art

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Price of the $120K Duct-Taped Banana Has Gone Up

Maurizio Cattelan's piece is heading to auction; Sotheby's says it'll fetch $1M to $1.5M

(Newser) - If you thought that selling banana duct-taped to a wall as "art" for $120,000 was—let's just go for the low-hanging fruit here—bananas, well, Sotheby's would like you to know the price has gone up. The Art Newspaper tackles next month's scheduled auction:
  • The
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Robot Artist's Painting Could Fetch Big Dough

Ai-Da's portrait of Alan Turing is expected to sell for up to $180K at Sotheby's auction next month

(Newser) - At just 5 years old, she's already given a Ted Talk , served as an artist in residence at the 2022 Glastonbury Festival, and seen her artwork displayed at the United Nations. Now, the artist known as Ai-Da will make history at Sotheby's with the auction house's first...

Artist Says He Signed Contract Drunk: 'I Ruined My Own Life'
Artist Says He Signed Contract
Drunk: 'I Ruined My Own Life'
in case you missed it

Artist Says He Signed Contract Drunk: 'I Ruined My Own Life'

Norway's Bjarne Melgaard is suing 2 investors, claiming they've placed a stranglehold on him

(Newser) - Most recently, Bjarne Melgaard could be seen at Paris Fashion Week , but the provocative Norwegian artist is gearing up for a new battle that has nothing to do with haute couture: On Tuesday, a court in Norway will hear Melgaard's lawsuit against Svein Roar Grande and Stein Lie, two...

London's National Gallery Takes Steps to Protect Art

Most liquids are prohibited after attacks, and visitors must go through metal detectors

(Newser) - The National Gallery in London is taking steps to protect its collection after a series of attacks by climate activists on its artworks. Two climate activists were sentenced last month for tossing tomato soup on the museum's "Sunflowers," by Vincent van Gogh. "The collection we hold...

Scientists Unravel a Famous Painting's Magic
Scientists Unravel
a Famous Painting's Magic
in case you missed it

Scientists Unravel a Famous Painting's Magic

Brains of viewers of 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' light up as eyes bounce between focal points

(Newser) - Neuroscientists may have figured out why some viewers of Johannes Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring" become so entranced upon seeing it—especially the original. In their study, researchers had volunteers look at five paintings, as well as reproductions of the same paintings, while wearing contraptions that mapped...

Worker Tosses Beer Artwork Into Museum Trash

To be fair, the artwork took on the appearance of 2 discarded beer cans

(Newser) - A mechanic at a Dutch art museum saw two beer cans, one of them dented, on the floor of an elevator and tossed them in the trash. Turns out they weren't just two beer cans, but a piece of art by French artist Alexandre Lavet. Titled "All The...

Van Gogh Painting Gets a Soup Bath by Climate Activists
They Dumped Soup on a
Van Gogh. Now, Jail Time
UPDATED

They Dumped Soup on a Van Gogh. Now, Jail Time

Sunflowers wasn't harmed, but Just Stop Oil protesters will be spending some time behind bars

(Newser) - Two climate activists from the Just Stop Oil group will see jail time after dumping tomato soup on a Van Gogh painting in London's National Gallery. Citing PA Media, CNN reports that Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, received sentences Friday of two years and 20 months, respectively,...

Duped Into Buying $6M in Fake Warhols, Family Sues

Florida family accuses Miami Fine Art Gallery, director Les Roberts of fraud

(Newser) - A family claims to have been duped by a Miami art gallery into paying more than $6 million for forged Andy Warhol works. "Les Roberts and Miami Fine Art Gallery are fraudsters," reads the lawsuit filed Thursday in state court in Miami, per the New York Times . Matthew,...

Banksy Is Going Full-On Animal
Banksy Is Going Full-On Animal

Banksy Is Going Full-On Animal

Famed street artist is dotting London with depictions of a rhino, wolf, piranhas, and more

(Newser) - Street artist Banksy on Monday unveiled a new mural of a rhinoceros that looks like it's climbing on top of a car in London—the eighth animal-themed artwork he has posted in the past week in a collection that includes elephants, a goat, a wolf, pelicans, and more. The...

Scrolling Online, He Saw Portrait With Unusual Rounded Top

Turns out art historian spotted a lost 16th-century portrait of King Henry VIII

(Newser) - A lost portrait of King Henry VIII has been rediscovered in the UK just 14 miles from where it originally hung after its commission in the 1590s. But that's not exactly where art historian Adam Busiakiewicz found it. The Sotheby's consultant was perusing X last month when he...

Museum Admits Picassos Are Fake, Part of a Stunt

Kirsha Kaechele comes forward in Australia

(Newser) - The Picassos were fake, as it turns out. The curator of a controversial exhibit at a museum in Australia has admitted that she painted three purported works by the artist that were hung in a women's restroom, reports the AP . Kirsha Kaechele moved her exhibit to the restroom to...

Inside the Black Market for Taco Bell Store Art

SFGate reports on how prints commissioned 20 years ago are slipping off of walls and onto eBay

(Newser) - When artist Mark Smith pitched the idea of commissioning original work to Taco Bell executives in the early aughts, the expensive project seemed like a longshot. But they commissioned three of his abstract, Basquiat-style paintings, and prints of them began appearing in stores in 2003. Twenty years on, this story...

He's Not Even 2, Holds a World Record
He's Not Even 2,
Holds a World Record

He's Not Even 2, Holds a World Record

Ghana toddler Ace-Liam Ankrah is now the world's youngest male artist, per Guinness

(Newser) - Meet Ace-Liam Ankrah, a Ghana toddler who has set the record as the world's youngest male artist. His mother, Chantelle Kukua Eghan, says it started by accident when her son, who at the time was 6 months old, discovered her acrylic paints. Eghan, an artist and founder of Arts...

Billionaire's Attempt to Hide Portrait Blows Up in Her Face

Vincent Namatjira's portrait of Gina Rinehart might now be destined for Times Square

(Newser) - Australia's richest woman just met the Streisand effect . Unhappy with a portrait of her featured in the National Gallery of Australia, mining billionaire Gina Rinehart sought to have it removed, the Guardian reports. But the portrait is not only staying put, it's now been shared by media around...

Geologist Has a Theory on Where Mona Lisa Is Set

Ann Pizzorusso used da Vinci's diaries to pinpoint a location on Lake Como

(Newser) - For Ann Pizzorusso, the most fascinating mystery of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa sits just over her shoulders. A geologist and Italian Renaissance scholar, Pizzorusso spent years puzzling out the painting's setting, and she used his diaries to track down where he traveled during that period. The CBC...

Renowned Painter, Sculptor Frank Stella Is Dead
Renowned Painter, Sculptor
Frank Stella Is Dead
obituary

Renowned Painter, Sculptor Frank Stella Is Dead

He blurred the lines between the two forms

(Newser) - Frank Stella, a painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose constantly evolving works are hailed as landmarks of the minimalist and post-painterly abstraction art movements, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan at age 87. Gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch confirmed his death to the AP . Stella's wife, Harriet McGurk, told the New ...

Italy's Quest to Protect Its Art Compared to 'a Land Grab'

Cultural code enforcement targets reproductions of iconic works in the public domain

(Newser) - For years, German toy maker Ravensburger has been decorating puzzles with Leonardo Da Vinci's iconic Vitruvian Man drawing. Under European law, copyright protections extend 70 years after the death of an artist, meaning Vitruvian Man has been in the public domain for centuries since Da Vinci's 1519 death....

Sneaky Artist Hangs His Art Among Dali, Picasso, Loses Job

German artist lost his museum job, is being investigated for property damage

(Newser) - A museum employee fulfilled his wish of seeing his own art hanging among celebrated works from world-famous artists like Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, though it meant he lost his job—which might not be the end of it. The German man, formerly employed in technical service at Munich's...

He Was an Art-Selling Wunderkind. And a Fraudster
He Was an
Art-Selling
Wunderkind.
And a Fraudster
longform

He Was an Art-Selling Wunderkind. And a Fraudster

'Vanity Fair' has the story of Inigo Philbrick

(Newser) - He was handed a seven-year prison sentence for what the FBI characterized as the largest art-based fraud scheme the US has ever seen. In late January 2024, after serving less than four years, Inigo Philbrick was released to home confinement. Writing for Vanity Fair , Mark Seal has the now-36-year-old's...

An Unprecedented Exhibition May Have Solved an Art Mystery

New clues arise regarding missing central panel of the Augustinian Altarpiece

(Newser) - An unprecedented exhibition opening Wednesday at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan reunites for the first time in over 450 years eight surviving panels of the Augustinian Altarpiece by the early Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca—while possibly solving one of its enduring mysteries. Museums have tried and failed...

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