Balls to Picasso's masculinity

For years, Picasso identifies with the image of the minotaur and once went so far as to describe the bull-man archetype as analogous to himself. This mythical creature is conveniently revived from ancient Greece as a grandiose pretext for showing off; for it allows Picasso to hang upon the human frame the formidable head and testicles of a bull.

What kind of courage did it really take Picasso to advertise his randy instincts? How can his manifest indulgence - supported by an establishment of collectors and museums - be construed as an act of resistance?

Never was ancient myth so prostituted in the service of an artist's delusion, and never were such fantasies turned so successfully to the marketing of conceit and the pomposity of genius. How can we celebrate all that big-headedness, especially when transacted in an age of mass extermination?

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Sophocles' Oedipus gets a cheeky, interesting makeover

Sophocles’ tragedies get a cheeky and interesting makeover by Nova Arts Project.

Not content with tackling all three of Sophocles’ Oedipus tragedies in a single “freely adapted” treatment, they’ve also given one (Oedipus at Colonus) an irreverent new title: The Gods Are Big Poop Heads. It’s the theatrical equivalent of standing in an electrical storm and daring lightning to strike.

Yet the fact that Oedipus Rex and Antigone retain their original titles evinces a certain inconsistency in Nova Arts’ Oedipus. Especially at the start, an antic air suggests the company intends to kid the material. Teasingly slangy, the dialogue abounds in anachronisms. The oracles and messengers are played in broadly comic style, like figures in a Monty Python skit. One bewilders Oedipus with a set of increasingly ridiculous demands culminating in “Now do the hokey-pokey and shake yourself about.”

Read the review > Sophocles' Oedipus gets a cheeky, interesting makeover

Collector's Corner: Collectible Perfume Bottles

Scented oils and resins, and the vessels which held them, have existed since the dawn of history. The Mesopotamians and Egyptians, like the Greeks and Romans who followed, burned incense during religious and civic ceremonies, and anointed their bodies with perfumed oils, ointments, and cosmetics. And of course, it was necessary to create special containers for those products.

Egyptian tombs have yielded containers made of pottery and alabaster, while archaeological excavations throughout the Mediterranean region have unearthed ceramic and glass containers made by the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans. Venetian and Murano glass makers made what are considered some of the most exquisite perfume bottles in the 16th and 17th centuries A.D., while the British mastered enamel and porcelain in the 18th.

Read the rest of this most interesting article at > Collector's Corner: Collectible Perfume Bottles

Mercedes-Benz Builds Online Brand World

It's a whole new "brand world" for Mercedes-Benz site: Mercedes-Benz Builds Online Brand World

Mercedes-Benz has launched a multimedia "brand world" on its Web site that features related content, including a virtual tour of the automaker's new museum in Stuttgart and a presentation on automotive technology innovations, in addition to sections marketing its models.

Villa mosaic's secrets revealed

Archaeologists excavating part of a Roman villa in Somerset have unearthed a mosaic of Daphne and Apollo. The mosaic, which dates back to the 4th Century, is part of the Dinnington Roman Villa site near Ilminster.

It is thought to be the only one of its kind in the country to feature the figures from Greek mythology. The treasure was uncovered by a team of experts from Somerset County Council and students from Winchester University and Taunton's Richard Huish College. Dinnington Roman Villa was first discovered when a plough turned up pieces of mosaic tile.

Read more at > Villa mosaic's secrets revealed

According to Greek myth, the Sun God Apollo was struck by one of Cupid's arrows, causing him to fall in love with Daphne, the daughter of River God Peneus. Fleeing from Apollo, Daphne prayed to her father for help, and was turned into a laurel tree.

Beauty for its own sake

As the V&A opens a new gallery of Islamic art, the author travels to Cairo to discover the origins of the museum's exquisite artefacts > Beauty for its own sake

A few years ago, I happened to look at Matisse's Snail in Tate Modern just after returning from Granada. The revolving slabs of colour in Matisse's papier coupé looked a lot like the tiles of the Alhambra. And that is not accidental. Matisse was an enthusiastic admirer of Islamic art. That is puzzling only if you search for a focus that is not there. Essentially, the purpose of Islamic art and architecture is its beauty. And that is not hard to understand at all.

The Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at the V&A, London SW7 (020 7942 2000), opens on July 20; 'Word Into Art', British Museum, London WC1 (020 7323 8299), until September 3.

New home for ancient artefacts

Florence's Archaeological Museum showcases new pieces > New home for ancient artefacts

A rare collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan finds went on public display this week, following renovation work at Florence's National Archaeological Museum.

Over 500 precious artefacts, previously kept in storage, are now housed on the second floor of the museum, located through 17 rooms .

"The second floor was actually restructured around ten years ago but until now has only been used to house temporary exhibits," said Carlotta Cianferoni of the museum director's office.

Guggenheim expands into Emirates

Architect Frank Gehry is to design the Guggenheim Foundation's largest museum in the United Arab Emirates. The museum, which will cover 30,000 square metres, will be built in the capital city of Abu Dhabi. > Guggenheim expands into Emirates

Guggenheim's flagship museum for modern and contemporary art is in New York but there are branches in Bilbao, Berlin, Venice and Las Vegas.

US architect Gehry also designed the Bilbao Guggenheim in Spain. The Abu Dhabi museum should be built by 2011.

Photo of Mozart's widow found

A print of the only photograph of Mozart's widow, Constanze Weber, has been found in Germany. The photograph was taken in 1840 in the Bavarian town of Altoetting when she was 78. She died two years later. > Photo of Mozart's widow found

The local authorities say detailed examination has proved the authenticity of the image, which is a copy of the original daguerreotype.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 36 in 1791, when Constanze was 29. She later married a Danish diplomat.

'Lysistra' brings its sexy spice

Audiences attending the University of Florida's production of "Lysistrata" are greeted by an interesting set that suggests the stonework and pillars of the Acropolis. In case anyone is still in the dark as to the location, the words "The Acropolis" appear across the front of the portico that is center stage and from which emerges the title character, delightfully portrayed by the multi-talented Meg Loftus. 'Lysistra' brings its sexy spice

Her first line, "Where the (expletive) are the women," makes it clear that this adaptation of Aristophanes' nearly 2,500-year-old comedy is not going to be an exercise in subtlety.

In fact, this version is more "Deadwood" than Demosthenes. Perhaps it should be. When the play was first staged, the male characters reportedly wore phalluses and the humor was anything but polite. That spirit has been preserved and delightfully flaunted in this current (and encore) production, directed by UF professor Judith Williams.

God, She's Hot

If there was no Goddess Temple of Orange County, someone would have to invent one > God, She's Hot

Conservators at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta are in the process of reuniting a Roman marble statue of “Goddess of Love” Venus (or Aphrodite, to you Greeks) with—for possibly the first time in 170 years—her head.

The High Court in the East Indian city of Calcutta has quashed a case against leading Bengali writer Sunil Gangopadhyay for allegedly defiling a Hindu goddess, Saraswati. Gangopadhyay testified that he was joking when he said he kissed an idol of the “Goddess of Learning” to satisfy his desire.

An Ipswich, Massachusetts, toymaker has released The Goddess Dolls, which “symbolize the positive and empowering aspects of the Goddess tradition, such as love, wisdom and compassion.”

Greece - the musical

It has been a couple of millennia in the making, but Robert Thicknesse has finally reconstructed an ancient Greek chorus line.

"Greek tragedy is an odd form of drama because the plot keeps getting interrupted by this chorus, who keep insisting on singing and dancing," Taplin continues. It sounds more like a musical than an opera, "except the choruses weren't part of the plot; more a kind of meditation on it, like the chorales in a Bach Passion".

Greece - the musical In a sense, Greek chant is not unlike Gregorian chant. The chorus (of 12 or 15 men) sang in unison, accompanied by a double-reed instrument called an aulete - and by all accounts, danced at the same time, albeit a stately, tai-chi-style dancing of the sort you might see in a Robert Wilson production. "It's hard to say whether different composers had different styles," says Taplin. "The rhythm of the music follows the rhythm of the words, so in a sense there's less freedom."

Panufnik agrees: "The words drive you forward. The biggest difficulty for me was that I couldn't modulate to another key, which we are sort of conditioned to do and which gives music a shape and direction. Here that is all provided by the words, the drama."

The Venetian Renaissance by way of ancient Greece

The Venetian Renaissance by way of ancient Greece: Grace, Depravity, and Grandeur Veronese's Allegories A powerful contradiction verging on psychic whiplash is built into the grandiose visual machines that are Paolo Veronese's five Allegories, currently on glorious view in the Oval Room at the Frick Collection.

Not only does this contradictory whiplash fuel Veronese's paintings, allowing them to have one foot firmly planted in the art-historical firmament and the other in the shifting sands of the ephemeral, it produces one of the most jolting splits between subject matter and content in all of art.

Museum buys 55 Van Gogh letters

Fifty-five letters written by Vincent van Gogh which have been out of public view for 60 years have been bought by the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands.

Museum buys 55 Van Gogh letters > The letters, including some sketches, were written between 1881 and 1885 to fellow Dutch artist Anthon van Rappard.

Study reveals 'oldest jewellery'

The earliest known pieces of jewellery made by modern humans have been identified by scientists.

The three shell beads are between 90,000 and 100,000 years old, according to an international research team. Two of the ancient beads come from Skhul Cave on the slopes of Mount Carmel in Israel. The other comes from the site of Oued Djebbana in Algeria.

So, wanna find out more? Then read this article > Study reveals 'oldest jewellery'

The most ancient spider web found in Spain

In a paper in Friday's issue of the journal Science says, a team of researchers including David A. Grimaldi of the American Museum of Natural History reports the discovery of a Cretaceous-era spider web encased in amber along with some captured insects.

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FREAKY FACTS

Butts of fire: We call them fireflies, lightning bugs and glowworms. But the scientific names of various firefly species, based on Latin or Greek descriptions, can be just as colorful.

Some examples: the macrolampis, meaning "big light''; the microdiphot, meaning "small paired lights''; and the pyropyga, meaning "fire butt.''

Get on the facts at > FREAKY FACTS and Let's get it on: While all firefly larvae light up, not all species glow as adults.

Of those that do, each species uses a specific flash pattern to attract a mate. The signals can range from a continuous glow to a single flash to a pulsing strobe light and ...........

Tomb contains oldest paintings in Western culture

According to Italian officials a Tomb contains oldest paintings in Western culture

The remains of a tomb carved into the hillside in a barley field 20 kilometres north of Rome, near the town of Veio, is adorned with vibrantly coloured frescoes estimated to be 2,700 years old.

Running scared at the running of the bulls

Thousands of revelers, attired in white shirts and pants and clutching red handkerchiefs, gather in front of Pamplona's town hall to celebrate the start of the Festival of San Fermin in Spain.

However, they were Running scared at the running of the bulls. According to an attendant "The bulls were galloping toward us. In an instant, I was swept up in the chaos, people running to stay ahead of the bulls, to avoid the horns that were getting closer. I turned and ran, too, as fast as my feet could carry me. I ran past the doorways of the small shops that lined the street, past the crowds that had come to watch, past the barricades that had been put up along the route. There was nowhere to escape, nowhere to go except straight ahead, with everyone else. All I wanted to do was survive".

Iphigenie en Tauride Ends Up in Old Folks' Home at Paris Opera

The story of the 1778 opera is a sideshow of the Trojan War.

To obtain favorable winds for the Greek fleet sailing to Troy, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenie. The goddess Artemis snatches her away and brings her to Tauris, today's Crimea. There she becomes Artemis's priestess, with the special task of sacrificing illegal aliens to the goddess.

When Oreste, her brother, arrives with his buddy Pylade, both are condemned to death. Just in time, Iphigenie recognizes him. After an intervention by the goddess, it is Thoas, the bloodthirsty king of the peninsula, who loses his life, and the three Greeks sail home.

From Bloomberg.com: Culture > "Iphigenie en Tauride'' is at the Palais Garnier through July 10. For more information and tickets, go to http://www.operadeparis.fr/ or call (33) (1) 7229-3535.