Art

A painting by Konstantinos Parthenis of the Virgin Mary and Child, combining a sense of piety with fluid Art Nouveau forms, looks over Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis as he works on the puzzle of governance at his desk. "It's the Virgin, in a modern version. This painting could be said to encompass the history of modern Greece," he remarks.

The Basel contemporary art fair last week defied forecasts of a market slowdown, with wealthy collectors buying works with seven or eight-figure price tags.

At its VIP day on June 13, Zurich's Hauser and Wirth gallery sold a spider by Franco-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois for $22.5 million.

Art Basel launched its inaugural fair in Paris on Oct. 20, seen as capping the re-emergence of the French capital as a major arts hub following the impact of Brexit on its main rival, London.

But the event also raised eyebrows for controversially replacing a longstanding local art event.

The Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) rejected today several constitutional challenges to Law No. 304/2004 on judicial organization and also unanimously quashed challenges to several articles in OUG No. 90/2018 on specific measures for rendering operational the Section for the Investigation of Judicial Crimes (SIIJ).

"Thousands of artworks were stolen" during the war, and the crimes continued after the end of the conflict, Dzenan Jusufovic, the director of the Bosnian Centre Against Trafficking in Works of Art, told BIRN.

There is no accurate data on the issue, but large numbers of artworks have been stolen from both private and public collections, Jusufovic said.

The eighth International Painting Festival has begun in the Black Sea province of Trabzon with the participation of 40 female artists from 20 different countries under the auspices of Femin&Art, a female artist collective.