News & Topics

The much-anticipated exhibition The Real Van Gogh opens at London’s Royal Academy of Art this weekend, with promises to shed new light on the artist though his own letters. It’s the first major Van Gogh exhibit to hit the city in over 40 years, and it’s sure to be a big one. Can’t make it across the pond? No need ... Read More »

  Attention to our friends in the Great White North and those headed there — photographer Adad Hannah will be exhibition his work “Cuba Still (Remake)” at the Pierre-François Ouellette Contemporary Art Gallery in Montreal starting with a nice wine-and-cheese premiere tonight. In short, Hannah is a master of recreating old photographs, famous trompe l’oeil images, and chiaroscuro classics with ... Read More »

In film, a medium where commerce meets creativity like no other, there’s a yawning chasm between the hack directors who churn out the latest studio fodder on time and on budget, and the auteurs who stand by their personal visions come hell, high water, or test audiences. The decision to stick by your guns or bow to studio pressure can ... Read More »

  Don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but the global economic recession hit Iceland first and, perhaps, hardest. A nation the size of Manhattan below Duane Street, Iceland reached new economic highs as foreign money flowed into their banks and foreign tourists flowed into their bars and hotels in the mid aughts. But the cash, like many of the ... Read More »

  As one of the Michaelangelo works at the Vatican that have just undergone a $4 million restoration, a critical debate is brewing over “The Crucifixion of Saint Peter” and the naughty bits of the martyred saint. You step into the Pauline Chapel at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and there he is, twisting his neck and shoulders to lock ... Read More »

It was one of those “I want to go to there” moments — Werner Herzog, perhaps the most mavericky maverick director ever, was convening a one-time-only “Rogue Film School”. It was almost as much as a surprise as the news that the director of “Aguirre: The Wrath of God” and “Grizzly Man” would also be the director of “Bad Lieutenant: ... Read More »

Certainly, he hasn’t been using it lately. Collected when the composer’s composer succumbed to liver failure in 1827 at the age of 57 (let that be a lesson to you drinkers out there), Ludwig van Beethoven’s skull has traveled a long way from his Viennese deathbed to the hands of California businessman Paul Kaufmann, who is now auctioning off the ... Read More »

Almost as much as his work, the myths and legends surrounding Vincent Van Gogh keep him alive and present. We all know the tales: He cut off his ear and mailed it to a prostitute, he fled Paris in mental anguish, and, finally, e shot himself in the chest, standing in a field, an unfinished painting propped on an easel ... Read More »