What this collaboration between artists and health-care leaders teaches us about living through COVID-19
A new project that spotlights the strain from COVID-19 on our health systems and the people who work in them has invited health-care leaders and artists to create artworks that illuminate what it has been like leading, working and living…
a Black British artist you need to know about
From the ongoing debacle of the Windrush scandal to the UK government’s dubious race report and the pervasive online abuse endured by Black British footballers – what does it mean to be Black and British today? And what has this…
French Dispatch: four artists whose work was shaped by mental illness
Wes Anderson’s new film The French Dispatch is about the final issue of a magazine that specialises in long-form articles about the goings-on in the fictional town of Ennui-sur-Blasé. The film is an anthology of shorts representing three of the…
How AI is hijacking art history
People tend to rejoice in the disclosure of a secret. Or, at the very least, media outlets have come to realize that news of “mysteries solved” and “hidden treasures revealed” generate traffic and clicks. So I’m never surprised when I…
How Hollywood’s ‘Alien’ and ‘Predator’ movies reinforce anti-Black racism
What makes Black people more likely than others to be killed, beaten, tortured and raped by white police officers and vigilantes? Although Black men are killed by the police more than any other group, Black women are regular targets of…
lessons from around the world
During the COVID-19 pandemic, arranging protests and political movements in the streets has proven challenging due to social distancing orders. Campaigns around the world such as the #ClimateStrike movement initiated by Greta Thunberg have moved online through the use of…
Cambodia is an inspiration for the healing power of art after a crisis
Even though history has seen different disasters and humanitarian crises, one fact remains: we try to understand what is happening by seeing how others coped, comparing our reaction to theirs. These comparisons allow us to shed light on the best…
The value of a banana: understanding absurd and ephemeral artwork
In September, the Guggenheim Museum in New York acquired Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian by anonymous donation. The work – a banana duct-taped to a wall — was first shown and sold at the Art Basel fair in Miami Beach in the…
‘Homeless Jesus’ sculpture goes viral after 911 call
Recently, a life-size bronze sculpture of Jesus, called Homeless Jesus, went viral after someone made a 911 call about a homeless man on a bench. The bronze sculpture by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz depicts Jesus, identifiable by the wounds on…
Remembrance Day: How a Canadian painter broke boundaries on the First World War battlefields
“I cannot talk, I can only paint.” This is how Canadian battlefield painter Mary Riter Hamilton (1867-1954) summarized her urgent response to witnessing the large-scale destruction of the First World War. The 51-year-old artist began painting the devastated regions of…
