• Ignored by ‘Oppenheimer,’ atomic test victims speak out

    White Sands, United States - Wesley Burris was fast asleep in bed when the world's first atomic bomb exploded just 25 miles from his front door. A blinding light filled the home in the New Mexico desert, before the impossible force of the blast shattered its windows, spraying glass across the...
  • Museum in West Bank displays Gaza’s ‘artistic demonstration’ against war

    BIRZEIT, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES – At a museum in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Gazan works on display are proclaimed to be an "ongoing artistic demonstration" in solidarity with the war-ravaged Palestinian territory. "This is not an exhibition", reads the sign at the entrance to the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, near Ramallah, showcasing...
  • Archaeological sites discovered in Southern Saudi Arabia

    ABHA, SAUDI ARABIA  - The Heritage Commission announced its most prominent discovery in Jurash, Asir region, as one of the most important archaeological sites in the south of the Kingdom, a report on Tuesday said. These were the result of strenuous excavations taking place during its 15th season in 2023....
  • Over 70 percent of musicians fear AI, says French-German study

    PARIS, FRANCE - More than two-thirds of musicians fear that artificial intelligence will make it impossible to make a living, according to a study by French and German music societies published on Tuesday. Based on a survey of over 15,000 people in the industry, France's Society of Authors, Composers and Music...
  • Expo City Dubai launches 10-day festival of Emirati light art and culture

    DUBAI, UAE - Dhai Dubai, the first-ever Emirati-led light art festival, has launched its illuminating 10-day program at Expo City Dubai. The event celebrates the rich artistic tapestry of Emirati through a series of awe-inspiring artistic projections, interactive installations, enlightening talks and creative workshops. The free-to-attend festival is created and...
  • McIlroy surges into two-shot lead at Dubai Invitational

    DUBAI, UAE -  Rory McIlroy kicked off his year with a sparkling nine-under-par 62 to take a two-stroke lead after the first round of the Dubai Invitational on Thursday. The world number two is playing his first event since the DP World Tour Championship last November, which was also played in...
  • 10m people attend Riyadh Season 2023 events in first 50 days, says report

    RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - According to the Riyadh Season, 10 million people took part in the activities organized in the first 50 days after its launch. The season started in late October, and since then, it has witnessed a large visitor turnout at all areas, with expectations that the coming...
  • Irish author Paul Lynch wins 2023 Booker Prize for fiction

    London, United Kingdom - Irish author Paul Lynch won the 2023 Booker Prize for fiction on Sunday for his novel "Prophet Song," organizers announced during a ceremony in London. Lynch pipped five other shortlisted novelists to the prestigious award for his dystopian work about an Ireland that descends into tyranny. The...
  • Turkish excavations offer vital clues of human history

    Gobekli Tepe - which experts believe was never actually inhabited - may be part of a vast sacred landscape that encompasses other hilltop sites that are believed to be even older.
  • Iran sentences film-maker over Cannes-selected movie

    The film-makers will only serve one-twentieth of their sentence, about nine days, while the remainder "will be suspended over five years," according to Etemad, which added the verdict can be appealed. During the suspension period, the defendants will be required to take a film-making course while "preserving national and ethical...
  • Huge investments help Saudi cinema soft power grow

    Saudi largesse for the arts has boomed under the kingdom's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with billions pouring into previously taboo areas such as music, fashion and sports.
  • Iraq artist battles to save old boating tradition

    The elegant water craft have long been vastly outnumbered by modern, motorised vessels and are threatened further as Iraq's waterways suffer from droughts linked to climate woes.
  • Omani novelist’s book on water wins top Arabic fiction prize

    Alqasmi, who has published four novels and 10 poetry collections, is the first Omani winner of the prize, now in its 16th year. He was announced this year's winner at a ceremony in the United Arab Emirates' capital of Abu Dhabi.
  • Rare Hebrew Bible, Rousseau up for sale in New York

    At Christie's, the star lot is Henri Rousseau's "Les Flamants," which is set to smash the record price at auction for the renowned French post-impressionist painter.
  • Abu Dhabi Festival celebrates 20 years with record number of visitors

    Abu Dhabi, UAE— More than 20,000 people visited the 20th edition of Abu Dhabi Festival in the first twenty days of March this year, drawing culture, arts, and music lovers from all walks of life. Held under the honorary patronage of Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s Minister...
  • Artists close ranks in order to fight AI programs that copy their styles

    Fury erupted in the art community last year with the release of generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs that can convincingly carry out commands such as drawing a dog like cartoonist Sarah Andersen would, or a nymph the way illustrator Karla Ortiz might do. Such style-swiping AI works are cranked out...
  • $42,000 Koons sculpture breaks at art fair

    The mishap occurred during a VIP preview at Art Wynwood in Miami, and some collectors thought it was performance art or a staged stunt.
  • Arada finalizes first set of homes worth $6.53bn in third phase of Sharjah project

    SHARJAH, UAE -- Arada announced on Tuesday that it has completed the first set of homes in East Village as part of its AED24 billion megaproject Aljada in Sharjah. Under the project, a total of 1,621 apartments have been finished across 14 buildings, local media reports said. Featuring 2,000 units...
  • Egypt dusts off pyramids for fashion and art shows

    French fashion house Dior debuted its latest collection Saturday at the Giza pyramids, after Italian designer Stefano Ricci held a show at Luxor's Temple of Hatshepsut in Oct.
  • Museum of London packs up for $260m move

    The new museum, set to open in 2026, will follow the history of London from its earliest days through Roman habitation and seismic events such as the bubonic plague, the Great Fire of 1666 and World War II.
  • Microsoft co-founder’s art to fetch US$1bn at auction

    Expected to fetch more than $1 billion at the two-day sale in New York, late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's art collection will be up for grabs at Christie's at a time when experts say the super wealthy are viewing art as a safe investment this year amid a tumultuous global...
  • Auctioneers unveil Microsoft co-founder’s $1bn art collection

    Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, becoming fabulously rich as the company grew into the computing behemoth it is today. By the time he died in 2018 at the age of 65, he had bought some of the most important works created in the last half a millennium.
  • Louvre Abu Dhabi celebrates fifth anniversary with art show

    To mark the fifth anniversary of the opening of Louvre Abu Dhabi, a major exhibition of impressionist art opened in the capital of the UAE, featuring works from masters like Pissarro, Renoir and many others. It is billed as one of the most significant exhibitions on the 19th century art...
  • After long renovation, Qatar reopens Museum of Islamic Art

    Looking to showcase Islamic culture and art and history, Qatar has unveiled its landmark Museum of Islamic Art after an 18-month renovation ahead of the World Cup. The five-story building has redesigned its collections, with some two-thirds of the thousand exhibits new to the museum.
  • Israeli researchers find opium residue in 3,500-year-old pottery

    Researchers examined whether they had served as containers for the drug, which earlier writing had suggested was used in burial rituals in Canaan, and found "opium residue in eight vessels", the researchers said in a statement. These were likely "placed in graves for ceremonial meals, rites and rituals performed by...
  • Egypt looks to regain its glorious past

    As Cairo gears up to open "the largest archaeological museum in the world," Egypt's former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass said he will soon demand the return of its greatest lost treasures.
  • Christie’s to auction Paul Allen’s $1bn art collection

    The November sale of more than 150 pieces spanning 500 years of art will be "the largest and most exceptional art auction in history," Christie's said in a statement.
  • NFTs: Digital way to own art, music, videos

    Everything is open-sourced, permission less and on-chain, Holaplex CEO Alex Kehaya tells TRENDS on the rising popularity of NFTs.
  • A ballet with machines: Is Artificial Intelligence the future of art?

    To many they are art's next big thing -- digital images of jellyfish pulsing and blurring in a dark pink sea, or dozens of butterflies fusing together into a single organism. The Argentine artist Sofia Crespo, who created the works with the help of artificial intelligence, is part of the...
  • Sufi dervishes of Egypt keep alive old tradition

    In a 500-year-old stone theatre in the Egyptian capital, two young dervishes spin ceaselessly. Slowly, then all at once, they are consumed in a flurry of vivid fabrics.
  • Making art in Jordan out of trash

    Jordan-based artist Maria Nissan is on a mission: to rid the world of single-use plastics and to raise public awareness about the environmental scourge through eye-catching art.
  • Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe fetches $195m

    The painting beat the previous record for a 20th-century work, Pablo Picasso's Women of Algiers, which sold for $179.4 million in 2015.
  • Where Paris hides some of its best art

    The Paris contemporary art scene has partly got its mojo back thanks to a slew of new museums, including the Louis Vuitton Foundation and Bourse de Commerce.
  • Riyadh Season 2021 ends, welcomes more than 15 million visitors

    Middle East’s largest entertainment event, Riyadh Season 2021, which concluded on March 31, welcomed more than 15 million visitors, according to Saudi media reports. The Season’s second edition was launched on October 20 last year. Organized by the Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, the first edition of the event was...
  • Art sales hit all-time high in 2021, continue rapid growth in Asia

    Art auctions saw a record year in 2021 with $17.1 billion (15.6 billion euros) in sales as the market continued its rapid growth in Asia and recovered from its coronavirus slump, experts Artprice said Monday. The figure marked a 60-percent increase on 2020, when sales were hit by the initial...
  • Amid NFT boom, artists worry about climate costs

    Most NFTs are currently traded on Ethereum, which reportedly uses as much electricity as all of the Netherlands, with a carbon footprint comparable to Singapore's.
  • Why crypto creators hate being in the public eye

    The two lifelong friends from Florida never sought the limelight, but then they built a multi-million-dollar empire selling digital art and people wanted to know who they were.
  • Not selling NFTs, says Picasso family

    They said the only work being auctioned was by Picasso’s great grandson Florian and his collaborators.
  • Arabic instrumentalist hopes to ‘change soul’ of Iraq with music

    Naseer Shamma, an icon of the Arabic oud, has returned home to help rekindle the flame of Iraqi music, snuffed out by decades of conflict.
  • US museum pays record $53m Caillebotte art

    The Getty Museum in Los Angeles purchased Gustave Caillebotte's painting Young Man at His Window for $53 million.
  • Riyadh Art launches Tuwaiq Sculpture Symposium

    Tuwaiq Sculpture is the second public art programme to be launched as part of Riyadh Art,
  • Global Town festival showcases diverse cultures

    The festival dispensed cultural knowledge through visual experiences and services.
  • US, Bahrain vow to fight illicit cultural property trade

    Bahrain enjoys a prominent role in the art world, serving as the host of the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage. The US remains the world’s largest art market.
  • Art sales rebound to an all-time high of $2.7 billion after Covid-19 slump

    Sales soared between June 2020 and June 2021 as auctioneers quickly adopted a more online approach.
  • Art flourishes on the walls of Morocco

    Lhamzi is one of a new generation of artists whose murals are changing the face of Morocco's cities.
  • Iranian artworks fetch over $10m during Tehran Auction

    A total of 120 lots of modern and contemporary Iranian works of art were offered during the auction at Tehran’s Parsian Azadi Hotel.
  • Chevron JV wins $240m Bapco deal

    This is the largest catalyst management deal in Bapco’s history.
  • ‘The Fabrics of Life’; celebrating Middle East’s rich past

    British Museum in London will in October open two new galleries with material from the Middle East, tracing the rich history and culture of the region. One will feature ceramics, glass and metalwork. The other will display some of the 3,000 examples of textiles held by the museum. Fahmida Suleman,...
  • Fifth edition of arab luxury world draws to a successful close

    The fifth edition of arab luxury world, the Middle East’s leading conference on the business of luxury, has drawn to a successful close. This year, regional and global experts from the world of luxury converged at the JW Marriott Marquis Dubai, to discuss ‘The New Consumer, Consumption, and Change.' The...
  • “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt”

    By Tim Kennedy Several millennia ago, the common house cat (Felis silvestriscatus) was revered in ancient Egypt and conferred the name “Mau”, a godlike honorific. Mau were welcome in households because of their ability to kill rats, mice and even snakes such as cobras.  Egypt’s Pharaonic royal families also admired...