Indian painter Maqbool Fida Husain has been commissioned by a Bombay businessman to create a series of paintings called “Our Planet Called Earth” for $21 million. “It is believed to be the biggest ever art deal in India. Husain, who is almost a cult figure in the world of Indian art, says he will use the proceeds of his sale to make a mega-budget Bollywood film.”
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British Library Puts Shakespeare OnLine
“The British Library is putting online 93 high-resolution digitised copies of 21 of Shakespeare’s plays. The texts date from Shakespeare’s lifetime and are pamphlet editions of plays prepared to be sold after performances had finished. The printed works show how the text evolved and cast doubt on the idea of definitive versions of his plays.”
Stolen Painting Turns Up 20 Years Later
A Maxfield Parrish painting, stolen 20 years ago in San Francsico, has turned up just blocks away from the gallery where it was stolen. “Investigators have been told that somehow it wound up with the owner of a hair salon, who died and left it to the woman who had cared for her, who in turn died and left it to her son. The son was trying to sell it at the Geary Street gallery, unaware it had been stolen.”
Veterans Criticize Warhol Museum Plans
American veterans groups are criticizing the Warhol Museum’s plan to show images from the Abu Ghraib scandal. “Tom Sokolowski, the Warhol museum’s director, said Friday the museum has not decided which photos will be displayed, but will choose from numerous images collected from various news outlets and Web sites.”
Where Dreams May Come (From)
“Orthodox theory says that dreaming is linked to a phenomenon called rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. That orthodoxy has been challenged of late, by studies that show people dreaming during other phases of sleep, as well. It also challenges the idea that dreaming is somehow necessary for mental well-being—in particular, the theory that it is involved in the process of memory formation.”
American Cultural Exchanges Fall Off
“The annual number of academic and cultural exchanges has dropped from 45,000 in 1995 to 29,000 in 2001. This means that far fewer American artists, including performing artists, are being given chances to ply their crafts on foreign soil. The study presumes that those figures have decreased even further in recent years.
Old Underground Movie Theatre Discovered In Paris
“Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital’s chic 16th arrondissement. Officers admit they are at a loss to know who built or used one of Paris’s most intriguing recent discoveries.”
Riding The Internet To Musical Fame
“While the recording business litigates and lobbies over music being given away online, countless musicians are taking advantage of the Internet to get their music heard. They are betting that if they give away a song or two, they will build audiences, promote live shows and sell more recordings.”
How The Internet Saved Bookstores
It wasn’t too long ago that many were predicting that the internet would kill bookstores. “The internet was supposed to bid farewell to the need for buying books in shops. When the dotcom bubble was at its peak, web gurus claimed sites such as Amazon would undercut and undermine traditional bookstores, and that ebooks would eventually do away with “dead tree” media altogether. But what no one saw coming was that the internet would, in fact, provide a lifeline for possibly the least fashionable and most technologically backward part of the marketplace: old books.”
Stars Vie For Architecture Prize
The Riba Stirling Architecture Prize is Britain’s most prestigious. This year’s finalists include some of the world’s best-known architects. “The list was generally welcomed by architects yesterday for its variety, although punters showed an overwhelming early preference for the gherkin: the new London landmark took 57% of the first 4,140 votes cast in a BBC internet poll, while Libeskind got 13% and the innovative Kunsthaus in Graz, designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, was a whisker behind with 12%.”