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"Dan Hicks, the local Christian architect who the proposed the biblical creation exhibit, has condemned the oversight board's change of heart as a violation of Tulsa taxpayers constitutional liberties. He maintains there must be something very special about the Genesis account of creation for the Park and Recreation board to insist on suppressing it, especially when the zoo already features religious symbols in other displays, including a statue of an elephant-like, Hindu deity."

Origin of new British Museum exhibit looks a bit wobbly By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent (Filed: 19/05/2005) Visitors to the British Museum unfamiliar with the date of the wheel's invention may have been puzzled by a primitive painting in the Roman Britain gallery this week, showing a caveman pushing a supermarket trolley. The earliest recorded wheels, as every schoolboy knows, are from Mesopotamia around 5,500 years ago. Trolleys were first used in the Piggly-Wiggly Supermarket chain [really], Oklahoma City, in 1937. The bizarre exhibit, stuck to a wall with double-sided tape and labelled "Early Man Goes to Market" was, of...

The New National Gallery in Berlin, Germany, mounts a new work by performance-artist Vanessa Beecroft. The show is as transparent as the modernist masterpiece building itself: the living models are all nude. It isn't everyday that you see 100 naked women standing in the lobby of Berlin's New National Gallery. But on Thursday and Friday, a mass of women between the ages of 18 and 65 stood in the Mies van der Rohe-designed glass and steel architectural monument, wearing nothing but almond oil and see-through tights. The women are part of artist Vanessa Beecroft's new show "VB 55." For three...

Catholic University hosts sacrilegious display against the Blessed Mother, offending students, faculty and Catholics nationwide Something extremely alarming and shameful occurred at the University of Dayton, where Our Blessed Mother was depicted in an exhibit amid pictures of prostitutes and pornography.1 The sacrilegious display, "Heartlands," by Derek A. Cracco, an assistant professor of art at the University of Alabama, was on public display in the Rike Center Gallery of the University of Dayton from February 22 to March 11. Ranking among the ten largest Catholic universities in the country, the University of Dayton, founded by the Society of Mary in...

If someone hung a picture of your mother amid images of prostitutes and pornography, would you be upset? Would you protest? I’m sure you would. In fact, the Blessed Mother is being insulted in this fashion at the Catholic University of Dayton, where an “art” exhibit in the Rike Center Gallery depicts “Mary amid images of prostitutes, pornography and firearms that has shocked some students and professors…” (Dayton Daily News, 03-07-05) Even worse – the University of Dayton is one of the nation's ten largest Catholic universities, founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, whose particular mission is to...

AMHERST - Are the images that now cover the walls outside Hampden Gallery at the University of Massachusetts campus obscene, thought-provoking, crude or ingenious? Some people cannot get past the naked forms in various acts of sex and violence. For others, the drawings in black marker by Austrian artist Heimo Wallner tell a story of society, filled with everything from violence, love, weapons and fame to pop music, torture, virtue and drugs. And for some, it's hard to understand or process the hundreds of figures and their actions.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Jim Newman, an Army captain during the Vietnam War, stared at the Bell UH-1 Huey Helicopter. "I left a lot of blood and part of my leg in that Huey," he said. Nearly four decades after escaping death, Newman was among dozens of veterans at a dedication ceremony Wednesday for a new Smithsonian Institution exhibit that pays tribute to the service and sacrifice of the nation's battle-worn men and women. The exhibit, which opens on Thursday (Veterans Day), includes more than 800 artifacts, from the 18th-century's French and Indian War to the current global fight against terrorism...

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) - A new exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library showcases items and images from Reagan's funeral. Nearly 6,000 people visited the hilltop library on Sunday for the opening of "Mourning in America," a play on Reagan's upbeat "Morning in America" presidential campaign theme. Reagan died June 5 after battling Alzheimer's disease for a decade. The exhibit recalls the 40th president's funeral, burial and public viewing as well as the nationwide outpouring of sympathy for the Reagan family. On display were the black velvet-draped bier that supported Reagan's mahogany casket in Simi Valley; riding boots placed...

Dome model - Interior (©Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano) Art, faith, history and genius come together in "Creating St. Peter's," a new show opening December 10th at the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Connecticut. The centerpiece of the exhibition, Michelangelo's study model for the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, handcrafted in 1560, unites these powerful themes. The 16-foot wooden model, a gem of craftsmanship and creativity in its own right, provides a rare glimpse at the process and people behind one of the masterpieces of Renaissance architecture. At the Knights of Columbus Museum, the Michelangelo...

Machu Picchu Comes to L.A. Largest U.S. Exhibition of Inca Treasures Makes Only West Coast Stop at Natural History Museum (http://www.nhm.org/) . June 22 to September 7, 2003. This is the first stop on the exhibition’s national tour, after its debut at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Following the Los Angeles presentation, the exhibit will travel to Pittsburgh, Denver, Houston and Chicago. The enduring allure of Machu Picchu, the 15th-century Incan ruins nestled into Peru's Andes Mountains, is its mystery. Why and how did the Incas build such an impressive estate -- a five-acre city, really, with 150...

Experience the history and beauty of the Vatican through a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of its precious collections of art, artifacts, relics, historic documents and treasures, including many objects never before on view to the public. Works by Michelangelo, Bernini, Gallo, Cellini and others, and objects dating back to the third century, provide a fascinating and unprecedented insight into the Vatican's history. More than 350 objects-the largest Vatican collection ever to tour North America-are presented in the context of dramatic and immersive environments, including representations of the Tomb of St. Peter, The Sistine Chapel, the ancient and current St. Peter's Basilicas,...

OTTAWA -- Here's a scoop that has Canadian Alliance MP Chuck Strahl holding his nose. A contemporary art gallery in Ottawa, supported by federal tax dollars, is staging a multimedia, interactive exhibition dedicated to excrement. The five-week show, which opens at an Ottawa art gallery next Thursday, is called Scatalogue: 30 years of crap in contemporary art. The Saw Gallery received a two-year, $72,000 operating grant from the Canada Council for the Arts last year, but no council funding was earmarked specifically for Scatalogue. A media release for the "living, interactive archive" says the exhibition is "a critique of the...

N. Korean spy ship to be shown to public in Kagoshima, Tokyo KAGOSHIMA, May 1 Kyodo - A North Korean spy ship that sank in the East China Sea in December 2001 after an exchange of fire with Japanese vessels will be exhibited in Kagoshima on May 17-18 and in Tokyo in June, the Japan Coast Guard said Thursday. The exhibits will include items found on the ship after it was raised and taken to Japan, such as some weapons, a small boat and a water scooter for landing, coast guard officials said. The exhibition in Kagoshima will be held...

The owner of a toy museum is calling on the public to boycott an art exhibition that features the charred and mutilated bodies of teddy bears. Deady Bears, which forms part of a wider work entitled A Walk on the Darkside at the Artlounge gallery in Lytham St Anne's, Lancs, features cuddly toys that have been variously dismembered, pierced with 6in nails and daubed with red paint intended to resemble blood. Irena Thompson, who runs the nearby Toy and Teddy Bear Museum, is outraged. "This exhibition is simply dreadful, and I do not see what the artist is trying to...

<p>LITTLE ROCK -- A holiday exhibit by the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation opens Monday in downtown Little Rock, offering visitors a glimpse behind the scenes of Christmas in the White House.</p> <p>The exhibit features holiday gifts, photographs and memorabilia and runs through Jan. 18, portraying holidays across religious boundaries from Islam, Judaism and Christianity. An 11-foot, 1,000-pound glass tree created by renowned artist Dale Chihuly is the exhibit's centerpiece.</p>

Mission Accomplished!