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A Spanish judge has ordered the Museo del Prado in Madrid to hold onto a painting attributed to Diego Velázquez at the center of a divorce dispute between steel magnate José María Aristrain and his ex-wife Gema Navarro, according to  El País .  The painting ended up at the Prado through a chain of state intervention. After Navarro filed a complaint alleging the work had been wrongly kept from her, a Madrid judge, acting with the support of prosecutors, ordered Spain’s Ministry of Culture to take custody of it citing its potential importance to the country’s historical heritage. The ministry then designated the Prado as custodian. The work was removed from Aristrain’s Madrid residence and transferred to the museum’s storage on March 17, where it will remain until ownership is resolved.  At the center of the dispute is a portrait of Philip IV linked to Velázquez’s early years in Madrid. A different version of the composition hangs in the Prado, and sc...

“What does Damien Hirst have to do with McDonald’s? Nothing.” So begins a perplexing Instagram video introducing an installation organized by Nicolas Ballario, founder of a Milan-based communications agency, that was on view as part of Milan Design Week. The immersive installation, “POOL. Ti sblocco un ricordo” (“Pool: I’ll Unlock a Memory for You”), is part of a series of offsite exhibitions collectively called Tortona Rocks, in the Tortona neighborhood of Milan. The centerpiece of “POOL” is a large swimming pool-shaped pit full of hundreds of thousands of colorful balls, like a McDonald’s PlayPlace ball pit on steroids. So, what does the provocative British artist have to do with all of this? Ballario’s video is unclear, explaining that Hirst’s relevance to the project, which is intended to celebrate McDonald’s 40th anniversary in Italy, is, in fact, irrelevant. “Art is compelling when it is ambiguous, when it is disorienting and fills you with doubt,” he says. Okay, then! Acco...

Entering the cavernous Magazzini del Sale in Venice, viewers encounter Nalini Malani’s animations, which are projected directly onto the uneven brick walls of the former salt warehouse. Her images flicker, dissolve, and reappear as they are cast across architecture shaped by centuries of trade. The installation feels both contemporary and archaic: moving images that seem less like digital projections than pigment placed on stone, recalling cave paintings set in motion.   This tension between past and present runs throughout Of Woman Born , Malani’s latest project, which was commissioned by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and is being presented during the opening of the Venice Biennale next month. Drawing on tens of thousands of hand-drawn images translated into animation, the installation brings together mythology, literature, and sound in a layered environment that unfolds as the viewer moves through the space. Beyond the exhibition itself, Malani has also extended one of her rec...

Scene at Kilbirnie Park on Saturday in a high scoring match between Tawa and Poneke. Photo: Kinetic Images. We are into the fifth week of the club rugby season and the Swindale Shield and other competitions are just starting to heat up. A look at Premier Swindale Shield fixtures this coming Saturday in Wellington (Premier...

At the press conference for the 42nd edition Art Brussels fair (April 23–26), director Nele Verhaeren was refreshingly straightforward. “We’re not going to hide it,” she said, referring to the event’s smaller numbers: 138 participating galleries, or 26 fewer than last year. The downsizing has meant a shift toward a “quality-first” approach, per organizers, who framed the current edition as an opportunity to create a different kind of art-fair experience that allows for both seeing a lot of art, but also taking it slower. Art Brussels “embraces a clear shift this year towards more focused, legible fairs in which the quality of the experience prevails over quantity,” according to a pre-fair press release. The reduction in exhibitors by 15 percent also meant that all the fair’s exhibitor booths could now fit in one hall of the Brussels Expo instead of 1.5 halls as it had in previous years. With mounting operational costs and ongoing geopolitical and economic tensions straining dealers, ...

Canada is putting new weight behind Nunavut’s future, announcing more than $13 million for four major projects designed to strengthen the territory’s economy, improve critical infrastructure and reinforce Arctic security. Unveiled in Iqaluit by Rebecca Chartrand, the funding through Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency will support initiatives across all three of Nunavut’s regions, with a focus on long-term economic opportunity and immediate community benefits. “These four projects reflect the Government of Canada’s commitment to working in partnership with Inuit governments and Nunavummiut to strengthen Nunavut’s economy, protect the North, and advance locally-led priorities. By investing in infrastructure, capacity building, cleaner energy, and defence readiness, these initiatives are laying the groundwork for lasting prosperity, resilience, and security for a strong Nunavut and a strong Canada,” expressed the Honourable Rebecca Chartrand, Minister of Northern and Arctic A...