ROME (AFP) ― A Japanese businessman has agreed to invest around one million euros ($1.3 million) to restore a 2,000-year-old Roman pyramid in the Italian capital, La Repubblica daily reported this week. Yuzo Yagi, a fashion business owner from Osaka, is due to sign the agreement later this month and work on the pyramid, which was built in 18-12 B.C. as a tomb for a wealthy Roman, Gaius Cestius, ...

LONDON (AP) ― Two of Britain’s art superstars are squabbling about whether it’s acceptable to use assistants to create works of art. The argument pits painter David Hockney, just awarded Britain’s prestigious Order of Merit, against conceptual artist Damien Hirst. Hockney uses the poster for his upcoming Royal Academy show to state that all the works on exhibit were “made by the artist himself....

LONDON (AFP) ― British artist David Hockney has responded to his appointment to the Order of Merit with typical humor, saying he was glad his controversial campaign for smokers’ rights had not worked against him. Hockney, who came to prominence during the British pop art movement in the 1960s, was named as a member of the exclusive order on Sunday by Queen Elizabeth II. Accepting the royal hono...

HONG KONG (AFP) ― Squatting at a makeshift shrine with joss sticks burning beside her, Granny Leung starts bashing a manlike paper cut-out with a pair of sandals. “I beat you little people, I’m sending you away!” chants the 76-year-old woman, one of the last practitioners in Hong Kong of the ancient Chinese ritual of “da siu yan,” or “beating the petty little people.” Granny Leung performs her ...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) ― Yellowed cover pages of South Africa’s iconic Drum magazine evoke a 1950s black fashion and jazz culture which perished when apartheid forces razed Sophiatown, a racially-mixed Johannesburg suburb. This year Drum turned 60 and even today South Africans link the magazine to Sophiatown, a restless and vibrant suburb which was home to blacks, coloureds, Indians and Chinese. Be...

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) ― The American premiere of the Philip Glass opera “Kepler,’’ a concert by vocalist k.d. lang, and the return of Dublin’s Gate Theatre highlight the 36th season of the Spoleto Festival USA this spring. Chamber music, acrobatic performances and orchestral concerts are also on the schedule for the festival that will light up 13 venues including theaters, churches and...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) ― Woody Guthrie’s writings, recordings and artwork will land in his native state after an Oklahoma foundation bought the collection, with plans for a display that concentrates on his artistry rather than the populist politics that divided local opinion over the years. Guthrie, known for the anthem, “This Land is Your Land’’ and his songs about the poor and downtrodden, is reme...