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Belgian Museum Now Faces Its Colonial Past
Aimé Mpane remembers when he first saw the old statues. It was 1994, and the Congolese visual artist had just moved to Belgium, which once ruled his country. Growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mpane says he had been taught in school that the Congolese were descended from the Gauls — "that they were our kings."
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"In our schoolbooks, it was as if the Congolese did not exist without Belgian colonialists," says Mpane, 50. His work explores the memory of colonialism in Congo and Belgium. "I wanted to know what [the Belgians] knew about us."
"When I walked inside, it struck me that our history had been confiscated," he says through a translator. "That when our children come here, they would not see a positive image of themselves."
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Bono, Pharrell, Laurie Anderson And More ... Cat
When T Magazine profiled the French artist Sophie Calle in April 2017, she appeared to be pregnant. Calle was 63 then, and the writer, Mary Kaye Schilling, admitted to being surprised at the sight of the artist's swollen belly. A pregnancy would have been more than possible, as an Indian woman proved a year before Schilling showed up on Calle's doorstep. As it turned out, however, the unwaveringly conceptual Calle, a giant in her native country known for positioning herself at the center of her works, was in the midst of carrying out a project she had abandoned: giving birth to her cat, Souris. (That's "Mouse" in English.)
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Missing Picasso Possibly Found In Romania
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An image shows the paintings stolen from the Netherlands' Kunsthal museum in 2012 — including Picasso's Tête d'Arlequin at bottom right. Two Dutch citizens claim to have found the missing Picasso work, Romanian prosecutors said on Sunday.
A painting by Pablo Picasso that was stolen from a Dutch museum six years ago may have resurfaced in Romania, prosecutors say.
In a 2012 heist, thieves entered the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam and made off with seven works by masters including Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin — as well as Tête d'Arlequin, a 1971 painting by Picasso. Authorities put the work's value at about $900,000.
Until now, none of the works had been recovered, and most or all of them were thought to have been burned.
Prosecutors say the recovered painting is being examined for authentication.
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The Road Less Traveled: Abbi Jacobson
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Before I make a decision, I tend to think about all the possible outcomes. I like to be prepared. This tendency unfortunately mainly includes obsessing over the ways in which things could go terribly of course, but it’s better to be informed. So, before embarking on a solo cross-country drive that I would then write about in a book, I made a list of possible worst-case scenarios. The road trip alone was terrifying, but writing about it afterward? A lot could go wrong. So, what's the worst that could happen?
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Mural Attributed To Banksy Stolen From Paris
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The painting in its original place at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris.
A mural attributed to the British street artist Banksy was stolen this weekend from the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. The painting, of a ghostly veiled figure with a downcast gaze, is believed to be a memorial to the 90 people who died there in a 2015 terrorist attack.
The painting appeared in 2018 on an exit door; police sources told Reuters that the thieves appear to have stolen the entire door.
Bataclan director Florence Jeux told NBC News that security camera footage depicts the thieves cutting the door away and driving off with it. According to Jeux, the robbery took roughly 10 minutes. "The painting was even protected by a Plexiglass. The whole door disappeared," Jeux said. "The security alarms went off and our security agency immediately alerted us."
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Back with a new film called Velvet Buzzsaw
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Director Dan Gilroy is back with a new film called Velvet Buzzsaw.
Like his last movie, Nightcrawler, Gilroy is the writer and director. And also like his last film, this one stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo. Gyllenhaal plays an art critic named Morf Vandewalt, Russo a gallery owner named Rhodora Haze. And the movie hinges around the work of the late artist Vetril Dease.
As the names may give away, Velvet Buzzsaw is a comedy. It's also a horror movie, where the killer is - wait for it - the works of art.
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