It was a major cultural row between France and China, prompting a history museum to pull the plug on one of its most important exhibitions of the decade accusing the Beijing authorities of interference and trying to rewrite history. But now the Chateau des ducs de Bretagne history museum in Nantes has finally opened its blockbuster exhibition on Genghis Khan and the Mongol empire, with large crowds queueing to see hundreds of objects that have never been shown in Europe, some dug up by archaeologists only three years ago. It…
Tag: Museums
Museum Shows Explore the Global South
This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art world’s expanded view of what art is and who can make it. “I think we’re hard-wired to be afraid of people who are different from us,” said Linda Komaroff, a curator of Islamic art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “A show focused on dining makes it easier. We all eat, we all like food.” Ms. Komaroff was talking about “Dining with the Sultan: The Fine Art of Feasting,” the exhibition she has…
Liu Yiqian, China’s Top Art Collector, Is Selling a Modigliani
Few Chinese art collectors have made a bigger splash at global auctions in the past decade than Liu Yiqian, a former Shanghai taxi driver who amassed a fortune through big bets on Chinese real estate and pharmaceutical stocks. He was a profligate purchaser of Chinese antiquities and other artworks. In 2014, Mr. Liu paid a record $36.3 million for an ancient Chinese porcelain cup, and $45 million for a 600-year-old silk wall hanging. He paid $170.4 million for Amedeo Modigliani’s risqué “Nu Couché” painting a year later. One Shanghai museum…
Where’s the Controversy in ‘Philip Guston Now’?
When “Philip Guston Now” opened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington this spring, I could practically hear the collective sigh of relief on my Instagram feed. In 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the nationwide protests that followed, the four museums organizing a retrospective of his work announced a four-year delay of the exhibition, citing the need to make sure they were contextualizing Guston’s paintings — which include a series of cartoonish images of Klansmen as bumbling Keystone Kops — with proper sensitivity.…
British Museum offers to pay translator after plagiarism row
The British Museum has offered to pay a writer for her work after she alleged her poetry translations had been plagiarised in a landmark exhibition. Earlier this week, the museum removed a segment of its China’s Hidden Century exhibition after Yilin Wang said she did not receive any credit or reimbursement for her translations of the work of Qiu Jin, a Chinese revolutionary. On Thursday, the museum said it had apologised for the “unintentional human error” and “offered financial payment for the period the translations appeared in the exhibition as…
China’s Hidden Century review – how opium and Christianity demolished a civilisation
In 1860 British and French troops pillaged and destroyed the Summer Palace of China’s Qing emperors, carrying off pieces of art and chunks of architecture – and a tiny, hairy dog who belonged to the emperor. Looty, as the dog was renamed with impeccable bad taste, was given to Queen Victoria and was the first “Pekinese” in Britain. A portrait of Looty is one of the many arresting images and facts in what must be the strangest blockbuster the British Museum has ever staged. In 2007, this museum put on…
How a Terra-Cotta Warrior Lost Its Thumb to a Delaware Shoe Salesman
If a 24-year-old shoe salesman slips away from a science museum’s ugly-sweater party and breaks into a closed exhibition of terra-cotta warriors, it is entirely possible that nothing bad will happen. Or he could steal a warrior’s thumb. After the salesman, Michael Rohana, confessed to doing that in Philadelphia six years ago, federal prosecutors sought a conviction on felony charges that could have put him in prison for decades. A jury was unable to reach a verdict in 2019, but his case is now heading for a resolution after a…
Ai Weiwei’s Lego re-imagining of Monet’s water lilies to go on show in London
Claude Monet’s monumental triptych Water Lilies 1914 -26, which depicts nature’s tranquil beauty as part of the French impressionist’s world-famous series, will take on new meaning in a giant recreation by artist and activist Ai Weiwei in his new London exhibition. Monet’s brushstrokes in his water and reflection landscapes are replaced by about 650,000 studs of Lego bricks, in 22 vivid colours, in the 15-metre-long work at the centre of Weiwei’s biggest UK show in eight years, opening next month. Entitled Water Lilies #1, it is the largest Lego artwork…
Why People Are Flocking to a Symbol of Taiwan’s Authoritarian Past
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Ringed by barbed wire and high gray walls, and once the site of a secretive military detention center, the museum just south of Taipei makes for a surprising tourist hot spot. The Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park, housed on the campus of a former military school, is a chilling reminder of the excesses of Taiwan’s not-so-distant authoritarian past when its rulers imposed martial law for four decades. The moldering concrete buildings with fading paint were once the site of secret tribunals where political dissidents were tried and…
Your Friday Briefing: Russia’s Growing Isolation
Good morning. We’re covering Russia’s departure from the U.N. human rights council, a political blow to Pakistan’s Imran Khan and Shanghai’s growing frustration with Covid restrictions. Diplomacy: Prospects for successful peace talks have dimmed: Russia’s foreign minister said Ukraine had proposed a new draft deal that deviated from previous versions, and President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus demanded that his country be included in the negotiations. State of the war: Khan in jeopardy after court ruling Pakistan’s Supreme Court overturned Prime Minister Imran Khan’s move to dissolve Parliament on Thursday, setting…