Even during the height of the Cold War with its threat of Nuclear Armageddon, the cultural exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union never ground to a halt. But in the last few years, because of the "boomerang effect of a rancorous legal battle between the Russian government and the Chassidic Jewish group, Chabad" (LA Times 1/17/13), Russia imposed a ban on all art loans to American museums. This legal case is based on Chabad's decades-long effort to recover religious books and manuscripts that the Russians expropriated after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

Last week, Cuban-American painter Emilio Perez (b. 1972, New York, New York) returned to Cuba for the first time since 2001. The reason? To create a 65-foot site-specific installation along the Malecón—a five-mile long sea wall on the North shore of Havana. Perez's work, Un Verso Sencillo (A Simple Verse), is part of the group exhibition Detrás Del Muro II (Behind the Wall), which will be on view during the 12th Havana Biennial (running through June 22). 

She was one of the international artists invited to exhibit in the Havana Biennial. And the only Jamaican!  [...] The theme of this year's Havana Biennial is 'Between the Idea and the Experience'. And the curators took the decision to move some of the art out of conventional exhibition spaces into the street. 

Vintage motorcycles, Abraham Lincoln, baseball, the paintings of Nikolai Getman, and treasures from the Walt Disney Archives at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum were among the exhibition subjects Andrew Wulf staged during his five years as curator at the National Archives. A proudly proclaimed man of many interests, Wulf is the new director of the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors.

On May 11, the Department of State’s Office of Art in Embassies (AIE) American Artist Lecture Series will feature noted artist Glenn Ligon in conversation with London-based designer and curator Duro Olowu at the Tate Modern in London. AIE’s lecture series, in collaboration with U.S. Embassy London and the Tate Modern, has featured artists Brice Marden, Maya Lin, Richard Tuttle, Spencer Finch, and Julie Mehretu.

Ambreen Butt has always made political art. Early in her career, the Pakistani-born artist now based in the Boston area investigated the tug of two cultures in mixed-media paintings and drawings. (...) Her current installation at Carroll and Sons, “I Am All What Is Left of Me,” was inspired by a commission from the State Department’s Art in Embassies program for the new US Embassy in Islamabad.

The lecture at UNAM was packed with about 500 students, with many people standing. Around the end of the lecture, I invited Hitomi to the stage and with her spoke to the audience about why maid cafes have become one of the icons of Japan’s pop culture and why they attract foreign visitors.In a nutshell, these cafes seriously entertain their customers by providing them with an experience which is completely different from their daily lives.

Most people have a stereotypical image of the Palestinians — sitting in refugee camps and the 67 years of agony since they were uprooted from their homeland showing on their faces, or covering their faces with the checkered black-and-white keffiyeh and throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. But a few young Palestinians are showing the world a completely new face of Palestine. They include a great singer, a talented musician and a gifted gymnast. These artists join the ranks of a few Palestinian poets and writers who have gained international fame.