Culture

10 Art Galleries to Visit in Bahrain

“10 Art Galleries to Visit in Bahrain”

via “Time Out Bahrain“

Albareh Art Gallery Gallery
This gallery and café exhibits paintings, sculptures and photography by a wide range of regional artists. Talks and workshops too.
Open Sat 9am-4pm; Sun-Thu 7am-2pm. Off Sheikh Isa Avenue, behind the Carlton Hotel, Adliya, http://www.albareh.com (17 717 707).

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Anamil
Private gallery which shows the owner’s work from furnishings to clothing as well as paintings and also regularly stages the work of up and coming artists.
Budaiya behind the Post Office off Bani Jamra turn (17 162 155).

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Bahrain Arts Society
Gallery, members’ club, etching room, classrooms and studio. The society holds regular exhibitions, workshops and courses throughout the year.
Beside Lanterns on the Burgerland roundabout off the Budaiya Highway (17 590 551).

“Hidden Paintings Revealed at Ancient Temple of Angkor Wat”

by Megan Gannon via “LiveScience“

“Each year, millions of visitors flock to Angkor Wat, an ancient temple in modern-day Cambodia. There, they marvel at the 900-year-old towers, a giant moat and the shallow relief sculptures of Hindu gods. But what they can’t see are 200 hidden paintings on the temple walls.

New, digitally enhanced images reveal detailed murals at Angkor Wat showing elephants, deities, boats, orchestral ensembles and people riding horses — all invisible to the naked eye.

Many of the faded markings could be graffiti left behind by pilgrims after Angkor Wat was abandoned in the 15th century. But the more elaborate paintings may be relics of the earliest attempts to restore the temple, researchers said.

Painting discovery

Subtle traces of paint caught the eye of Noel Hidalgo Tan, a rock-art researcher at Australian National University in Canberra, while he was working on an excavation at Angkor Wat in 2010.

Built between A.D. 1113 and 1150, Angkor Wat stood at the center of Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire. The 500-acre (200 hectares) complex, one of the largest religious monuments ever erected, originally served as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu, but was transformed into a Buddhist temple in the 14th century. (more…)

Curating the Digital Humanities: How to Save the Humanities With Just a Few Clicks

Curating the Digital Humanities:

How to Save the Humanities With Just a Few Clicks

by Mary Flanagan via “Ozy“

“Save the books. And the film reels. The photos, the manuscripts, the letters, the maps.

These artifacts that fill our libraries threaten to sink into oblivion. But the good news? You can save them. As it turns out, the fate of media soon to be housed in the Digital Public Library of America lies in the hands of everyday Internet users, thanks to the power of crowdsourcing. How? You just have to play (sic) little online games.

These particular games just happen to add keywords to help organize media files like images, manuscripts, and more. Welcome to the future of digital curation: gamified Wikipedia.

The goal: to make printed words and imagery imminently findable once they’re moved from physical shelves to virtual ones. The British Library announced in 2012 that millions of cultural heritage artifacts could be effectively lost to the world if they were not put online — the photos and maps stored in boxes all around the world will simply be forgotten as we move further into our digitally connected age.

For the generations who’ve grown up without the library as a core part of their lives, this mission might seem a strange one. But ever since the first libraries in ancient Southern Iraq started archiving clay cuniform tablets over five and a half thousand years ago, libraries have held each successive society’s greatest treasured documents and artifacts of learning and knowledge.

As vast as Google’s reach is, the mega-corp’s multiyear Book project has, to date, scanned only about 15 percent of the world’s books.

After the books and photos and manuscripts and home movies are scanned, all of that material must be labeled by name, type or category — along with a description with detailed words to help us find it.

These archives have all the stuff Google doesn’t show you. . . . “

Coming Exhibition: Afghan Rugs ~ The Contemporary Art of Central Asia

“Afghan Rugs ~ The Contemporary Art of Central Asia”

Who: BOCA Museum of Art

When: May 3, 2014 – July 27, 2014 (Tues-Fri. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. 12 p.m.-5 p.m.)

Where:

BOCA Museum of Art
501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, FL 33432
In Mizner Park

How Much:

Adults ($8) Seniors 65+ ($6) Students ($5) Children 12- (Free)

More Information: Here.

“The international exhibition, Afghan Rugs: The Contemporary Art of Central Asia, features over 40 rugs from a private European collection, traveling for the first time to museums in North America. Selected for their exceptional quality and stunning imagery, the rugs in this exhibition represent a unique category in decorative arts. They constitute some of the most powerful visual inventions of the late 20th century and are skillfully crafted with hand-spun and dyed, tightly knotted wool.

These exquisitely woven works of art are designed with thoroughly untraditional motifs. Approximately half of the rugs—some produced well before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979—feature cityscapes, portraits, landscapes, and world maps, framed by tanks and helicopters. Other rugs in the include weapons and fighting scenes made by weavers in Afghanistan, or in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. No matter the central imagery, each rug is traditionally bounded by an intricately framed and detailed border design offering incredible works of art to be enjoyed on the floor as well as the wall.”

“Over 1,000 Ancient Buddha Statues Uncovered in China”

by April Holloway via “Epoch Times“

“Archaeologists have discovered more than 1,000 ancient Buddha statues in three stone caves on a cliff-face in Yangqu County, in north China’s Shanxi Province, according to a report in China.org.cn. Although official dating has not yet been carried out, it is believed that the statues date back to the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming dynasty, was the ruling dynasty of China for 276 years (1368–1644 AD) following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as “one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history”, was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic Han Chinese. The creation of stone Buddha statues reached its peak during the period from the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589) to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), so it is rare to find stone Buddha statues from the Ming Dynasty.

According to traditional accounts, Buddhism was introduced in China during the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) after an emperor dreamed of a flying golden man thought to be the Buddha. Although the archaeological record confirms that Buddhism was introduced sometime during the Han dynasty, it did not flourish in China until the Six Dynasties period (220-589 AD). The year 67 CE saw Buddhism’s official introduction to China with the coming of the two monks Moton and Chufarlan.

The latest finding including stone statues carved into the cave walls and measuring 12 to 25 centimetres long, said Yang Jifu, director of the county’s cultural heritage tourism bureau. Yang said two of the caves had been restored in the Ming Dynasty, according to the record on two steles in the caves. . . . .”