April 5 – July 30, 2023

May 19 – July 29, 2023

From Blue Beetle and Bottoms to Red, White & Royal Blue

June 29 – August 4, 2023

June 10 – August 6, 2023

How a fake 'documentary' about human flesh-eating caused a stir

Is it time to reconsider the singer's legacy?

April 26 – July 29, 2023

June 30 – July 29, 2023

Christopher Nolan deviates from history in two of the film's key scenes

June 9 – July 22, 2023

July 30, 2022 – October 31, 2023

June 24 – July 22, 2023

June 3 – July 23, 2023

The fictional outsiders who fight authority are the most memorable – why?

How the divisive costumes in And Just Like That reveal the characters' stories

Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s entertainment agency, is a well-oiled machine, capable of putting together complex live performances all around the world for millions of fans. But, to create The Book of HOV, a public exhibition chronicling Jay-Z’s musical legacy at the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), Roc Nation found itself with a unique challenge: how to build a sprawling exhibition inside a public library. An added wrinkle: they had to make sure it was designed in such a way that patrons could continue to use the library while the show was on view.

To accomplish this, Roc Nation brought on partners the company had collaborated with in the past, like Bruce Rodgers’ Tribe Inc, which had produced 17 Super Bowls, 4 of them alongside Roc Nation, and Ian Schatzberg’s General Idea Agency (GIA), a brand design agency. Together, with the input of Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Jay-Z’s art dealer, and many other experts and crews, The Book of HOV came together.

“It’s not a classic museum exhibition in a traditional museum context, obviously,” Schatzberg told ARTnews. “The ambition was to design a story about Brooklyn’s finest, within the context of one of Brooklyn’s great public institutions, while also augmenting and amplifying the sort of ethos and purpose of the public library, which was to be accessible for everybody.”

But because the library isn’t designed as an exhibition space to move people sequentially from room to room, Schatzberg and his team had to come up with an exhibition that didn’t need to be experienced chronologically. Instead, GIA focused on creating thematic chapters that could be viewed out of order, while reflecting on their context within the library.

“For example, with the young adult section and kids section, we were attentive to those audiences,” said Schatzberg. “How do we tell a story thinking about philanthropic efforts and public leadership to young people?”

Following the release of his second series of silkscreen prints at Castle Fine Arts earlier this year, the embattled actor Johnny Depp has decided to continue his artistic practice by tackling a new subject: himself, according to the Associated Press.

The mixed-media silkscreen and archival pigment work is based on an image from a photoshoot directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino for Dior’s fragrance Sauvage. According to a promotional video, the work’s title, Five, relates to what Depp calls “the fifth year of madness” that surrounded him following the libel trials between the actor and his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, who claimed in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed that Depp physically abused her.

In one trial, in Virginia, Heard lost, with the jury claiming that her references to “sexual violence” and “domestic abuse” amounted to defamation. Another trial was held in England when Depp sued the owner of the Sun after that publication reported that he had abused Heard. Depp lost that trial and was subsequently asked to step back from the “Fantastic Beasts” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” film series.

Depp began work on the portrait in 2021, during what he described in the promotional video as a “time that was, let’s say, a bit dark, a bit confusing.”

The work continues the comic book style screenprints that Depp sold through Castle both last year and in March 2023. The series “Friends & Heroes” and “Friends & Heroes II” featured celebrities who either inspired Depp or whom he befriended during his almost 40-year acting career, including Heath Ledger, Bob Marley, River Phoenix, and Hunter S. Thompson.

Two climate activists who glued their hands to the frame of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna at the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden should pay for “community damage to property,” the Dresden prosecutor’s office announced today. 

According to dpa, the prosecutor’s office has requested the 22-year-old and 29-year-old activists each pay 1,500 euros.

The pair, members of the German environmental group Letzte Generation (Last Generation), entered the gallery on August 23, 2022, and attached one hand each to the frame of the world-famous altar painting from the 16th century. The picture itself was not damaged, however the demonstration left traces of superglue on the frame and harmed the frame’s protective finish, resulting in property damages of around 2,300 euros. 

The Dresden State Art Collections (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, more commonly called SKD) subsequently filed a complaint with the city’s public prosecutor’s office for “damage to property that is harmful to the community” and initiated civil proceedings for damages. The pair has also been banned from all 15 of SKD’s institutions.

The case against a 23-year-old activist who filmed the action and posted it to social media was dropped. 

An ancient Maya relief sculpture that was identified in a German antique shop has been returned to Mexico via the Mexican consulate in Frankfurt on Tuesday. It’s believed that the artifact was looted from Mexico.

The relief carving depicts a profile of a skull. Experts believe the block relief would have been part of a wall, where similarly stacked carvings were intended to recall a Tzompantli (skull rack). Mesoamerican palisades were part of a ritual display of skulls belonging to sacrificial victims and prisoners of war.

The artifact is thought to have been created during the Late Classic or Postclassical Mesoamerican periods between 750–1244 CE and it has similarities to objects from the famous Mayan city Chichén Itzá.

“The restitution of this archaeological piece is a sample of the work of the government of Mexico, and the success of the legal strategy of the foreign ministry’s legal team, in the identification and restitution of the patrimony of the country that is abroad, as well as the fight against the trafficking of cultural assets and international cooperation for the conservation of the historical past of nations,” a spokesperson for Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said in a statement.

As part of a larger campaign by the Mexican government to recover illegally trafficked and culturally significant artifacts, the country has seen the return of a 2,500-year-old Olmec statue, 65 pre-Hispanic artifacts, and a U-shaped stone trophy in the last year alone.