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Futuristic Semar: Cast members of 'Mencari Semar' pose with director Rangga Riantiarno (top, third left), scenographer Deden Bulqini (top, fourth left), Bakti Budaya Djarum Foundation’s program manager Billy Gamaliel (top, center) and Teater Koma’s cofounder Ratna Riantiarno (top, fourth right) on July 31, 2025, after attending a press conference at Galeri Indonesia Kaya in Jakarta. JP/Sylviana Hamdani
Futuristic Semar: Cast members of 'Mencari Semar' pose with director Rangga Riantiarno (top, third left), scenographer Deden Bulqini (top, fourth left), Bakti Budaya Djarum Foundation’s program manager Billy Gamaliel (top, center) and Teater Koma’s cofounder Ratna Riantiarno (top, fourth right) on July 31, 2025, after attending a press conference at Galeri Indonesia Kaya in Jakarta. JP/Sylviana Hamdani
Art & Culture premium

‘Mencari Semar’: Teater Koma seeks ancient wisdom in the digital age

The play unfolds in the futuristic realm of the Nimacha Empire, where humans are gradually being overpowered by droids and robots.

1 day ago
Art & Culture premium

Artistic heritage meets modern beats at 2025 ‘Pagelaran Sabang Merauke’

Music director Elwin Hendrijanto says the show will fuse contemporary arrangements with traditional sounds like Kalimantan’s Karungut and the Batak song “Rambadia”.

3 days ago
Art & Culture premium

LIFEs 2025 explores national identity through art and literature

The Literature and Ideas Festival returns from Aug. 8-16 with "Menjadi Indonesia", featuring over 35 performers.

1 week ago

The Latest

Art & Culture

'Dear Evan Hansen' opens hybrid Toronto Film Festival

The film, an adaptation of the Broadway production, stars Tony Award winner Ben Platt reprising his role as a high school student with social anxiety who gets caught up in a lie. Julianne Moore, Amy Adams and Kaitlyn Dever are among the cast.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Art collection featuring Warhol, Picasso heads to auction, valued at $600 million

The first auction will feature iconic works such as Warhol's silkscreen portraits of Marilyn Monroe, an enormous tritone painting by Mark Rothko, and a seascape by Gerhard Richter.

3 years ago
Art & Culture premium

Art, terror and erections show VR potential at Venice

VR competitions have become a regular feature of film festivals around the world, from Sundance to Cannes, but many remain unaware of how quickly the medium is evolving. 

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Rom-com queen Kate Hudson takes 'brave' turn with dark fairytale at Venice

The film, which is competing for the Golden Lion at the festival, tells the story of a Korean girl with telepathic powers who escapes from a mental institution and forms a bond with Hudson's erotic dancer. 

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Afghan art activist defiant as Taliban erase Kabul murals

Within weeks of the Islamists taking the capital, many of the street art pieces have been painted over, replaced by drab propaganda slogans as the Taliban reimpose their austere vision on Afghanistan.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Maggie Gyllenhaal picks Ferrante novel for her directing debut

The script is adapted from the eponymous 2006 book by Elena Ferrante - a pseudonym of the notoriously secretive Italian author best known for her Neapolitan novels with whom Gyllenhaal only corresponded by letter.

3 years ago
Art & Culture premium

About time: Indonesia rediscovers an overlooked renaissance man

Harijadi Sumadijaja, a midcentury social realist artist sidelined during the Soeharto era, is only beginning to be recognized.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Afghanistan becoming 'country without artists' exiled directors warn Venice

"In just two weeks, the most brilliant elements have left the country, at least those who were able," 38-year-old director Sahraa Karimi told reporters at the festival on Saturday.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Partially shredded Banksy painting to go back on sale

The artwork -- now called "Love is in the Bin" -- will be offered for sale by the London auction house on October 14, with an estimated selling price of £4-6 million ($6-8 million, 5-7 million euros).

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Looking far ahead: Artist uses robotic insects as mementos for future generations

Using robotic fireflies, an artist portrays the Earth in its most collapsing form.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Below a pyramid, a treasure trove sheds new light on ancient Mexican rites

Over 100,000 artifacts from the tunnel have been cataloged so far, ranging from finely-carved statues, jewelry, shells, and ceramics as well as thousands of wooden and metallic objects that mostly survived the passage of time intact.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Final curtain for 'wayang potehi'? Maintaining a unique Chinese-Indonesian art form

As the last puppeteers of the wayang potehi traditional art form enter their twilight years, they worry that the younger generation won’t pick up the torch to carry on the uniquely East Java performing art.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Colonial-era architectural heritage at risk in Tunis

In the centre of Tunisia's capital, dilapidated colonial-era art deco and art nouveau buildings face demolition as heritage preservation falls prey to a lack of planning and eager developers.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Balinese artist Andre Yoga’s provocative mindscapes describe a nation in crisis

Contemporary artists' role within society is especially vital during periods of social and political upheaval. Their sensitivity, observation skills and mastery of visual languages inform the public of critical issues demanding attention.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Ancient vicuna wool shearing tradition lives on in Peruvian Andes

At daybreak on a freezing cold day high in the Andes, dozens of Peruvian peasants clamber up a mountainside to carry out a centuries-old tradition of shearing the highly-prized wool off vicunas, which are relatives of the llama.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Decrepit Ankara theme park tells tale of Turkey's turmoil

The decaying dinosaur toys outside the abandoned theme park tell the tale of grand ambition, waste and troubles facing the long-ruling party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Diving among ancient ruins where Romans used to party

Fish dart across mosaic floors and into the ruined villas, where holidaying Romans once drank, plotted and flirted in the party town of Baiae, now an underwater archaeological park near Naples.  

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Arc de Triomphe to be wrapped up whole in Paris art installation

Workers have already erected some of the scaffolding around the 50-meter high, 19th century arch to set it up for the silvery blue, recyclable plastic wrapping, which will be on view between Sept. 18 and Oct. 3.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Well-preserved skeleton sheds light on culture in ancient Pompeii

The body of the man, believed to be in his 60s, was found in a tomb which dated to the final decades of Pompeii, before it was destroyed by the Vesuvius volcano in 79 AD.

3 years ago
Art & Culture

Latvians take to the water for distanced concerts

Organizers said there were around 1,500 people on the water, and 3,500 more watching from the shore, while the stage was located on the shore and two floating bars in the lake sold beer and cocktails.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Senegal architects enraged after historic Dakar market is bulldozed

Senegalese architects expressed their anger on Friday after bulldozers razed the famed Sandaga market, a sprawling hub of informal trade in the heart of Senegal's capital Dakar.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Banksy shows off his British seaside 'spraycation'

In recent years, the Bristol artist, who cleverly maintains the mystery of his identity, has kept the attention of the contemporary art world with his social commentaries and causes -- migrants, opposition to Brexit, denunciation of Islamist radicals -- as well as stirring the excitement of the moneyed art markets.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Final chord: royal piano restorer sells lifetime's collection

Winston's entire collection is now being sold off at auction, with estimates that some individual instruments could go for up to £60,000 each.

4 years ago
Art & Culture premium

Berlin festival amplifies underrepresented Indonesian voices

KAUM Festival, organized by Berlin art collective Soydivision, aims to highlight marginalized Indonesian communities in the German capital during the month of August.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Sixty years ago: when the Berlin Wall went up

In the early hours of Sunday, August 13, 1961, communist East Germany's authorities began building the Berlin Wall, cutting the city in two and plugging the last remaining gap in the Iron Curtain.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

After 60 years of Indian rule, Goa's disappearing Portuguese legacy

Across Goa, a tiny coastal state once administered by Lisbon, there is little appetite for the territory's 450 years of European heritage after a few short generations of Indian rule.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

The dirndl: a dress for past and present

Its folksy appeal has now made the historic dirndl and other traditional outfits a key part of Austria's clothing industry, about 70 percent of which is exported, according to the Chamber of Commerce.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Sendok Kreatif: Empowering Balinese culinary entrepreneurs during the pandemic

Born as a response to the pandemic Sendok Kreatif (creative spoon) is a new local initiative empowering the Balinese community by encouraging creative thinking to build sustainable micro-businesses.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Egypt papyrus makers keep tradition alive despite tourism slump

Today, Al-Qaramus has 25 farms trying to make ends meet by selling papyrus, compared to around 500 prior to the revolution, according to farmer and artist Said Tarakhan.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Prehistoric cave paintings in Spain show Neanderthals were artists

The new findings add to increasing evidence that Neanderthals, whose lineage became extinct about 40,000 years ago, were not the unsophisticated relatives of Homo sapiens they been long been portrayed as.

4 years ago