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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.

4 days 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”.

6 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.

2 weeks ago

The Latest

Art & Culture

UNESCO in massive fundraising drive for blast-hit Beirut

The UN's culture and education body will organize two conferences to seek "considerable" funding for blast-hit Beirut, its director said Thursday in the Lebanese capital.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

New statue of UK's Princess Diana to be installed next year

A new statue of Britain's Princess Diana will be installed at Kensington Palace next July on what would have been her 60th birthday, the palace said on Friday, after a delay due to the coronavirus pandemic.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

HRW slams Jordan arrest of cartoonist over UAE drawing

Human Rights Watch on Friday urged Jordan to release prominent cartoonist Emad Hajjaj after he was arrested for publishing a drawing deemed offensive to the United Arab Emirates.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Banksy funds Mediterranean refugee rescue boat: Report

British street artist Banksy is funding a ship covered with his own artwork to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean and has so far picked up at least 89 people.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

New York's Museum of Modern Art re-opens with few visitors

New York's Museum of Modern Art reopened its doors Thursday following a nearly six-month shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

No laughing matter as Dutch masterwork stolen for third time

Thieves have stolen the painting "Two Laughing Boys" by Dutch golden age artist Frans Hals from a museum in the Netherlands, the third time it has been taken, police said Thursday.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

World's first virtual art museum looks beyond 'the white viewer'

The world's first entirely virtual art museum is set to open next month, hoping to bring masterpieces to anyone in the world with an internet connection.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

NY's Central Park inaugurates statue of 'real women,' a first

It's a small but significant foot in the door of an urban landscape completely dominated by white men: On Wednesday, New York's Central Park inaugurated its first statue honoring "real women," two of them white and one black, all of them pioneers in the struggle for women's rights. 

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Auschwitz museum calls TikTok Holocaust videos 'hurtful'

The Auschwitz museum on Wednesday called a new trend for users of video-sharing platform TikTok to role-play Holocaust victims "hurtful and offensive," but added that it did not want to shame young people involved.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Sotheby's changes beat with first hip-hop auction

It started out as just a plastic prop from a party shop but the gold colored crown that rapper Notorious B.I.G wore on the last photo shoot before his death could fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars at an auction dedicated to hip-hop culture.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Hong Kong's new security law inhibits anxious artists

Fearing their work may violate a national security law recently imposed by Beijing, some Hong Kong artists are turning to self-censorship while others are moving their creations abroad or are planning to leave the city themselves.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Gold-hunting diggers destroy Sudan's priceless past

When a team of archaeologists deep in the deserts of Sudan arrived at the ancient site of Jabal Maragha last month, they thought they were lost. The site had vanished. But they hadn't made a mistake. In fact, gold-hunters with giant diggers had destroyed almost all sign of the two millenia-old site.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Czech guitar maker born of necessity woos stars

Born during a shortage of guitars in former Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia, the Furch family company is now selling instruments to global stars out of its workshop in a former mill.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Jack White, Third Man Records auction off White Stripes memorabilia

The auction, presented as a “garage sale” by Jack White’s Third Man Records, will take place via Online Nashville Auctions from Wednesday, Aug. 26 to Sunday, Aug. 30.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Busan Biennale resists adversities in pandemic time

The Busan Biennale, an international contemporary art show that takes place in the southern port city, is ready to demonstrate that the role of art has become more essential than ever in these pandemic-hit times.  

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Ubud writers and food festivals to go online in October

Set to be held virtually from Oct. 29 to Nov. 8, KEMBALI20: A Rebuild Bali Festival is said to "bring together the most successful elements of UWRF and UFF".

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Creditors take control of struggling Cirque du Soleil

A group of Cirque du Soleil creditors has announced it will take control of the heavily indebted Canadian circus troupe.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

In China, a Trump wax statue maker laments virus impact

For Zeng Sheng, the manager at Shanghai Maiyi Arts, this autumn should have been a boon for business: with the US presidential election, demand for the center's wax replicas of Donald Trump should have been off the charts. Instead, the spread of the coronavirus has halted new orders and stalled overseas travel, including to and from the United States.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Virus curbs see elephant idols shrunk for major Indian festival

Indian authorities have imposed tough anti-coronavirus restrictions on gatherings and the size of Ganesha elephant god idols for one of the biggest religious festivals of the year that started Saturday.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Eerie Belgrade exhibit turns Ratko Mladic diary into art

Serbian artist Vladimir Miladinovic copied Ratko Mladic's notebook onto fresh white sheets, which now cover the walls of a Belgrade exhibit raising questions about how to confront one of the region's darkest chapters.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Locals enjoy rare calm at London museums

With tourists staying away and visitor numbers limited due to coronavirus, the popular exhibit is unrecognizably quiet -- as are many of the British capital's museums and galleries.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Gandhi's iconic glasses sell for $340,000 in UK

A pair of gold-plated glasses worn by Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi has sold in Britain for £260,000 (about 288,000 euros, $340,000).

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Broadway's Tony awards to be awarded in digital ceremony this fall

The Tony awards, the annual honors celebrating the best in Broadway theater, will be announced during a digital ceremony this fall.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Controversy over architectural heritage from Japanese colonial era in Korea continues

Experts caution against simplistic view of structures built by Japan.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Dutch online store bans 'Black Pete' merchandise as 'hurtful'

Dutch online retailer Bol.com has become the latest firm to ban products depicting "Black Pete", a caricatured figure from pre-Christmas celebrations, in response to anti-racism campaigns.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Erdogan converts another former Istanbul church into mosque

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday ordered another ancient Orthodox church that became a mosque and then a popular Istanbul museum to be turned back into a place of Muslim worship.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Small wonders: The Vietnamese artist making tiny food

Nguyen Thi Ha An began crafting food miniatures a year ago, spotting a chance to capitalize on the world's growing love of Vietnamese cuisine.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Modern, contemporary Southeast Asian art in focus in Larasati’s August sale

Works in a range of media are offered, including an etching, pencil drawings on paper, ink and color on rice paper, pastels on paper, watercolors on paper, along with works in oil and acrylic paints on canvas.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Manholes get glowing anime makeover in Japan's Tokorozawa

A set of manhole covers in Japan's Tokorozawa city, north of Tokyo, has been decorated with anime characters that glow in the dark, to the delight of locals and city officials.

4 years ago
Art & Culture

Nazi-looted French painting on display in search for rightful owner

A 19th-century oil painting stolen from occupied France during World War II has gone on display in a bid to trace its rightful owners after being returned by the son of the German soldier who took it on orders from above.

4 years ago