The United States Postal Service has issued a set of colorful postage stamps that celebrate Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), an annual holiday celebrated in Mexico and beyond on the first two days of November. The vibrant stamps depict a family of four calaveras (sugar skulls) designed by Minneapolis-based Chicano artist and designer Luis Fitch who has been obsessed with postage stamps since a young age. A chance encounter near a train exit by the National Mexican Art Museum in Chicago lead to the creation of the stamps: Every year, the day before his birthday, [Fitch] writes a list of things he wants to achieve, asking the universe. More

In abandoned sheds, tiny campers, and imposing, hilltop castles, Scottish artist Andrew McIntosh (previously) nestles glowing entryways to mysterious new worlds. The illuminated portals are central to the artist’s ongoing interest in exploration, curiosity, and a never-ending desire to uncover the unknown, and they offer a tiny window into what lies beyond the immediate landscapes. Each of the compositions exudes a ghostly air, with fog or storm clouds hanging above the once-occupied spaces. More

Metro trains in Washington, D.C., will only run every 30 minutes on Monday while local authorities investigate an issue with axles on its newest rail cars, officials said Sunday. A defect was discovered in a car that derailed on the Metro's Blue Line last week, and the same issue was ...

BANGKOK — Silk Road travelers in ancient times cursed China’s largest desert as “Takla Makan,” an ominous Persian-Turkic expression that translates as, roughly, “Enter and you may never return.” Undeterred by the sandstorms and merciless terrain in the oblong basin north of Tibet’s glacier-packed peaks, Chinese engineers have announced the ...

LONDON (AP) — A Cambridge University college said Friday that it would return a looted bronze cockerel to Nigeria later this month, making it the first U.K. institution to hand back one of the artifacts known as the Benin Bronzes. Jesus College announced in 2019 that it would return the ...

One of the most expansive volumes of its kind, African Artists: From 1882 to Now compiles a broad sampling of works from more than 300 modern and contemporary artists born or living on the continent. Within its 350-plus pages, the massive text spans a range of mediums and aesthetics, from Mary Sibande’s sprawling postcolonial installations and Wangechi Mutu’s fantastical watercolor collages to the cotton-embroidered photographs by Joana Choumali. More

More than 12,000 sheets of delicate Xuan paper form the ruffled exterior of Zhu Jinshi’s suspended “Boat” sculpture. The renowned artist, who’s currently living and working in his hometown of Beijing, is widely regarded for pioneering Chinese abstract art, and this monumental installation from 2015 is a reflection of his conceptual, meditative practice. Spanning 18 meters long and seven meters wide, “Boat” is comprised of wrinkled paper layers draped around bamboo frames. Countless thin cotton threads hold the individual components in place and intersect the curved, tunnel-like form with straight lines that extend vertically to the ceiling. More

In Pat Perry’s Sensemaking, there’s no rubric for telling a story. In quiet scenes framed through roadside vantage points and performances of costumed figures and contemporary symbols, the Detroit-based artist (previously) considers the deeply American tendency to configure the world with single, flat narratives. Perry takes an opposing approach, though, and instead layers his pieces with contradiction, complexity, and unusual details that reflect the current moment. More

ROME (AP) — Italy’s bankrupt national airline, Alitalia, made its final flights Thursday before formally folding, marking the end of business for the 74-year-old carrier and an end of an era for Italy. A flight attendant at Rome's Fiumicino-Leonardo da Vinci Airport thanked passengers for their loyalty before boarding the ...

ROME (AP) — Italy’s bankrupt national airline, Alitalia, made its final flights Thursday before formally folding, marking the end of business for the 74-year-old carrier and an end of an era for Italy. A flight attendant at Rome's Fiumicino-Leonardo da Vinci Airport thanked passengers for their loyalty before boarding the ...

Photographic artist Jim Naughten casts a fantastical, candy-colored lens over luxuriant ecosystems and surreal animal portraits in Eremozoic, a solo exhibition on view at Grove Square Galleries through November 18. Comprised of digitally altered compositions, the series centers on rhinos, manatees, and myriad wild animals in strange, unearthly settings: a tall brown bear stands on its hind legs in a field of bright pink grass, a gorilla rests in similarly vibrant foliage, and orangutans swing through leafy branches in shades of blue. More

A ubiquitous decoration at birthdays and family celebrations, piñatas are conventionally associated with fun, festivity, and of course, their potential to split open and release candy and other treats. Now on view at Craft in America, a group exhibition re-envisions the party staple by connecting it with contemporary practices that extend the playful artform’s capacity for social and political commentary. Piñatas: The High Art of Celebration features approximately 50 works from Mexico- and U.S.-based artists and collectives, who explore the evolution of traditional construction techniques and the object’s broad cultural significance that reaches beyond its Mexican heritage. More

LONDON (AP) — Britain's Prince William has criticized some of the world's richest men for using their wealth to fund a new space race and space tourism rather than trying to fix the problems on Earth instead. William voiced his disapproval in an interview with the BBC aired Thursday, a ...

Artist Xomatok (previously) translates the vibrant, geometric motifs of handwoven Andean blankets, or ilicllas, into large-scale works that mark the pathways through the hilly Alisos de Amauta neighborhood in Lima, Peru. Painted during the course of two months as part of Pinta Lima Bicentenario, the 13 interventions were a collaborative undertaking by the artist and local residents, who transformed the public staircases that wind through the district into multi-level canvases. More

In the aptly named Red Lights: Vatican series, Angers, France-based photographer Aishy transforms St. Peter’s Basilica into a strange, illuminated space that more closely resembles a sci-fi universe than stately church. The altered perspective, which Aishy achieved with Adobe Lightroom, casts red and blue hues on the iconic Renaissance architecture to unveil an alternative environment that hovers between past and future: inscriptions mimic a digital display, ornate flourishes appear backlit, and an artificial glow in vibrant, saturated tones blankets the lavish structured typically associated with marble, gilded details, and other ornamental features. More

Artist Lee Me Kyeoung (previously) continues her decades-long project of painting the dwindling number of Korean corner stores, rendering quaint shops in Yangsan, Gyeongju, Gunwi, Sangju, and Cheorwon as part of her ongoing A Small Store series. The delicate artworks capture the idiosyncrasies and tiny details of each locale, like a plastic washbasket left out front or signage hanging from the eaves, and the vast collection includes shops in both remote and bustling neighborhoods across South Korea. More

WASHINGTON — The U.S. will reopen its land borders to nonessential travel next month, ending a 19-month freeze due to the COVID-19 pandemic as the country moves to require all international visitors to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Vehicle, rail and ferry travel between the U.S. and Canada and Mexico ...

Opting for yarn and rovings of raw wool dyed in natural pigments, Korean-American artist Alyssa Ki crafts fiber-based wall hangings reminiscent of bouquets and overgrown patches of wildflowers. The perpetually blooming pieces blend multiple textile techniques and are teeming with macramé, needle-felted, and crocheted botanicals that sprout from a thick, woven foundation. Hanging from a knotty branch or bound by a ribbon, the floral works are ripe with color and texture. Currently based in New York, Ki has a background in photojournalism and first started working with fiber in 2018. More

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – The county government that is home to Florida's capital was fined $3.5 million Tuesday by state health officials for requiring its employees to get COVID-19 vaccines and for firing 14 workers who failed to get the shots. The Florida Department of Health issued the fine for ...

A letter written by founding father Alexander Hamilton during the Revolutionary War and believed stolen decades ago from the Massachusetts state archives has been returned following a federal appeals court decision, top state officials said Tuesday. Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin hailed the homecoming, after last week's decision by ...

Considering his practice a form of “drawing in the air,” artist Lee Sangsoo forges colorful, spiraled flamingos, dogs, parrots, and other creatures with long strips of metal. He sculpts the minimal works with resin or stainless steel depending on their size—he uses the latter for any piece that spans more than one meter—and coats each angled side with subtle gradients or a complementary palette. Although three-dimensional and sometimes so large that they tower over the landscape, the creatures are inspired by Picasso’s small, abstract animal drawings, which the artist explains: Lines, planes, and colors are important elements that work in my work. More

Using scraps of vibrant Ankara fabric, Lagos-based artist Marcellina Oseghale Akpojotor fashions intimate portraits that consider the fragmented and varied inner lives of her subjects. The intricately composed depictions rely on a cacophony of patterns arranged in loose ripples and tufts, creating a patchwork of color and texture. Although the textiles are Dutch in origin—they’re colloquially known as “African print fabrics”—they have a strong cultural significance, and by piecing together the assorted motifs, Akpojotor establishes a shared visual memory. More

Working with the tattered remnants of consumer culture, artist Tamara Kostianovsky (previously) asks us to question the origins, process, and disastrous results of our seemingly unquenchable desire to buy and waste. Four distinct bodies of the artist’s work spanning fifteen years have been gathered at Smack Mellon in DUMBO, Brooklyn to form Between Wounds and Folds. The textile ecosystem of cow carcasses harboring new life, vibrantly hued cross-sections of trees, and colorful birds of prey, are constructed from repurposed fabrics and discarded textiles. More

DALLAS (AP) – Southwest Airlines canceled hundreds more flights Monday following a weekend of major service disruptions. By late morning Monday, Southwest had canceled about 365 flights - 10% of its schedule for the day - and more than 600 others were delayed. The Dallas-based airline blamed air traffic control ...

In these quiet black-and-white photographs, Tobias Kruse confronts the unsettling first decade of East Germany after the fall of the Wall, including its Nazi past and present.