roman emperor Carausius (AD 286-93), found in the North Midlands in 2007, have been acquired by the British Museum and Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Both feature an image of the emperor Carausius, who lead a breakaway 'mini-empire' of Britain and Gaul in the late third century. The first coin is a unique piece struck in London which has been acquired by the British Museum thanks to the generosity of funders including £43,500 from indepen

San Francisco to Celebrate Hundredth Year of Futurist Manifesto

From October 14 to 18, 2009, the legacy of Futurism—one of the seminal and most controversial avant-garde art movements of the twentieth century—will be celebrated in San Francisco in a citywide project entitled Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism's First 100 Years. This year marks the hundredth anniversary of Futurism's founding document, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism" (1909), which boldly denounced nineteenth-century nostalgia for the past and instead embraced

Art of forgery: Fakes, mistakes and discoveries at the National (UK)

In 1845 when the National Gallery bought a forged painting after mistaking it for a Holbein, its director was forced to resign amid establishment uproar. Now, nearly two centuries after the blunder, the gallery's current director, Nicholas Penny, reckons self-respecting art institutions should be proud to have a few fakes in their illustrious collections. Yesterday he announced the gallery's first ever exhibition of 40 fakes, copies and imitations in the gallery's own permanent coll

Portrait of first world war veteran Henry Allingham to go on display

A portrait of Henry Allingham, completed days before the death last week of the oldest man in the world, will go on display in London this autumn. The artist, Dan Llywelyn Hall, said he had tried to capture Allingham's "elegant appearance", and reported that though quite deaf and almost blind, he was in fine form as he posed at St Dunstan's home for ex-service personnel, near Brighton in East Sussex. "He was very alert and articulate throughout, speaking

Review: The Black Album at the National Theatre, London

It may not be the best page-to-stage adaptation ever to have graced the National Theatre. It may not even offer the full satisfaction of a thoroughly gripping yarn. But The Black Album, Hanif Kureishi’s new dramatisation of his 1995 novel, has one ace up its sleeve: it’s about a subject that matters - the rise of radical Islam in the UK. Kureishi identified, before many other writers, the toxic fundamentalism bubbling away in Britain’s multicultural melting-pot. In revisiting his f

John Keats's Hampstead house restored

Keats House in Hampstead has been restored to reflect its appearance during the poet's life and will display items such as the gold engagement ring he gave to his neighbour Fanny Brawne in 1820. Keats lived in the semi-detached house for two years before his tuberculosis drove him to the warmer climate of Rome, where he died aged 25 in 1821. He composed the famous poem Ode to a Nightingale under a plum tree in the front garden. The Grade I listed property

Austrian foundation: 2 Mozart works discovered

The International Mozarteum Foundation said Thursday it has discovered two more works composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The previously unknown works are piano pieces composed by a young Mozart, the Salzburg-based foundation said in a brief e-mail statement. The Web site of the organization said its department of research had identified the works, long in the foundation's possession, as Mozart compositions.

Story of de Menze's Stockwell shooting hits London stage

The shooting by police of the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes inspires this gripping piece of theatre. Four years ago this week Jean Charles de Menezes, a young Brazilian electrician, was shot dead on an Underground train at Stockwell station in London. His killers were two specialist firearms officers, members of a team of policemen who had led themselves to believe — or had been led to believe — that the man was a suicide bomber. He was not, and the identification of him as such was part of a

UK gallery’s invitation to deface the Bible brings obscene response

A publicly funded exhibition is encouraging people to deface the Bible in the name of art — and visitors have responded with abuse and obscenity. The show includes a video of a woman ripping pages from the Bible and stuffing them into her bra, knickers and mouth. The open Bible is a central part of Made in God’s Image, an exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (Goma) in Glasgow. By the book is a container of pens and a notice saying: “If you feel you have been exclud

Exhibition of 400 year-old moon drawings

Drawings of the Moon made 400 years ago can be seen at London's Science Museum as part of a new exhibition on the history of astronomy. The moon maps, the first ever made from telescope observations, were the work of the English astronomer Thomas Harriot. The exhibition spans many cultures from the 10th to 21st centuries and looks at the various ways humankind has studied the heavens.

New Mozart piano music discovered

The compositions have long been in the possession of the International Mozarteum Foundation in the city, the organisation said. Few details are being released until an official presentation in a week's time. In January, a piece by Mozart which had lain undiscovered in a French library for years, had its first performance...

"New" song penned by murdered Beatle John Lennon to be published?

A "new" John Lennon song could be published 30 years after his death with music written by his son Julian. The lyrics "Tel Her Now" were penned by the murdered Beatle are part a private collection kept Julian Lennon and acquired after his father was killed on 8th December 1980. The song consists of two verses and a chorus:- "Little girl I’ve come to stay And this time I just have to say I love you "If

Thomas Paine, The Radical Founding Father

On August 7, the National Portrait Gallery opens the exhibition “One Life: Thomas Paine, The Radical Founding Father.” This exhibition marks the 200th anniversary of Paine’s death and features 22 objects including the museum’s recently acquired portrait of Paine by the French artist Laurent Dabos, made around 1792.

"From Babylon to Baghdad: Ancient Iraq and the Modern West" a free e-book

Announcing the release of From Babylon to Baghdad: Ancient Iraq and the Modern West, a free e-book published by the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS). This latest publication from BAS comes at a time of great concern for Iraq’s cultural heritage on the part of the archaeological community, which is outlined in a recent UNESCO report assessing the damage incurred to ancient sites and museums during the course of the Iraq war. From Babylon to Baghdad: Ancient Iraq and the Modern West e

For New Leader of the Arts Endowment, Lessons From a Shaky Past

Although it may be hard to remember now, there was a time when the National Endowment for the Arts seemed to be on solid footing, both financially and politically, and could spend its days quietly financing artists and arts groups at its discretion. Then came the controversies — Robert Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photographs, Karen Finley’s chocolate-smeared performance pieces, Andres Serrano’s urine-immersed crucifix and others — and from the late 1980s onward, the endowment seemed t

Why it's blasphemous to alter Shakespeare's words for a modern audience.

[Antoni Cimolino is the general director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.] In "Will Shakespeare's Come and Gone," John McWhorter recommends that Shakespeare be rewritten for the sake of clarity. He asks, "At what point do we concede that substantial comprehension across the centuries has become too much of a challenge to expect of anyone but specialists?" Or as Shakespeare more simply put it when one of his characters had trouble understanding

For Vietnam's Stone Turtles, Good Luck During Exams

If you've heard that Vietnam's college entrance exams are notoriously rough, consider their effect on a collection of ancient stone tortoises at Hanoi's famed Temple of Literature. Every summer before the exams, tens of thousands of students descend on the temple, site of Vietnam's first university, to rub the heads of the sculptures for good luck. But the ritual is wearing away the stone and damaging the tortoises, some of which date to 1484. "Please don't touch t