In the world of high-fashion and even higher-stakes real estate, few addresses carry the ghosts of art history quite like 57 Great Jones Street. Once the studio of Jean-Michel Basquiat and owned by Andy Warhol, the building is practically a temple of creativity. So, when Angelina Jolie took over the space for her new creative venture, Atelier Jolie, it felt like the perfect passing of the torch. But as it turns out, even having an Oscar […]
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In the complex, often heartbreaking landscape of cultural heritage law, every now and then a story emerges that’s simply too poignant to ignore. Case in point: an exhibition in New Delhi, featuring Afghan Buddhist and other Eurasian artifacts, organized by an Italian museum. This is not mere cultural exchange; it’s a powerful, circular narrative of protection, destruction, and shared history. The pieces, tracing the long arc of cultural exchange from ancient India to the Mediterranean, […]
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The future of the creative economy—and possibly human self-worth—now rests on a question of legal semantics: Can a machine be an “author”? Computer scientist Stephen Thaler has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the denial of copyright protection for an image titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” a work his AI system, DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience), created autonomously. Thaler isn’t claiming he authored it; he explicitly listed the AI as the author. This […]
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In Kerala, a fascinating cultural alliance has taken root. The Shevadhi Museum, in collaboration with Alliance University, will study ancient palm-leaf manuscripts held at the centuries-old Kumaranalloor Devi Temple. These manuscripts, often preserved in hidden temple treasuries, carry liturgical texts, family histories, almanacs, ritual instructions and more. The project is significant not only for its content but for who is involved: a religious institution, a museum, and academic researchers working together. This cooperation underscores how […]
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For more than three decades, tattooing in South Korea lived in the shadows. The practice thrived, with an estimated 350,000 tattoo artists across the country, but the law treated it as criminal unless carried out by a medical professional. The contradiction was absurd: while eyebrow tattoos were quietly common among parliamentarians, a young artist risked jail for inking a client’s wrist. That era has now ended. The National Assembly has passed the Tattooist Act, allowing […]
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New Delhi will finally unlock more of its past. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has taken a solid step by getting in-principle approval from the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts to convert the restored Lahori Gate Haveli, built in 1929, into the Shahjahanabad Interpretation Centre and museum. The site lies in Khari Baoli, in a square where lanes spill out from spice bazaars, bustling markets, and the old Delhi Railway Station. The plan […]
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The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is preparing “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream,” a major retrospective expected to show works by the seminal Afro-Cuban Surrealist. But several important pieces from Cuba’s National Museum of Fine Arts will not be part of the exhibition. Cuban officials declined to lend those works over fears that U.S. courts might seize them in legal claims brought by exiles over property confiscated after the […]
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Let’s be honest: history often gets a bad rap. It’s seen as dusty, sequestered, and something that happened exclusively to people who wore powdered wigs. But in the vibrant coastal state of Goa, a group of college students and their professor, Rohit Phalgaonkar, are proving that history isn’t dead; it’s just scattered in three pieces at the bottom of a temple tank, waiting for a passionate student to fish it out. At the Sant Sohirobanath […]
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Introduction Few artists in modern India embody adoration and controversy like Maqbool Fida Husain, more popularly known as M.F. Husain did and continues to do. Often celebrated as among India’s leading modern artists, unfortunately, Husain spent his final years outside India. This was not because he was exiled by some law or decree, but by a steady barrage of court cases that in most cases edged on harassment. Now, more than a decade after his […]
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The energy industry often operates on the assumption that if a project is big enough, its economic gravitational pull will simply warp the legal landscape to accommodate it. However, the proposed extension of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas processing plant in Western Australia—set to run until 2070—is proving to be a legal gauntlet. Facing challenges from both the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Friends of Australian Rock Art (FoARA), the federal environment minister’s approval is […]
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