Celebrity Life

A Walther PP pistol used in the first-ever James Bond movie will go up for auction next month in Los Angeles.

Scottish acting great Sean Connery, who passed away last month at the age of 90 at his home in the Bahamas, wielded the gun in 1962's Dr. No. It is estimated to fetch US$150,000 to 200,000 (HK$1.16 million to 1.55 million).

"The silhouette of 007 holding this gun would go on to become the James Bond franchise's most iconic image and one of the most recognisable pop culture references of all time," said Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien's Auctions.

In Dr. No, James Bond is ordered by his British Secret Service bosses to reluctantly trade in his old, misfiring Beretta gun for the Walther, which has "a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window."

"The American CIA swear by them," Bond is informed.

Versions of the Walther remain 007's signature firearm, some 25 films later. The deactivated handgun prop, one of two used in Connery's debut film, was owned by the original movie's armorer until it was sold off in a 2006 auction.

It will be one of more than 500 items in the "Icons & Idols Trilogy: Hollywood" auction held in Beverly Hills and online on December 3. Other notable memorabilia will include a pilot's helmet worn by Tom Cruise in Top Gun and Arnold Schwarzenegger's leather motorcycle jacket from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

[caption id="attachment_212194" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The late Sean Connery's Walther PP pistol used in the first-ever James Bond movie will go up for auction next month in Los Angeles. (Image: AFP)[/caption]

Bond's next cinematic outing — believed to be the final movie for current 007 Daniel Craig — has been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. No Time To Die is currently scheduled for an April release.

Connery earned lasting worldwide fame and adoration for his smooth, Scottish-accented portrayal of the suave licensed-to-kill spy over several films.

The first actor to utter the unforgettable "Bond, James Bond," Connery is seen by many fans as giving the definitive portrayal of novelist Ian Fleming's creation. He suffered from dementia in his final years, according to his widow Micheline Roquebrune.

(Main and featured image: Julien's Auctions)

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Sotheby’s makes history in Geneva with the sale of an extremely rare 14.8 carat Russian diamond.

The post The World’s Largest Purple-Pink Diamond Fetched $26.6M in Geneva appeared first on LUXUO.

Sotheby’s makes history in Geneva with the sale of an extremely rare 14.8 carat Russian diamond.

The post The World’s Largest Purple-Pink Diamond Fetched $26.6M in Geneva appeared first on LUXUO.

Anthropologist and photographer Margot Errante talks to us about finding stillness in art, two wild decades in China, and her return to Italy.

Under the dramatic light, you make out bodily shapes, buildings, spaces and the blurring of lines between them.

A visual conjuring of emptiness and occupation – all in black and white. Lake Como-born photographer Margot Errante takes a well- trained anthropological eye to her work – this year it’s been the creation of meditative diptychs titled The Corporeal City, shot during a pandemic lockdown around her hometown.

“While it’s not a project about the pandemic,” Errante says, there’s a sense of emptiness that’s reflective of the times. But as someone who worked as an early-rising travel photographer and lived through SARS in China, “neither empty cities nor this kind of situation was completely new for me”.

It was a good time, though, “to observe the city and to reflect on the environment we’ve built for ourselves to live in… analogous of exterior and inner space”. There’s exploration between the body and space, each a container for our inner and outer worlds that are nevertheless “intimately interconnected”. Shadows and high contrast lend dramatic expression to each picture. The curve of spine and shoulders appears next to deserted streets, winding roads and sweeping archways.

[caption id="attachment_212150" align="aligncenter" width="683"] Metamorphosis, Transitions series.[/caption]

If Errante’s own explanations recall Eastern philosophy, this is no accident. She first practised Taoist meditation at Baiyun Temple in Beijing more than a decade ago. Upon her return to Italy, after 20 years in China and Hong Kong, the broad Taoist ethos of losing yourself and banishing your ego has been an important personal journey for the artist.

“As a photographer, your work is your story. My photography is my biography,” says Errante from her home, overlooking the famous north Italian lake. The Como mountains are misty during the winter, just like when I last visited her and snow had started to fall.

There’s no mistaking the romance of the region, which today features heavily in her work. For example, the Transitions series documents the summer of 2017 in Como and charts her feelings of return – partly driven by motherhood – after 20 years in Asia.

Errante expresses an inner world in colours, movement and light. A red dress, full of Asian symbolism, is brought into frames of travel and fragmentation in Myselves (2017) and Metamorphosis (2017). Then there’s symmetry, symbolism and subject.

“When I did Transitions, I realised there’s a you that transcends even your own narrative; no matter the time, space, country or movement … and it’s what makes you alive,” says the artist.

[caption id="attachment_212151" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Myselves, Transitions series.[/caption]

“After 20 years, of course it was a very complicated moment, I had very contrasting feelings about everything. For me, China was my home. At the same time, I wanted to do this transition but I was leaving my life, my career. I was born in Italy but never even worked here… but through the series I realised that we become so attached to everything external, we attribute too much responsibility of these external things to our own happiness.”

Perhaps this finds new meaning for many more than just the artist today. As the established world system is upended, frequent flyers are grounded, material things seem to matter less, art seems to matter more and social fragility is all too apparent.

For Errante, whose family name actually means “the wanderer” in Italian, it’s also finding stillness after so many years on the move. After graduating from the local liceo scientifico (scientific high school), the teenage Errante lived in Germany and Paris before training as an interpreter in Trieste, Italy, where she took up Chinese studies. A year later, at 19, she left alone for China. The multilingual photographer (she also speaks English, French, Chinese and Portuguese) would go on to obtain a degree in anthropology and oriental linguistics, and is currently studying Buddhism at the Lama Tzong Khapa Institute in Italy. Biography, as you’ll see, is key to understanding her work.

Even the aestheticism of shadows and drama “was not an intentional choice but very spontaneous”, she explains. “I like dense colours and, unlike many people, I’m not afraid of darkness. I quite like darkness and I think it’s because I spent a lot of time in the Chinese countryside in the late ’90s, when there was no light in the evenings, but we still used to go out and it was OK.”

[caption id="attachment_212152" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Wa Dance.[/caption]

The technique helps add depth to her images of nature and forests, while architectural works (often of vintage or ancient buildings) seem eerie and Edward Hopper-esque. The way it forces the viewers’ concentration can feel intense.

“In the darkness, you need concentrate more if you want to see. In the dark, there’s no immediate visual response or immediate visual satisfaction,” Errante reasons. “I wanted to have people get close to the photo, to search for details and spend time with the image – it was a way for me to say, ‘Look a bit more, concentrate a bit more, hang in there, you may find out there’s something there.’”

Moving on to her portraiture, today’s work is far more curated and singular than earlier work of Beijing city streets or villagers in southwestern Yunnan province, near Myanmar. Witnessing two decades (1997-2017) of China’s rise to an industrial and economic superpower has had enormous impact on her outlook.

One of Errante’s strongest human portraits – Wa Dance (2004), featuring bodies jumping in unison, faces upturned to the sky – came from eight months of living, observing and conducting ethnographic research about an indigenous Wa ethnic minority village more than 15 years ago. A dance of welcome for a foreign face – who had arrived dramatically by motorbike through the jungle in the rain – turns into a work of rhythmic vibrancy.

[caption id="attachment_212153" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Beijing Utopia.[/caption]

“They were all sweaty and full of energy,” she says. “These bodies were really tense, strong, with a lot of muscle – they looked like panthers; I felt hypnotised.”

Her work as a freelance photojournalist took Errante through Eastern Europe, Central Asia, China and North Korea. Themes of architecture and personal psychology (especially in post-Maoist developing China) emerged. She inhabited the underground art scene of the Chinese capital until, in 2009, her apartment was ransacked and her entire photographic archive of more than 10,000 negatives – the work of 15 years – was stolen. Heartbroken, Errante left the Chinese capital and never returned, choosing to settle in Hong Kong’s dense urban jungle.

This chapter would lead Errante to the transition to art portraiture and art photography, and exhibiting in several galleries, festivals and fairs such as Art Basel. Last year, her series Human Nature was awarded first prize at Paris Fotofever. The narrative is still biographical, Errante tells me, even though life no longer involves motorbike rides through the jungle or wild nights in the Beijing art scene. She’s rediscovering aspects of her own history and Italian heritage, too. Porta Torre (2019) is a vision of ancient architecture and nature in Como, Lombardy, for example.

[caption id="attachment_212154" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Mindscapes, Porta Torre series.[/caption]

And even if we are seeing the world through such personal, intimate experiences, there’s something to which we can all relate. Such is Human Heart (2017), a photograph of an old suitcase in her favourite woods in Como – it’s a reference to her grandfather Salvatore Errante, who emigrated from Sicily to Lake Como.

“The suitcase belonged to him. One day he told my grandmother that he was going out for cigarettes – but he jumped on the train and just left. Only when he found a job in Como did he call her to come to meet him,” Errante explains. Those wandering genes are seemingly well expressed throughout their lineage. Since then, that suitcase has become kind of a mystical object in her family. “It represents the struggle not just of my grandfather,” she says, “but of every human being who moves to look for a better future, of improvement, for something better.”

(All images: Margot Errante)

The post Anthropologist and Photographer Margot Errante on Finding Stillness in Art appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

The Baltimore Museum of Art's controversial proposal to auction three works by Clyfford Still, Brice Marden and Andy Warhol from its collections, to raise funds to diversify and maintain its collections, has been shelved.

The practice, commonly called "deaccessioning," has provoked strong reactions and much debate in the last few months.

"1957-G" by Clyfford Still was estimated to sell for US$12 million to US$18 million (between HK$93 million and HK$139.5 million) while Brice Marden's "3" was expected at US$15 million (HK$11.6 million) at a sale at Sotheby's. Andy Warhol's monumental "The Last Supper" was expected to fetch US$40 million (HK$310 million) at a private sale.

The sale of these pieces, which could potentially have generated US$65 million (HK$503.8 million), would have permitted the Baltimore Museum of Art to "rebalance" its collections, adding more works by women and artists of colour. The American museum's "Endowment for the Future" financial plan would also have allowed it to fund the research, conservation, documentation and exhibition costs for these new works, as well as increase the salaries of employees and offer longer opening hours.

[caption id="attachment_211812" align="aligncenter" width="800"] 1957-G by Clyfford Still was originally set to be auctioned as part of the "Endowment for the Future" plan by the Baltimore Museum of Art. (Image: Sotheby's)[/caption]

"We believe unequivocally that museums exist to serve their communities through experiences with art and artists. We firmly believe that museums and their collections have been built on structures that we must work, through bold and tangible action, to reckon with, modify, and reimagine as structures that will meet the demands of the future," said the museum in a statement.

The board of trustees and industry group the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), however, were unconvinced. Two Baltimore Museum of Art board members rescinded US$50 million (HK$387.5 million) in pledged donations, while the AAMD appeared to reverse the temporary guidelines it had issued in April to help cultural institutions weather the pandemic. These directives had relaxed the rules about deaccessioning to permit US museums to sell certain works to finance the care of their permanent collections.

"I recognise that many of our institutions have long-term needs — or ambitious goals — that could be supported, in part, by taking advantage of these resolutions to sell art. But however serious those long-term needs or meritorious those goals, the current position of AAMD is that the funds for those must not come from the sale of deaccessioned art," said Brent Benjamin, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and the director of the St. Louis Art Museum, in an October 27 letter.

[caption id="attachment_211811" align="alignnone" width="1024"] The Baltimore Museum of Art had hoped to receive up to US$65 million from the sale of the three works at Sotheby's. (Image: Jon Bilous/ Shutterstock)[/caption]

While this official statement did not explicitly mention the BMA, opponents of the sale of the Still, Marden and Warhol works seized upon it as proof that the museum's plans were in violation of AAMD directives.

The Baltimore Museum of Art isn't the only US cultural institution contemplating letting go of some of its possessions in response to the pandemic. The Brooklyn Museum recently auctioned off a dozen pieces from its collection at Christie's, hoping to receive up to US$40 million (HK$310 million) to finance the upkeep of its collections. Among them was Lucas Cranach the Elder's "Lucretia" portrait, which surpassed its initial estimation of US$1.8 million to see the hammer fall at US$5 million (HK$37.8 million).

(Main and featured image: Jon Bilous/ Shutterstock)

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Just as its products help skin resist the ravages of time, La Prairie will support the Swiss museum’s efforts to protect and conserve paintings by Piet Mondrian.

The link between La Prairie and the art world has stood strong for as long as the brand has been creating skincare products, its approach to the science of beauty heavily influenced by the spirit espoused by artists – explorative, adventurous, free-spirited and boundary-breaking.

And in an era in which a house’s affiliations speak as loudly as the quality of its wares, La Prairie has sought to deepen and strengthen its connection to society via earnest support of causes that resonate with its own home values, focusing on areas such as Swissness, Science, and Art and Culture.

[gallery ids="211723,211722"]

Art patronage is a relationship that has existed through all ages, and La Prairie is proud to honour and continue that tradition via a partnership with Fondation Beyeler that will begin this year and continue until 2022.

Just as its exceptional skincare products seek to restore youthful radiance to complexions around the world, La Prairie has sought to reestablish the glory of a series of Piet Mondrian works that sit in the collection of the Fondation Beyeler. After all, the Dutch painter – with his minimalist approach and dedication to purity and precision – has long been an influence for the house, whose packaging exhibits a similar starkness and clarity of vision.

[gallery ids="211724,211725,211726,211727,211728,211729,211730,211731,211732,211733,211734,211735,211736,211737,211738,211739,211740,211741,211742,211743,211744,211745,211746,211747,211748"]

The comprehensive research and conservation project will see the restoration of four paintings: Tableau No. I; Composition with Yellow and Blue; Composition with Double Line and Blue; Lozenge Composition with Eight Lines and Red, which were created between 1921 and 1938 and are among the painter’s most iconic works.

Like the science of beauty, art conservation is deceptively simple – in reality, it is a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary process that is personal to each work, and involves not simply reversing the ravages of time, but anticipating future damage and taking steps to mitigate this, so that the visual intention of the artist can be preserved throughout the ages.

[gallery ids="211752,211750,211749,211751"]

Through its patronage of these processes, La Prairie hopes to reinforce its connection to the community, going on a journey through the past and towards a future that reveals the true timelessness of beauty.

laprairie.com

The post La Prairie Announces a Two-Year Patronage Project With Fondation Beyeler appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Our compilation of the best self-improvement books will help you centre yourself and realign your goals.

The feeling of getting lost in a book is incomparable — not even a binge-worthy TV show comes close to the peace, quiet and grasping power of literature.

Self-improvement is a genre of reads on rise, more so in the recent years end especially right now when the circumstances of 2020 have forced us to take a long, hard look at ourselves and how we want to live our lives to truly be happy. It’s a journey, and a good next step forward is to escape (ironically inwards) with books that people have praised for helping them reshape their outlook on life. These are our favourites of the best self-improvement books today.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck : A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

With a title immediately gripping, the New York Times Bestseller is a modern day self-help guide with all the cuss words, good jokes, and cold hard truths. Mark Manson, who also blogs, believes the key to life is living without trying to be happy or positive all the time. The author believes in embracing the mediocracy of human nature and the world itself while defining what matters, and who matters, to drive your everyday choices. As he not-so-subtly puts it, there are only so many things we can chose to truly care about and this books help you define yours — and why some of those “cares” are the reason for any feelings of being stuck or unfulfilled.

Get it here

When Things Fall Apart : Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön is a very well respected American Tibetan Buddhist, ordained nun, former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In this book, Pema collects all the lessons and insight gained from softening through hard times in life, touching on the hardest experiences we all have like death and other losses. Her advice draws from Buddhist wisdomswhile including personal stories of her hardships, and how she uses the teachings to transform. The book is now released with a cover for it’s 20th-anniversary edition.

Get it here

Oprah Winfrey The Wisdom Of Sundays – Life-Changing Insights From Super Soul Conversations With Oprah

Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday is a spiritual-themed series you can thankfully also catch on YouTube. Each episode is — as Oprah puts it — an aha moment. This book is a collection of all the biggest aha moments of the three-time Emmy Award-winning show, organised into ten different topics or branches of spirituality. These insights come from guests includes Tony Robbins, Arianna Huffington, Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hahn, and Elizabeth Gilbert. There are also accompanying photographs and a personal essay by Oprah herself.

Get it here

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

To know where we’re going, we have to know where we came from — and what a lot we can learn our own biological engineering. The no.1 international bestseller is the work of renowned historian, Yuval Noah Harari, who explores the way our history throughout existence has shaped how we function as a human race. All the data forces us to look ahead at the possibilities for evolution of human kind, and within ourselves.

Get it here

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

This is a book for women who’ve clung so tightly (without even realising) to the ideas of womanhood: what being a “good” mother, partner, sister, friend or colleague looks, and how we should feel in these roles. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this?”…. are you in for a ride. Glennon Doyle was already a best-selling author of a book about her “happily ever after” with a husband and kids after overcoming her addiction to alcohol and bulimia. The more she learns what it is to be brave, the more she is inched towards her true self and her “knowing”, ultimately finding out what it means to be living courageously and authentically.

Get it here

This story first appeared on Prestige Malaysia

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Nothing beats a weekend cosying up on the couch, armed with popcorn, Netflix, and the best horror movies ever created.

With Halloween just around the corner, now is the perfect time to binge-watch our favourite spooky flicks — and to take our minds off the actual horrors of our real world.

From sinister rituals to séances gone wrong and zombie attacks, our list of the best horror movies to stream on Netflix promises a spine-chilling evening.

Best horror movies on Netflix to watch this Halloween –

1. Verónica

[caption id="attachment_211713" align="aligncenter" width="758"] Verónica, a schoolgirl who is responsible for her younger siblings, conducts a séance at school with her friends in an attempt to connect with her deceased father. (Image: Verónica / IMDB)[/caption]

2017 Spanish horror film Verónica created a stir on social media when viewers claimed that it was so scary that they had to stop watching midway due to its extreme gore. The Paco Plaza-directorial is inspired by a 1992 incident in Madrid when a teenage girl was attacked by a malevolent force after she used an Ouija board at school with her two friends.

Verónica, a schoolgirl who cares for her younger siblings, conducts a séance at school with her friends in an attempt to connect with her deceased father. During the process, the girls conjure an evil spirit that latches itself on Verónica. She then starts witnessing paranormal events at home and tries to protect her family from the demonic presence.

While Verónica did not make big on the award scales, it offered enough blood-curdling moments to deter us from ever messing with Ouija boards.

Watch it here.

2. The Ritual

[caption id="attachment_211714" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Among the best horror movies on Netflix is this British horror-mystery film by David Bruckner, which is inspired by a 2011 Adam Nevill novel of the same name. (Image: The Ritual / IMDB)[/caption]

Picture this: You lose a friend after a tragic incident and decide to honour his or her memory with a hiking trip, only for it to land you in danger — because of one wrong turn. This British horror-mystery film by David Bruckner, inspired by a 2011 Adam Nevill novel of the same name, is based on this premise.

Six months after their friend’s brutal killing, four university buddies decide to reunite for a trek through Sweden’s King’s Trail. Things begin to go awry after one of them injures himself, prompting them to take a shortcut that leads to a series of creepy, unexplained occurrences.

Without giving too much away, what happens next involves a terrifying beast lurking in the woods.

Watch it here.

3. Under The Shadow

Imagine living in a war-torn country where your home, which is supposed to be your safest place, is haunted by a supernatural being. As if you didn’t already have enough problems.

[caption id="attachment_211715" align="aligncenter" width="714"] Babak Anvari’s Persian-language Iranian horror film Under The Shadow takes viewers back to the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. (Image: Under The Shadow / IMDB)[/caption]

Babak Anvari’s Persian-language Iranian horror film Under The Shadow takes viewers back to the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. When a building is hit by a missile, one of its occupants becomes suspicious that it’s cursed by djinns, evil spirits steeped in Middle Eastern folklore, which may attempt to harm her daughter. She then struggles to keep the demons away from her child at home while fighting the fear of losing her husband at war, all at the same time.

While the film begins on a slow pace, it picks up eventually with its masterful combination of the horrors of war and the supernatural, and becomes a gripping, thrilling watch.

Watch it here.

4. Shutter

[caption id="attachment_211716" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] The 2004 film was critically acclaimed for its storyline and execution and became a commercial success worldwide. (Image credit: Shutter / IMDB)[/caption]

A young photographer and his girlfriend start to witness horrifying entities in their pictures after being involved in a hit-and-run accident. They initially think that it is the deceased victim’s soul haunting them, but eventually come to learn that it’s an unpleasant mistake of the past that is refusing to leave them alone.

The 2004 film was critically acclaimed for its storyline and execution and became a commercial success worldwide. It was so popular that it sparked several remakes in English, Hindi and Tamil.

Watch it here.

5. Overlord

[caption id="attachment_211717" align="aligncenter" width="719"] Overlord is set in an alternate World War 2 period. (Image credit: Overlord / IMDB)[/caption]

An action-horror flick, Overlord takes place in an alternate World War 2 setting and follows American soldiers on D-Day when they cross enemy lines — only to discover the dark secrets of Nazi experiments. They then find themselves embroiled in a battle against an army of the undead.

The JJ Abrams-produced film opened to positive reviews for its innovative spin on the war film genre. Do note it doesn’t hold back on the gore and violence — one of its most unnerving scenes depicts a talking severed head.

Watch it here.

This story first appeared on Prestige Singapore

(Main image: Overlord/ IMDB; Featured image: Verónica / IMDB)

The post The Most Spine-Tingling Horror Movies to Watch on Netflix This Halloween appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Has the machine surpassed its master?

While prices for Banksy originals climb ever higher, a new AI has been programmed to create artworks that resemble those by the famous British street artist himself. So much so that some art collectors are already snapping up the GANksy creations.

While the works leave no doubt as to the identity of the artist they take inspiration from, the creator of the software, Matt Round, refrains from explicitly mentioning Banksy's name, to avoid any legal complications. The AI software was trained using a bank of hundreds of images of street art, some of which were probably Banksy's works, and was launched in September 2020. You can view a full gallery here.

"All of GANksy's works are original creations derived from its understanding of shape, form and texture. GANksy wants to be put into a robot body so it can spray paint the entire planet," said Round in a statement on his website.

[caption id="attachment_211600" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A new AI called GANksy is offering over 250 works of art for sale online. (Image: GANKsy and VoleWTF)[/caption]

Over 250 works by GANksy are for sale in the form of the exclusive ownership of a GANksy-signed digital file, with prices starting at £1 (HK$10.10) and rising by £1 with every purchase. As of now, according to Round's website, 91 pieces have already found a buyer.

These prices are a far cry from those that Banksy's works routinely fetch; many sell for several million euros. Last week, "Show me the Monet," Banksy's reimagining of a Claude Monet painting, saw the hammer fall at £7.6 million (HK$76.7 million) at Sotheby's London. The piece did not, however, beat the record set by the artist's "Devolved Parliament," which sailed past its initial estimation of £2 million (HK$20.2 million) to sell for £9.9 million (HK$99.9 million) at a previous Sotheby's auction in 2019.

[caption id="attachment_211601" align="alignnone" width="535"] Priest by GANKsy. (Image: GANKsy and VoleWTF)[/caption]

Works generated by AI have been well received at auction in the last few years. Among them is Paris-based arts collective Obvious's "Portrait of Edmond Belamy," which took the art market by surprise when it sold for $432,500 (approximately €365,970) in October 2018 at Christie's -- sixty times its low base estimation of $7000.

Earlier this year, the Bucharest International Biennial for Contemporary Art announced that the chief curator for its 10th edition, set to take place in 2022, will be an AI programme named Jarvis. Jarvis will be trained over two years to use deep learning to gather information on curatorial practices, as well as explore the databases of museums, universities and galleries to select artists and creators who will participate in the Bucharest Biennale. The chosen artists will exhibit their work in a virtual-reality gallery, according to the AI system's creators, Vienna-based studio Spinnwerk.

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Uncertain times call for unorthodox ideas.

Perrotin Gallery is collaborating with Paris' Grand Palais for a giant scavenger hunt, which will take place October 24 and 25. The rules are simple: Participants have to locate 20 artworks by contemporary artists that have been hidden around the empty nave of the Palais. Even more surprisingly, they can take home any artwork that they have found.

Participants will go on the hunt for works that 20 international artists on Perrotin's rooster have donated for the event. Among them are Takashi Murakami, JR, Daniel Arsham, Emily Mae Smith, Laurent Grasso, Iván Argote,Aya Takanoand Bharti Kher.

"Since we don't know where we are going, it is almost as if anything is possible: immense, adventurous, and unapologetic projects make us feel connected to the world in this moment...Works of art are more precious than ever, which is why it is important to offer them to as many people as possible," art dealer Emmanuel Perrotin said in a statement.

The idea for "Wanted!" stems from a project by Elmgreen & Dragset organized in September 2016 by Perrotin Gallery. The Berlin-based artist duo staged an art fair booth in the empty nave of the Grand Palais a month before the opening of the FIAC contemporary art fair.

The 2020 edition of the Parisian event was recently canceled in reaction to a surge in coronavirus cases in France.

In order to comply with social-distancing guidelines, the 13,500 square-metre nave of the glass-roofed Grand Palais, which is also known as a venue for Chanel runway shows, will be filled to 20 percent capacity, and face masks will be compulsory during the entire scavenger hunt.

"Like many... works of art are usually not within my grasp, and I cannot have everything that I see," Chris Dercon, president of the Grand Palais, said in a statement.

"With 'Wanted!', the value of the work depends on the effort made by the visitors. Indeed, the true love of art is often a matter of chance: you often find what you were not really looking for. And it's also true that in many public and private collections, works of art are hidden."

(Main and featured image: Takashi Murakami /Kaikai Kiki/ Perrotin Gallery)

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As an Expater I rely on blogs a lot. Not just for the pretty pictures, but to go about my daily life… everything from finding…

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As an Expater I rely on blogs a lot. Not just for the pretty pictures, but to go about my daily life… everything from finding…

The post A round up of the best blogs for expat women appeared first on The Expater.