Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
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Not all arts news tonight, but some art stuff is more entertaining. We begin with this from the BBC:
By Nicola Bryan
When Banksy artwork Season's Greetings appeared on a garage in Port Talbot in 2018 it kicked off a three-year saga that ended in it being removed from the town.
But more than five years on it has left a lasting legacy - a vibrant street art community.
"There were people doing it anyway," said steelworker and street artist Ryan Davies.
From The Guardian:
1920s canvas of Dutch woman, to be shown for first time at Holt festival, has slit from border guards’ bayonets
Among the works on show at the exhibition of German expressionists at the Holt festival, there are paintings by masters such as Klimt and Schiele. But one canvas among the masterpieces, a simple portrait by a little-known painter and academic being displayed for the first time, may stop visitors in their tracks – not for the deftness of the brushstrokes, or the vibrancy of the colours but for the deep gash across the neck of the subject.
The 1920s painting of a Dutch woman in traditional costume is badly damaged, but its owners have no intention of repairing it before its first-ever forthcoming exhibition, and with good reason.
From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
About 75 years ago, Jackson Pollock revolutionized the art world with his distinctive style of painting. He would lay the canvas on the floor and with his arms outstretched, pour or drip cans of paint directly onto its surface. The technique invited admirers and detractors alike, along with scandals involving forged canvases turning up decades after his death.
Richard Taylor, a professor of physics, psychology, and art at University of Oregon has been using computers for more than 25 years to analyze Pollock’s paintings and help authenticate canvases of uncertain origin. He recently collaborated with two former UO doctoral students to develop a tool using AI to distinguish between genuine and imitation Pollock paintings with 99% accuracy. Taylor joins us to talk about the recently published results, and the role AI may increasingly play in the art world.
From CNN:
A controversial statue by Pakistani-American sculptor Shahzia Sikander — one of a handful of public pieces by the celebrated artist — has been beheaded at the University of Houston.
“Witness,” a larger-than-life, 18-foot golden statue of a levitating woman, was originally commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy in Manhattan and an appellate court of the Supreme Court of the State of New York nearby. Created as a celebration of women and justice, the statue’s hair was braided into two ram horns (a symbol of strength, according to Madison Square Park’s
exhibition guide) and features a large hoop skirt — inspired by the stained-glass ceiling dome at the courthouse — smattered with shards of painted mosaic pieces: A woman decorated by a broken glass ceiling.
Below the fold, some non-arts stories, but there is more arts news at the end of the diary. Just scroll down if you want to skip over the mess of the more serious happenings.
From Reuters:
MUMBAI, July 12 (Reuters) - The wedding of a scion from India's ultra-wealthy Ambani family - much in the news for its opulent celebrations and VIP-studded guest list - has suddenly developed more political overtones with posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi now lining the road to the venue.
The four-day extravaganza will see Anant Ambani, 29 - the youngest son of Asia's richest person Mukesh Ambani - marry his long-time girlfriend Radhika Merchant, 29 on Friday, followed by three days of receptions.
If you want details about the wedding, the BBC has more.
Another from the BBC:
By Tessa Wong
Rescuers are searching for more than 60 missing people in Nepal after a massive landslide swept two buses into a river.
Some spoke of their terrifying ordeal, with one saying he was "thrown out of the window of the bus into the river".
Only three people appeared to have survived the accident, which took place in the early hours of Friday.
From NPR:
The world population is predicted to peak at about 10.3 billion people in the 2080s, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations.
The agency's 2024 World Population Prospects study projects the population will begin to fall after that, to about 10.2 billion people by the century’s end. Though, immigration can help slow the decrease.
From the New York Times:
The number found dead or injured in the rubble of the private school in Nigeria was still climbing and dozens, including many students, remained trapped, authorities said.
By Elian Peltier and Ismail Alfa
Another from the New York Times:
Huge blazes are spreading hundreds of miles across some of the most biodiverse parts of Brazil, with the worst of the annual fire season still weeks away.
Brazil is still weeks away from its traditional fire season, but hundreds of blazes, fanned by searing temperatures, are already laying waste to the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands, and to parts of the Amazon rainforest.
Scientists say the burning of such vast swaths of land may represent a new normal under rising global temperatures and uneven rain, making efforts to save some of the world’s most important ecosystems much harder.
From the National Catholic Reporter:
The gods must be angry — or just laughing at the hubris of humanity.
Authorities in Mexico have slapped a "closure" order on a 10-foot aquatic statue of the Greek god of the sea Poseidon that was erected in May in the Gulf of Mexico just off the town of Progreso, Yucatan.
Mexico's environmental protection agency said July 11 that the statue, which appears to show an angry trident-wielding Poseidon "rising" from the sea a few meters from the beach, lacked permits. In the few months it has been up, tourists had gathered to take pictures of themselves with it as a striking background.
From the Washington Post:
Guillaume Lethière’s epic life is the subject of a stunning new exhibition, in the U.S. before it travels to the Louvre.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — During the most tumultuous period in France’s modern history, Guillaume Lethière was one of its most venerated artists. His story is epic. Charles Dickens or Alexandre Dumas (who delivered a eulogy at Lethière’s funeral) would have struggled to make it sound credible. Pity me, your poor reviewer.
He was the third child (“Le Thière” is French for “the third”) of an enslaved, mixed-race woman and a White plantation owner. Today, his paintings — some of them cinematic in scale — can be found in museums in the United States and Europe, including the Louvre, and also in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Among his smaller works is one of the most tender and beautiful portraits I know.
From Concho Valley:
SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) —Concho Valley residents can now immerse themselves in the photographic world of Will Wilson at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts.
SAMFA will be hosting a special free family day on Sunday, July 13, providing an opportunity for the community to explore Wilson’s vision free of charge.
From the Associated Press:
BY CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-MCLAY
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — They were billed as artworks by Pablo Picasso, paintings so valuable that an Australian art museum’s decision to display them in an exhibition restricted to women visitors provoked a gender discrimination lawsuit. The paintings again prompted international headlines when the gallery re-hung them in a women’s restroom to sidestep a legal ruling that said men could not be barred from viewing them.
But the artworks at the center of the uproar were not really by Picasso or the other famed artists billed as their creators, it emerged this week when the curator of the women-only exhibition admitted she had painted them herself.
From the BBC:
By Nathan Hemmingham
A painting picked up at a French flea market by a woman from East Yorkshire has been sold for thousands.
Kate Pottage, from Cherry Burton, spotted the picture in April lying on a pavement in Amiens at one of the largest flea markets in Europe.
Ms Pottage agreed to pay £34 (40 euros) and said it was not until she was back home that she realised it was the work of 20th Century British artist Patrick Heron.
From Agence France Presse:
The 12th-century structure and the artworks inside it sustained no significant damage
Firefighters have extinguished a blaze that broke out in a historic cathedral in Rouen, France. The fire caused no significant damage to the Gothic structure, which Claude Monet famously depicted in numerous paintings.
The blaze began around noon on July 11, when a plastic tarp covering part of the cathedral’s spire caught fire, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). After trying to contain the flames themselves, workers called in emergency services.