Reckless Reality |

The watercolours are early examples of the fascist’s work and were painted during his twenties, when he was a struggling artist.

The array of 13 pieces is expected to attract great interest and could fetch thousands of pounds at an auction next month.

Among them is a self-portrait by the infamous German leader. Signed with the initials A.H., the picture of a man sitting on a stone bridge appears to depict the Austrian-born politician’s trademark side-parting. Read the rest of this entry »

In perhaps the ultimate display of painstaking patience, Buddhist monks in Thailand built up an entire temple out of used beer bottles. Holy men in Sisaket province collected a million green Heineken and brown Chang beer bottles to build the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple. Even the washrooms and the crematorium are built of bottles.

Art judges in the Latvian capital granted top honors to a sculpture made entirely of human excrement at the final ceremony of a three day long festival of modern art put on by the University of Riga.

The sculpture, which stands approximately 6 feet high, is the work of 33 year old Latvian artist Ivars Jansons, who intended it to be a commentary on modern consumption. “Rarely do we think of where all that we consume goes,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. “Now you see, whatever goes in the system, the result is the same.” Read the rest of this entry »

LONDON – Sotheby’s auction house has sold a pickled shark by British art provocateur Damien Hirst for 9.6 million pounds or more than C$18 million.

Monday’s sale kicked off a two-day auction of the artist’s work that is expected to generate more than 65 million pounds. Sotheby’s said it expects the sale to set a new record for an auction of works by just one artist.

Hirst is selling more than 200 new works at auction rather than through a gallery. He has said it is a more democratic way to sell art.

An embalmed calf with hooves and horns of 18-karat gold titled “The Golden Calf” sold for 10.3 million pounds.

The sale will continue Tuesday.

An Uzbek migrant worker hangs in a mega mall in Moscow as part of an unsanctioned art performance, September 7, 2008. As Muscovites celebrated City Day on Sunday, activists of the art collective Voina performed an unsanctioned mock execution in the mall to draw attention to the “marginalisation of minorities” in the Russian capital, the organizers said.