Italy challenges US gun ad using Michelangelo's DavidItaly's Culture Minister Dario Franceschini Saturday called for a US guns dealer to withdraw an advertisement using an image of Michelangelo's David -- but with the famed statue holding a bolt-action rifle.
11 March 2014
Art with a punch: Liu Bolin, 'China's Andy Warhol'Emerging from the acrid fumes at a steelworks, artist Liu Bolin inspects the progress of his latest work -- a giant iron fist, poised to punch a hole through modern China.
08 March 2014
Ai Weiwei brushes off painter's smashing of $1m vaseChinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei shrugged off the smashing of a $1 million Han dynasty vase that was part of his exhibition at a Miami museum, saying his works often get broken.
19 February 2014
Coloured tattoos escape ban in FranceTattoo artists in France, who were up in arms about a government ban on certain dyes, say the health ministry has reassured them they will be able to keep using coloured ink, attributing the uproar to a misunderstanding of thousands of pages of regulations.
26 December 2013
Three Norman Rockwell works sell for almost $60 mnThree oil paintings by Norman Rockwell, the celebrated 20th century master illustrator of everyday life in America, sold Wednesday for almost $60 million, setting a new record for the artist.
06 December 2013
'Banksy' Lego-style crime mural goes viral in MalaysiaA street mural that was whitewashed by authorities because it highlighted Malaysia's crime problem has gone viral, with versions popping up across the country and earning their creator comparisons to UK graffiti artist Banksy.
21 November 2013
Afghanistan's modern artists puzzle and provokeShocking, intimate and often bemusing to outsiders, the modern art produced by a small group of young Afghans would come as a surprise to connoisseurs who stalk the galleries of New York, London and Tokyo.
16 November 2013
Empty chair to represent China's Ai Weiwei at Sweden film festWhen the Stockholm Film Festival opens Wednesday, the jury will include world-famous Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei -- in spirit only, represented by an empty chair he designed himself.
05 November 2013
Brazil singers fight for right to veto biographiesFamous Brazilian songwriters -- long activists for freedom of expression -- are themselves coming under fire as they fight an attempt to overturn a law allowing celebrities to veto unauthorized biographies.
15 October 2013
Cher & Co won't make room for Miley Cyrus generationCher may have her ideal burial place all mapped out, but the veteran pop star is far from having one foot in the grave with a new album and feisty views on feminism and the "genius" of Miley Cyrus.
12 October 2013
Young artists shine at Hong Kong contemporary art showWith artwork sprawled on queen-sized beds, hung in front of television sets and even placed on toilet counters, Hong Kong's Asia Contemporary Art Show has an unusual take on what constitutes an art gallery.
07 October 2013
Matisse cut-outs going on show in LondonThe biggest exhibition of Matisse's paper cut-outs -- a technique the French artist invented in his final years -- is going on show in London.
Thai nomad theatres strive to preserve ancient art They eat, sleep and raise their children beneath the stage floorboards and when dusk falls Thailand's travelling theatres come to life with ornate costumes, colourful face paint and high-pitched Chinese opera.
Renoir's personal items to be auctioned in New York A mass of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's personal items will be auctioned in New York next month in what is billed as the biggest collection of the French Impressionist artist's memorabilia.
Granddaughter puts Picasso muse nudes on show Four decades after Pablo Picasso's death, the gates of the house she inherited, along with thousands of his art works, are always promptly opened to visitors.