artists

France and Germany call for UN special rapporteur for occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, to step down over her critical comments.

More than 100 prominent artists – including musicians, actors and writers – have signed an open letter in support of the United Nations special rapporteur for occupied Palestinian territory who faces international calls to step down.

In a letter from the group Artists for Palestine on Saturday, the signatories offered “full support to Francesca Albanese, a defender of human rights and, therefore, also of the Palestinian people’s right to exist”.

“There are infinitely more of us in every corner of the Earth who want force no longer to be the law. Who know what the word ‘law’ truly means,” the letter said.

Among the supporters were actors Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem, Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux and British musician Annie Lennox.

At last week’s Al Jazeera Forum, Albanese, an outspoken critic of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, said “we as humanity have a common enemy”, but a fake video that was later debunked had her accusing Israel of being the “common enemy”.

She later explained in a social media post she was referencing “the system that has enabled the genocide in Palestine” as the “common enemy”.

‘Crush any criticism of Israel’

Still, European countries, including France and Germany, continue to call for her removal.

On Tuesday, a group of French lawmakers sent a letter to Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot condemning Albanese’s remarks as “anti-Semitic”. A day later, Barrot called on her to step down, saying France “unreservedly condemns the outrageous and reprehensible remarks”.

On Thursday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul called her position “untenable”.

Frank Barat, an author and film producer, said French President Emmanuel Macron and Barrot have repeatedly said they support international law “while the facts show the complete opposite”.

Albanese has highlighted for the past two years that under international law, “states have a duty to act to prevent genocide, and they’ve been failing completely” in Gaza, Barat told Al Jazeera.

“Because Francesca has been highlighting this hypocrisy, she’s been targeted by most Western governments. The political agenda of these governments is to crush any criticism of Israel. We’ve seen it in the streets of Europe. We’ve seen it in the streets of the US,” he added.

People who have spoken out against Israel’s war on Palestine are “criminalised while the perpetrators of genocide continue to be let go“, Barat said.

Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at a news briefing on Friday that her colleagues are “very worried” about the backlash against Albanese.

“We are concerned that UN officials, independent experts and judicial officials are increasingly subjected to personal attacks, threats and misinformation that distracts from the serious human rights issues,” Hurtado said.

Nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza since an October 10 “ceasefire” alone. At least 72,000 Palestinians have been killed and 171,000 wounded in Israel’s war since October 2023

My nan had one in her downstairs loo. An LS Lowry print, that is. It showed a street scene: 100-odd people, a few dogs, some mills in the background. I remember liking the work mostly because I could see myself in it, in a way that I couldn’t when faced with paintings of fruit or water lilies. I’ve had a soft spot for the painter ever since, and to mark the 50th anniversary of his passing, I travelled up to Manchester for a Lowry-themed break.

My first stop was the Manchester Art Gallery on Mosley Street, where a number of his works hang alongside those of his mentor, the French impressionist Pierre Adolphe Valette (Lowry took evening classes with Valette while working as a rent collector).

Each of the paintings on show, whether of a street or park or lonely road, hints at a shared experience. They are more than the sum of their parts, more than mere matchsticks. Detractors bemoan Lowry’s lack of technique, but for me that’s rather like dismissing Gavin & Stacey for not containing enough big words.

With the rain falling heavily, I found refuge in Sam’s Chop House, down an alley off Cross Street. The pub-restaurant has been going since 1868, and was a bolthole for Lowry, who sits still at the bar, set in bronze. I leant on the man as I saw off a pint, then made a fool of myself by trying to get a selfie with the pair of us in it. Lowry was too large for the frame.

I crossed the River Irwell and entered Salford, which has a unique identity and is a city in its own right – not just Manchester’s bit on the side, as is routinely reported.

Alongside the Irwell, just a few yards into Salford, stands The Lowry hotel, which was initially owned by Sir Rocco Forte, whose hotelier father was a Lowry enthusiast. In the hotel’s gym, I realised that the music of the Smiths isn’t conducive to a workout. But on the treadmill I caught a Morrissey lyric about it taking “strength to be gentle”, and it made me think of Lowry, a man brave enough to stick to his everyday scenes at a time arty types in London were calling for more elevated fare.

I was collected from the hotel by John Consterdine, a local legend who does tours of the region in an electric black cab, including one focused on Lowry. We started at Lowry’s endpoint, Southern Cemetery, where the painter has lain since perishing of pneumonia in 1976, at the age of 88. His resting place is marked by a modest stone cross and adorned with paintbrushes. It is shared, fittingly, with his overbearing mother.

Next, we drove out to a part of town known as Victoria Park. Once a gated community for middle-class Victorians, it’s where Lowry grew up. The house at 14 Pine Grove offers no hint that he lived here until the age of 22, at which point the family were forced to move to Pendlebury, a deprived district of Salford. The relocation was a fall from grace, one that Lowry’s mother would never recover from.

Lowry did adapt to his new surroundings, however. Indeed, it was here that he discovered his unlikely muse – Manchester’s industrial landscape – and went to work on the down-to-earth scenes that he would become known for. Again, the house (117 Station Road) is unmarked. I’m tempted to consider this regrettable, but it’s probably what Lowry would have wanted. The artist refused a knighthood in 1968, and holds the record for most honours declined, turning down five in his lifetime.

After a brief stop at Peel Park, which Lowry painted several times, John dropped me at Salford Quays, which would have been as busy as a box of frogs back in the day, before the bottom fell out of the cotton market. Salford was affected badly by the slump and the city entered a long, deep depression, soundtracked by Joy Division. The docks were a wasteland, renewal a pipe dream.

Enter Lowry. Or rather, the Lowry: a theatre and gallery complex, conceived by Salford councillors in the late 1980s, who hoped an arts centre would rejuvenate the area. It opened in 2000 and set off a chain reaction. London’s Imperial War Museum erected a northern outpost; then the BBC moved to MediaCityUK and told Gary Lineker he’d be dipping his prawns in gravy henceforth. By the time ITV and Corrie moved in, in 2013, Salford Quays was becoming a tourist, retail, residential and leisure hub.

At the heart of it was the Lowry, whose halls had been decked with the vast collection of Lowry paintings the local council had been snapping up over the years.

I started with a new immersive experience called Lowry 360. I entered a space the size of a squash court, each side and surface alive with Lowry’s artwork – bobbies on the beat, bicycles on the move, matchsticks a go-go – the whole thing elevated by a voiceover from Sophie Willan, star of the sitcom Alma’s Not Normal. By animating Lowry in this way, the paintings grow to their subjects’ true height, becoming entire worlds. This is Lowry in the round, and it works like a dream.

I moved on to the paintings, which felt more alive off the back of the animation. Centre stage is Going to the Match (1953), one of his most famous works featuring signature “matchstick men”, which shows a crowd on their way to a Bolton Wanderers game.

The painting has been on quite the journey. When the Lowry opened, it was offered to the gallery on long-term loan by its then owners, the Professional Footballers’ Association. Twenty years later, the PFA suddenly asked for the painting back, because it wanted to flog it at auction. The Lowry was gutted, knowing its prized possession would be lost for good.

Enter Andrew Law, a state school lad from Stockport and the sitting CEO of a global hedge fund. He wrote the Lowry a blank cheque and told it to acquire the painting. It did so – for £7.8m. Someone buy that man a shandy!

I could bang on about each of the paintings on show at the Lowry, but suffice to say that the whole range is here: mills, streets, churches, parks, a girl in a corset and the deep blue sea. Despite the received wisdom, Lowry is no one-trick pony. When you’ve seen one, you haven’t seen them all.

It was time to go to the match. Manchester United were at home to Bournemouth that evening, so off I went to the “Theatre of Dreams”. I took up a position behind the East Stand, part of a thickening congregation as kick-off approached: kids on shoulders, a lady hawking scarves, coppers policing Matt Busby Way.

Not having a ticket, I withdrew to Hotel Football, within earshot of the ground. After the game I climbed to the top and looked towards the skyline of Salford and Manchester.

It was some view: the skyscrapers of New Jackson, the bright cluster of MediaCity, the dark lifted by countless northern lights. There wasn’t a chimney in sight, but I fancy Lowry would have captured the scene nicely nonetheless. He might have added a figure or two – a pair of window cleaners perhaps, harnessed and up high, braving the weather, buffing the glass, improving perspective, allowing others to see.

The trip was supported by The Lowry hotel, which has doubles from £162, room-only. Visit manchestertaxitours.co.uk to enquire about John Consterdine’s tours. Manchester Art Gallery and the Lowry have free entry

The art of women in Cannes

We visited the Female Artists of the Mougins Museum, in Mougins, a small village on a hill near Cannes. Full of exclusively female artists – from Berthe Morisot in the 19th century and Frida Kahlo in the early 20th to contemporary figures such as Tracey Emin – it houses an incredible collection of often overlooked art and artists. We visited on a rainy October day and it was remarkably quiet and calm. I particularly enjoyed the abstract works – well worth a trip up the hill.
James

Secret church in Amsterdam’s red light district

Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder is a bit of a mouthful, but it is the best museum I have ever visited. Our Lord in the Attic is a hidden gem in the centre of Amsterdam and well worth a visit. “Our Lord” is a clandestine church originating after the Reformation when Catholics were no longer allowed to hold public holy masses. It enabled Catholics to worship, but only in private; thus creating an incredibly intimate and secretive experience. The canal house feels like a Tardis as you move from what seems like a labyrinth of rooms, all leading to what appears to be a doll’s house church. A sliver of heaven in the middle of the red light district!
Ryan

Berlin’s pioneering socialist artist

I came across the Käthe-Kollwitz Museum only because I was staying nearby, just off Berlin’s glamorous Ku’damm avenue. This small, intimate building houses probably the best collection of Kollwitz’s prints, drawings, posters, sculptures and woodcuts, inspired by and illustrating her lifelong socialist beliefs with real power and poignancy. Her life and work were profoundly shaped by inseparable personal and political tragedies.
Leslie

Turin’s mountain museum

We visited the Museo Nazionale della Montagna (National Museum of Mountains) in Turin last summer. Having spent the previous four weeks hiking in the Italian Alps, it was the perfect end to our trip. The staff are knowledgable and there are some excellent exhibits exploring the history of our relationship with mountains along with displays of mountaineering gear and derring-do over the past 150 years. There’s also a rooftop terrace with a great view of the city and mountains beyond. A fantastic way to spend a few hours and a must for any lover of mountains.
Samantha McGrady

Captivating artefacts from the far east, Porto

Set in a late 18th-century palace belonging to the Porto bourgeoisie, the Museo Nacional Soares dos Reis, founded in 1833, is considered to be Portugal’s oldest art museum. It features an absorbing collection of Portuguese painting dating from the 16th to 20th centuries, but particularly captivating are the rooms displaying Japanese and Chinese artefacts, which arrived in Portugal off trading ships from the far east. Don’t miss the tranquil garden at the back of the museum.
Peter

Homage to Copernicus in Kraków

The Jagiellonian University Museum has a wonderful collection for those interested in history and science. The university was founded in 1364 and a young Copernicus (who worked out that the sun was at the centre of the known universe rather than the Earth) studied there in the 1490s. Many objects related to its most famous student and his heliocentric theory are showcased, alongside quirky objects related to the history of the university, and the history of Poland. The guides are very knowledgable, the visit is affordable, and it’s conveniently located in Kraków’s beautiful historical city centre.
Aline T Marinho

Quiet contemplation and wonder in Barcelona

In a stunningly restored mattress factory (La Casaramona) designed by Catalan modernist architect Josep Puig i Cadafach, you can find the CaixaForum, just up the road from the Plaça d’Espanya in Barcelona. There are some buildings that eclipse the art that’s inside it, but the Caixa specialises in having a revolving display of exhibitions from photography to sculpture to immersive art, in an atmosphere of quiet contemplation and wonder. It is near the Miró Foundation and so many visitors pass it by without realising how great it is. Within its curvy walls there is a cafe for a welcome cold drink.
Liz Owen Hernandez

An airship and Trump toddlers in Prague

I would really recommend DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague. It’s a little way out of the touristy city centre but is an excellent art gallery within a stunning feat of architecture – a steel and wood airship (built in 2016) seemingly floats out of a postwar factory building. In 2018 I saw a brilliant exhibit, which was a white room filled with giant toddlers with Trump faces.
Katherine L

Paris’s ‘most enchanting’ museum

For me, the most enchanting museum in Paris is the Musée National Gustave Moreau, located in the former home of the 19th-century symbolist artist. Stendhal syndrome is surely a real risk in this glorious space, as one staggers among the dizzying, gigantic paintings painted in elaborate, decorative detail. Classical mythology and intimate biblical scenes are presented in vast gilt frames alongside looser drawings and watercolours housed in cabinets with pivoting shutters for ease of browsing. A spiral staircase between studio floors adds to the magic and the fascinating private apartments offer insight into a brilliant mind. Truly inspiring.
Petra Painter

Winning tip: Bronze gods in Piraeus

The Archaeological Museum of Piraeus contains a wonderful collection of artefacts spanning 2,000 years of Greek history and is generally less hectic than bigger museums in Athens. In pride of place are the Piraeus bronzes, a truly staggering collection of statues (including the Piraeus Apollo and bronze statues of Athena and Artemis) that left such an impression on me that I now have tattoos of two of them. It’s only 20 minutes from the centre of Athens by train, and is a wonderful place to explore while you wait for your ferry connection to the islands.
Ben Holmes