Protests over Spanish rapper’s jailing
MORE than 50 people were arrested and dozens injured during a second night of protests that turned violent in several Spanish cities.
The protests were sparked by the imprisonment of a rapper who had insulted the monarchy and praised terrorism.
The protests began peacefully late on Wednesday in dozens of Spanish provincial capitals and other towns in the northeastern Catalonia region, home to the rapper Pablo Hasel.
But as the evening wore on they turned violent, with rioting, impromptu barricades made from trash containers and fires, and damage to shops.
In Madrid, Barcelona and smaller cities, anti-riot police fired rubber or foam bullets at baton-charged protesters, who threw objects at officers and set trash containers alight. Some used overturned motorbikes to block streets.
In the Spanish capital alone, police arrested 19 people, including six minors.
Emergency services assisted 35 injured anti-riot officers and 20 others, including protesters and people who passed by and were caught in the melee.
In Barcelona, 29 people were arrested and at least eight were injured, the regional emergency service said.
The night before, a young protester lost an eye night as a result of a foam projectile used by the regional Mossos d’Esquadra police to dispel the protesters.
The rapper and his supporters say that Hasel’s nine-month sentence for writing a critical song about former King Juan Carlos I, and dozens of tweets that judges said glorified some of Spain’s extinct terrorist groups violates free speech.
“POP Image: Andy Warhol’s 1962-1987” is currently underway at Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum.
The exhibit features 72 works created by Warhol, including silkscreen prints, offset lithographs, photographs and videos.
If you were to regard Pop Art as a hallmark symbol of consumerism and popular culture in the 1960s, Warhol would be the central creator of this symbol, because the content of his works is closely related to American consumerism, commercialism and celebrity idolization of that era.
Through this exhibition, viewers will learn of how everyday objects crossed the boundaries of fine art and how artists subversively appropriated elements of consumerist society, popular culture and mass media in their works.
Born in 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Warhol obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Pictorial Design from the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
He was one of the most successful illustrators in the 1950s and his early drawings often drew influence from cartoons or advertisements.
In 1961, Warhol created his first Pop Art work, “Campbell’s Soup Can,” which was inspired by comics and the advertising art of that time. He developed a series of 32 canvases, each standing for a different flavor in the lineup, from tomato to pepper pot and cream of celery.
Pop artists used humor and irony to comment on how mass production and consumerism had come to dominate so much of American life and culture. For one thing, he surely made art fun.
After “Campbell’s Soup Cans,” Warhol switched from painting to silkscreen printing, a process that produced more mechanicallooking results and allowed him to create multiple versions of a single work.
Whether he was depicting a famous celebrity, an everyday object, suicide, car accident or natural disaster, Warhol consistently relied on silkscreen printing — to reproduce his artworks in bright colors, eventually reducing his visual language to icons without any trace of handdrawing origins.
His works would often consist of multiple replications of the same image, either as exact copies or in varying hues, as you may see in a number of his classic works, such as the Marilyn Monroe series, Campbell’s Soup Cans series, Flowers series and the Celebrity Portraits series.
Date: Through April 7 (close on Mondays), 10am-5pm
Venue: Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum
Address: Bldg 3, 210 Wenhui Road
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AS Serena Williams walked off the court after her latest so-close-yet-so-far bid for a 24th Grand Slam title ended with a loss to Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open, the 39-year-old American paused and put her hand on her chest while thousands of spectators rose to applaud.
Was this, Williams was asked at a news conference after the 3-6, 4-6 semifinal defeat, her way of saying goodbye?
“If I ever say farewell,” she replied with a smile, “I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
When the next question returned the conversation to the subject of Williams’ many mistakes yesterday — twice as many unforced errors, 24, as winners, 12 — she shook her head, teared up, said, “I’m done,” and abruptly walked out of the session with reporters.
Tomorrow, at 7:30pm local time, Osaka will meet first-time Grand Slam finalist Jennifer Brady of the United States for the championship. The 22nd-seeded Brady, who is from Pennsylvania, prevailed in an epic, 18-point last game to edge No. 25 Karolina Muchova 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 in their semifinal.
Brady dropped to her back at the baseline after saving a trio of break points, then converting her fifth match point when Muchova sent a forehand long.
“My legs are shaking,” Brady said. “My heart is racing.”
She lost to Osaka in a three-set thriller in the US Open semifinals last September.
“Everyone’s just really excited whenever they play their first final,” Osaka noted about what awaits Brady, “but they’re also really nervous.”
Williams was hoping to get to her 34th Grand Slam final but, once again, couldn’t quite get the job done in order to add one more Grand Slam trophy to her collection of 23 and equal Margaret Court for the most in tennis history.
Osaka, who also beat Williams in the chaotic 2018 US Open final that concluded with the crowd booing and both women in tears, reached her fourth major title match and stretched her winning streak to 20 matches by claiming the last eight points.
“I don’t know if there’s any little kids out here today, but I was a little kid watching her play,” Osaka, 23, said about Williams, “and just to be on the court playing against her, for me, is a dream.”
The No. 3-seeded Osaka’s Grand Slam collection also includes last year’s US Open and the 2019 Australian Open and she is, without a doubt, the most dangerous hardcourt player in the women’s game at the moment.
That used to be Williams, of course. But she was off-target too much in this contest.
“I could have won. I could have been up 5-Love,” said Williams, who instead took a 2-0 lead at the outset before dropping the next five games. “I just made so many errors.”
Her forehand, in particular, went awry, with no fewer than 10 unforced errors off that side in the first set alone.
“Too many mistakes there,” she said. “Easy mistakes.”
Williams’ frustration was made plain early in the second set, when she leaned over and screamed, “Make a shot! Make a shot!”
After collecting her professional era-record 23rd Slam singles trophy at Melbourne Park while pregnant in 2017, Williams has reached four major finals and lost them all.
She’s also now lost in the semifinals twice in the past three majors.
That stage hasn’t been a problem for top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who has won 14 of his last semifinals at Grand Slam events. His record is perfect in semifinals at Melbourne Park, improving to 9-0 with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win later in the day over Aslan Karatsev, a Russian qualifier who was ranked No. 114 and making his debut in a major.
Djokovic is seeking a ninth Australian Open title and 18th Grand Slam trophy overall. Karatsev was playing in his first Grand Slam tournament.
Rafael Nadal — who lost in the quarterfinals to Stefanos Tsitsipas after blowing a two-set lead — and Roger Federer are tied for the men’s record of 20.
Spectators were back in the stands yesterday after they were barred from attending the tournament for five days during a local COVID-19 lockdown. About 7,000 people were allowed into the stadium for Williams-Osaka, roughly half of capacity.
Ushers walked through the aisles at changeovers to remind fans they needed to wear a mask over their nose and mouth.
On the hottest day of the hardcourt tournament so far — the temperature topped 30 degrees Celsius — Osaka got off to a shaky start, perhaps prodded into pressing in her opening service game by a booming cross-court backhand return winner from Williams on the match’s second point.
That was followed by a double-fault, a wild forehand and, eventually, a netted backhand that handed over a break. Quickly, Williams went up 2-0, then held another break point with a chance to lead 3-0 after another double-fault by Osaka.
“I was just really, like, nervous and scared, I think, at the beginning,” said Osaka, who was born in Japan and moved to the US when she was 3. “And then I sort of eased my way into it.” Didn’t take long to right herself. Suddenly, it was Osaka powering in aces, putting groundstrokes where she wanted, covering the court well. Williams’ movement has been terrific in Melbourne, but she was flat-footed this time.