Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city, but its geographic distance from the rest of the world and its comparatively small population of 1.5 million leaves it with something of an inferiority complex.

We are now experiencing a shift in civilization from the final stages of modernity and expansion toward a shrinking world. The work of neuroscientists such as Vilayanur S. Ramachandran from the University of California, San Diego, and of robotics and artificial-intelligence scholar Takashi Maeno from Keio University, Tokyo, has begun to prove that there is no free will.

Some company recently was interested in buying my “aura.” – Andy Warhol

The prodigious prince of Pop art, Andy Warhol is often described as a visionary who fused high art with low commercial product. Initially dismissed by Time magazine as a “huckster of hype,” Warhol had a preternatural understanding of the power of both consumer psychology and public relations in the 1960s. His influence was seminal in the development of appropriation art, as well as in the melding of fine art with consumer goods both quotidian and luxurious—two movements that continue to inundate the art world today.

Kawayan means “bamboo” in Tagalog, and the tall, lanky, soft-spoken Kawayan de Guia bears the name well. Although Metro Manila is the bastion of the mainstream Filipino art scene, de Guia resides in his hometown of Baguio, in the Cordillera mountain region that has been the subject of many of his works.

It’s May 4, 2006. A tsunami warning has been issued for Fiji and New Zealand following an earthquake in Tonga. At Sotheby’s in New York, Picasso’s Dora Maar with Cat (1941) goes for USD 95 million under the hammer, becoming the second-most expensive painting in auction history.

Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC) executive director Connie Lam and guest curator Eugene Tan from Singapore selected nine Asian artists to explore the theme “Of Human Scale and Beyond.

Pakistani-born artist Huma Bhabha is known for her figurative, totemic sculptures created from found and discarded materials. “Unnatural Histories,” Bhabha’s first solo museum show in New York, featured 30 of her recent sculptures, along with a dozen collage-drawings, displayed across the third floor of MoMA PS1.

The ascent to Lee Bul’s home and studio by car requires a series of perilous hairpin turns, up narrow streets lined with vine-covered walls and imposing portals, into the hills of northern Seoul.

When making purchases of fine art, collectors focus primarily on issues relating to the authenticity and the condition of their prospective acquisitions. For instance: Is the artwork real? Is it in the catalogue raisonné of the artist? Has it been certified by the artist’s foundation or estate? Is it in good condition? Has it been restored?