Category: 5. Entertainment

Reuters
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Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has had his Australian visa canceled after he released “Heil Hitler,” a song promoting Nazism, the country’s home affairs minister said on Wednesday.

The US rapper released the song that praised the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler across social media and music streaming platforms in May.

The song came a few months after Ye made a string of antisemitic posts on X, which included comments such as “I love Hitler” and “I’m a Nazi.”

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said that while previous offensive comments made by Ye had not affected his visa status, officials reviewed it again after the song’s release.

“It was a lower level (visa) and the officials still looked at the law and said you’re going to have a song and promote that sort of Nazism, we don’t need that in Australia,” he told national broadcaster ABC on Wednesday.

“We have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry.”

Burke added that Ye had family in Australia and had been a longtime visitor prior to the visa cancellation. The singer married his wife Bianca Censori, an Australian architect, in December 2022.

Burke’s office declined to comment on the exact date of the visa cancellation. Ye’s management did not respond immediately to a request for comment outside US business hours.

In October 2024, US conservative influencer Candace Owens was also barred from entry into Australia. Burke said “Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, Indigenous art is everywhere. We’ve gone decades – centuries, really – in this country with barely any exhibitions dedicated to the work of Indigenous artists, but recently, everything’s changed. Galleries, museums and institutions across the UK are hosting shows by artists from communities in South America, Australia, the US and Europe at an unprecedented rate.

Tate Modern in London is putting on its first-ever major solo show by a First Nation Australian artist in July, with a Sámi artist from Norway taking over the Turbine Hall in October. There are shows by Native American artists at Camden Art Centre in London and Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery, while painters and weavers from the Amazon and Argentina are coming to Manchester’s Whitworth and Bexhill-on-Sea’s De La Warr Pavilion.

This explosion in attention is at least partly thanks to the 2024 Venice Biennale. The most recent edition of the art world’s ultimate taste-making event was a big, bold celebration of Indigenous art on a scale most western audiences had never encountered before. It was, quite appropriately and relatively humorously, called Foreigners Everywhere.

The usual Jeff Koons-ian glitz, hazy figuration, hyper-academic conceptualism and postmodern abstraction of the contemporary art world was swapped for tapestries from South America, mythological drawings from northern Canada and swirling, mesmerising paintings from rural Australia.

One Golden Lion, the Biennale’s top prize, was awarded to Kamilaroi/Bigambul Australian artist Archie Moore, who created a dizzyingly celestial family tree, detailing 65,000 years of ancestry in chalk on black walls – a near endless journey through familial time and space.

The other Golden Lion went to Mataaho Collective, a group of Māori women from New Zealand, for an installation of crisscrossing strands of fabric straps that cast interlocking shadows as you entered the main exhibition. Arguably the greatest accolades in art, both awarded to Indigenous artists.

Which isn’t to say that all of this attention and praise is a totally new phenomenon. “Australian First Nations’ art has been receiving international attention for decades and is no longer considered just a niche market or as specialised art,” says Kelli Cole, a Warumungu and Luritja curator who’s organising Tate Modern’s big summer celebration of the art of the late Emily Kam Kngwarray.

Aboriginal art and its distinctive dot painting-style first started making waves in the wider art world in the 1970s, and has steadily grown in popularity – and acceptance – ever since. Kngwarray’s huge, seemingly abstract paintings and textiles (also currently on display in a smaller exhibition at Pace Gallery in London) have all the hallmarks of what audiences associate with Aboriginal art: dots and lines in bright whites, earthy ochres and sun-drenched yellows, intersecting and weaving together to create dreamy, hallucinatory visions of wide open terrain and ancestral lands, or what Aboriginal people call “Country”.

For a lot of viewers, part of the appeal of Aboriginal art is the superficial similarities to western abstraction, but the work has deeper meaning. “The dot painting style is a sophisticated visual language derived from Country. It’s a practice informed by generations of deep knowledge, designed to communicate vital information,” says Cole. “For First Nations people, Country is not just land; it’s a living entity, encompassing spiritual, social and geographical origins, inextricably linked to identity and responsibility. Artists like Kngwarray visually articulate this profound connection, inviting global audiences to understand art not as detached objects, but as expressions of custodianship, belonging and a continuous reciprocal relationship with ancestral lands.”

Younger Indigenous Australian artists, however, have moved away from the more traditional approach of painters such as Kngwarray. “I have a lot of respect for the old people – their strong culture, their knowledge and their art – but a young fella like me doesn’t want to make traditional paintings,” says Vincent Namatjira, a Western Aranda artist whose satirical, political approach to portraiture has seen him receive both praise (he was the first Indigenous winner of the Archibald prize for Australian portraiture) and a hefty amount of controversy.

He comes from a long line of artists – his great-grandfather was the hugely influential watercolourist Albert Namatjira – and uses his joyful, colourful portraits to lampoon the wealthy and powerful, taking aim at British royalty, Captain Cook and Australian billionaires (one of whom, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, tried to have his “unflattering” portrait of her removed from an exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia last year and “permanently disposed of”).

Namatjira also uses his work to celebrate important figures in his community. “For me, portraying these Indigenous heroes is about equal recognition. I want to make sure that Indigenous leaders are properly recognised and acknowledged. My three daughters are all growing up now and I want them, and other Aboriginal kids, to be able to see these strong examples of Indigenous leadership, to feel proud and empowered.”

His political approach is one that resonates with a lot of Indigenous North American artists. Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith – a citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana who died earlier this year – currently has a show at Stephen Friedman Gallery in London, and an exhibition due to open at Fruitmarket in Edinburgh in November. Her work combined pop appropriation, mixed-media modernism and Indigenous culture “to remind viewers that Native Americans are still alive”.

Duane Linklater, an Omaskêko Ininiwak artist from Ontario, Canada, with a show opening at Camden Art Centre this month, makes minimal installations intended to “create space for Indigenous presence in every moment”. Art, for many Indigenous people, is a tool of resistance, and a way of affirming their existence.

Claudia Alarcón is an Indigenous artist from the La Puntana community of Wichí people in northern Argentina, where she leads a collective called Silät, bringing together 100 female weavers to create colourful tapestries filled with references to animals and nature. There are footprints, eyes, trees, all arranged into stunning, abstract geometric compositions. Their work is on show at Cecilia Brunson Projects in London and the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill.

“We chose the name Silät because it is a word in our language which can be translated as ‘message’ or ‘announcement’,” she says. “For us, it is a message of presence. It is a manifestation, like a whisper, of the strength of our knowledge. Our weavings are a proclamation that we continue to defend our memory, our territory, united. Indigenous existence is constantly under threat. We are walking a new path, telling new stories, but all of this is part of the long-standing defence of our culture, which is always present. Always.”

Defence is important, because Indigenous lands are under critical threat from exploitative commercial parties, and also more widely from climate change. Santiago Yahuarcani – a leader of the Aimeni clan of the Uitoto in Peru whose exhibition at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester opens this month – addresses that threat head-on in his work, with gorgeous, chaotic canvases that paint nature in a constant, violent battle with man, lamenting the brutal destruction of the Amazon, and calling desperately for change.

It’s an approach shared by Norwegian Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara, whose previous work has seen her place a pile of bloodstained, bullet-pierced reindeer skulls outside the Norwegian parliament. She will be taking on the Turbine Hall commission at Tate Modern in October. “I fear the path we’re currently walking globally, as a human species, is failing,” she says. “The understanding that nature sustains life is fading from human consciousness. I’m trying to puncture the reality that we’ve been sold. I believe that Indigenous philosophy can offer collective strategies to protect life for the future; to rethink and re-understand our place within a larger system.”

Lumping such an incredibly diverse array of artists into one big, sweeping “Indigenous art” bracket is obviously problematic. But there are themes that connect these communities, and to an extent their art, around the world. “I see myself as part of something larger. I know there are other groups, with other languages, who are my brothers and sisters, with whom we share a history of struggle, and also of pain,” says Alarcón. “What matters most is to keep fighting for our rights and our memories, which are also the rights of our territory.”

Whether in Norway, Peru, Canada or Australia, Indigenous artists are united not just by a shared connection to the land and its custodianship, but by having survived centuries of colonial subjugation, capitalist exploitation and ongoing climate annihilation. Proof of their endurance will be written across the walls of galleries across the UK this year, in powerful, political and often incredibly beautiful art.

Until this week, the punk-rap duo Bob Vylan were largely unknown by mainstream audiences, despite having a UK top 20 album and an award from British rock magazine Kerrang! for album of the year. Now they’ve made headlines around the world after frontman Bobby Vylan led a crowd at Glastonbury in chants of “death, death to the IDF”.

The chant was met with widespread condemnation in the UK. Glastonbury festival said the remarks “crossed a line” and characterized the chant, which targeted the Israel Defense Forces, as antisemitic. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said the chant was “appalling” and said groups “making threats or inciting violence” should not be given a platform.

The incident sparked particular outrage because the chant was interpreted as a call for the death of Israeli soldiers. Frontman Bobby Vylan, in an Instagram post on Tuesday, clarified that he was not “for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people”. He wrote: “We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. A machine whose own soldiers were told to use ‘unnecessary lethal force’ against innocent civilians waiting for aid. A machine that has destroyed much of Gaza.”

But Avon and Somerset police, who organize policing for Glastonbury, have launched a criminal investigation into whether the comments amounted to a criminal offense.

On Monday, the duo, from Ipswich, in the east of England, gained international attention when US deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau said their US visas had been revoked. The group had planned a US tour in the autumn.

“The [state department] has revoked the US visas for the members of the Bob Vylan band in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants,” Landau wrote on X. “Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country.”

The incident is the latest in a series of controversies over the line between criticism of Israeli action in Gaza, which the UN likens to a genocide, and antisemitism. Some see Bob Vylan’s remarks as a incitement to violence against Jews globally, while others see it as valid political speech.

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Who are Bob Vylan?

The duo, who released their debut album in 2020, go by the aliases Bobby Vylan, the frontman, and Bobbie Vylan, the drummer. Interviewed in the Guardian in 2024 they told Jason Okundaye they deliberately obfuscate their identities to resist what they see as a surveillance state, although Bobby’s real name, Pascal Robinson-Foster, has been widely reported since this weekend.

Robinson-Foster began his artistic career as a teenager, as a performance poet and grime artist sometimes called Nee-Hi. He was involved in local community outreach projects, mentoring young people in Ipswich and was invited to perform at the Black and Asian Police Association Conference in 2005. He began Bob Vylan after meeting his bandmate in a London bar in 2017 (neither are Bob Dylan fans; they just thought the name was funny).

The duo make politically charged music that combines elements of punk, grime, reggae and indie. Much of it is of a sunny, rebellious disposition, with a strong anti-establishment thrust. On 2022’s Take That, for example, Robinson-Foster raps “give Churchill’s statue the rope and see if it floats … Yeah, let the bitch drown, got the gammons all feeling sick now, wipe my backside with a St George’s flag.”

The group have tackled a number of progressive topics in their music, including food poverty, sexism, exploitative landlords and institutional racism.

But the movement for Palestinian freedom has always been central to their project. Robinson-Foster told the Guardian in 2024 he attended his first pro-Palestine protest at the age of 15 and remembers a “feeling of people coming together and using their voice”. He has criticized other bands associated with the left for not being more outspoken on Palestine.

Bob Vylan are still an underground group with a relatively small fanbase, but they have released four albums, each more successful than the last. Earlier in 2025 they appeared at Coachella for the first time, a sign of their increasing global popularity.

The Glastonbury set, on the West Holts stage, was supposed to be a crowning moment of this success. They were playing before Kneecap, the Irish alternative punk act with whom they share political values and an eagerness to court controversy. Many in the audience brought Palestinian flags – as they did to almost every act at the festival – and the stage’s backdrop showed messages such as “United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a ‘conflict’.”

On Monday, Israel killed at least 30 people at a busy Gaza cafe, and last week killed 18 more at a food distribution centre dispensing flour. Israel has killed at least 61,000 Palestinians since the Hamas terrorist attacks of 7 October, in which an estimated 1,139 Israelis were killed.

At one point Robinson-Foster told the crowd: “Sometimes we have to get our message across with violence, because that’s the only language some people speak, unfortunately.” But it was the chants of “death to the IDF” that led Glastonbury to publicly apologize and the US state department to act.

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Why is the US state department banning musicians?

Since the beginning of the Trump administration there has been a draconian crackdown on immigrants, with Ice agents empowered to arrest students and legal migrants on the streets. Amid the crackdown, a number of musicians have complained about increased difficulties in touring the US. In March, members of British punk rock band UK Subs were denied entry into the US, which their bassist Alvin Gibbs said he suspected was due in part to their vocal and frequent opposition to Trump.

Also in March, Canadian artist Bells Larsen, who is trans, had to cancel a US tour after receiving legal advice that because US Citizenship and Immigration Services now only recognizes two “biological sexes – male and female” he would not be able to travel. Larsen had already changed his gender marker on his Canadian passport.

Kneecap lost their US visas after they were dropped by their visa sponsor and booking agent Independent Artist Group (IAG). That move came after the group’s April Coachella performance, where they displayed messages such as “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people” and “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.” They say they are currently looking for a new visa sponsor.

But the incident with Bob Vylan appears to be the first time the US state department has publicly announced it is banning a musical act because of political statements. The group have also been dropped by their agents.

New York immigration attorney and music lawyer Matthew Covey told NPR that reports of “unprecedented Ice enforcement” are prompting artists to bow out of US tours.

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What have people said about the Glastonbury incident?

As well as Glastonbury and Keir Starmer, Bob Vylan have been criticized by politicians and the BBC. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said it was “clear” the duo were “inciting violence and hatred” and should be prosecuted. In the UK, freedom of speech is not protected in the same way as the US, and incitement laws criminalise encouraging a crime.

The UK’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has condemned the BBC for streaming the performance unedited, called the group’s actions “vile Jew-hatred” and said that the group had “couch[ed] their outright incitement to violence and hatred as edgy political commentary”.

But a number of musicians and commentators have said that the outrage is disproportionate.

Australian punk group Amyl and the Sniffers, who also played Glastonbury, said Bob Vylan and Kneecap were being unfairly singled out when pro-Palestinian sentiment was the central theme of the 250,000-strong festival. They said: “The British media in a frenzy about Bob Vylan and Kneecap, but artists all weekend at Glastonbury, from pop to rock to rap to punk to DJs, spoke up on stage, and there were tons of flags on every streamed set. Trying to make it look like just a couple of isolated incidents and a couple of ‘bad bands’ so it appears the public isn’t as anti-genocide as it is.”

Writing in the Guardian, columnist Owen Jones compared the chant by Vylan with the killing by Israeli forces of hundreds of Palestinians seeking food. “How morally lost is a society in which a chant against a genocidal foreign army provokes a political and media firestorm, but the intentionally starved, unarmed human beings being mowed down on the orders of the IDF high command do not?” he asked.

Pascal-Robinson has defended the chants on Instagram, writing: “We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story. And whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction … The more time they talk about Bob Vylan, the less time [the UK government] spend answering for their criminal inaction. We are being targeted for speaking up. We are not the first. We will not be the last. And if you care for the sanctity of human life and freedom of speech, we urge you to speak up too. Free Palestine.”

The Guardian has contacted Bob Vylan for comment.

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A painting of Venice by the Italian artist Canaletto which was once owned by the UK’s first prime minister has been sold for a record fee.

Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day – painted around 1732 – was sold to an anonymous bidder for £27.5m (£31.9m with fees) at Christie’s in London on Tuesday, setting a new auction record for the artist.

The painting was hung on the walls of Number 10 Downing Street during Sir Robert Walpole’s tenure from 1721 to 1742.

Christie’s global head of the Old Masters Department, Andrew Fletcher, said the artwork was “unquestionably the greatest work by the artist to have come to the market in a generation”.

“Seldom does a true masterpiece such as this – particularly by a painter as important as Canaletto – appear on the art market,” he said.

“This extraordinary painting of the grandest and most familiar view of Venice, by the city’s most recognisable painter, dates to Canaletto’s finest period and is as notable for its illustrious provenance as much as for its impeccable condition.”

The oil on canvas artwork was last sold at an auction in Paris in 1993, fetching what was then a record-breaking 66 million French francs (£7.5m).

It formerly came with a partnering pendant, entitled Grand Canal from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto, which was later sold at Sotheby’s in London in 2005 for £18.6m – which was the previous record auction price for a Canaletto.

The painting had been expected to sell for around £20m this time around, but exceeded expectations.

Canaletto, real name Giovanni Antonio Canal, was born in Venice in 1697 and went on to become a favourite of British art collectors.

It is not known how Sir Robert acquired his work but it is though that his son Edward helped to arrange the art deal after having spent time in Venice.

The Feast of the Ascension of Christ was a key date in the Venetian calendar until the fall of the Venice Republic in 1797.

It would see the Doge of Venice – the elected head of state – use his official galley, Bucintoro, to sail out and cast a ring into the water as a symbol of Venice’s marriage to the sea.

Punk duo Bob Vylan have been dropped from the line-up of a music festival in Manchester following their controversial appearance at Glastonbury.

The group had been due to headline the Radar Festival at Victoria Warehouse on Saturday, but organisers confirmed in a statement they would no longer appear.

In response, Bob Vylan posted a statement on Instagram, telling fans: “Manchester, we will be back.”

Bob Vylan had also been due to perform at French festival Kave Fest on Sunday, but organisers told the BBC their appearance there had been pulled too.

At Glastonbury, Bob Vylan’s lead singer led the crowd in chants of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]”, prompting criticism from across the political spectrum, including the prime minister who called it “appalling hate speech”.

Bob Vylan responded to the outcry in a post on Instagram on Tuesday, saying they had been “targeted for speaking up”.

“We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine,” they said.

They added that “we, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story, and whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction”.

On Wednesday, following the music festival cancellations, they reiterated their position, telling followers: “Silence is not an option. We will be fine, the people of Palestine are hurting.” The group added they would return to Manchester in the future.

Organisers of Kave Fest, which is held in the town of Gisors, said they would release a statement later explaining their decision to drop the band.

A German music venue has also confirmed that Bob Vylan will no longer open for US band Gogol Bordello at a concert in Cologne in September.

The BBC has been criticised for broadcasting the Glastonbury set via a live stream which was available on iPlayer.

The UK’s chief rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis strongly criticised “the airing of vile Jew-hate at Glastonbury” earlier this week.

The BBC previously said the “antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves”.

In a statement on Monday, the corporation said: “The team were dealing with a live situation but with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance. We regret this did not happen.”

Broadcast regulator Ofcom also issued a statement, saying it was “very concerned” about the live stream, adding that “the BBC clearly has questions to answer”.

Hardcover fiction

1. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books: $30) A story of friendship, love and adversity during the 1980s Space Shuttle program.

2. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

3. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab (Tor Books: $30) A vampiric tale follows three women across the centuries.

4. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond.

5. So Far Gone by Jess Walter (Harper: $30) A reclusive journalist is forced back into the world to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren.

6. The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Henry Holt & Co.: $29) An unexpected wedding guest gets surprise help on her journey to starting anew.

7. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist.

8. Nightshade by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown & Co.: $30) A cop relentlessly follows his mission in the seemingly idyllic setting of Catalina Island.

9. Among Friends by Hal Ebbott (Riverhead Books: $28) What begins as a celebration at a New York country house gives way to betrayal, shattering the trust between two close families.

10. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress.

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4. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Crash Course Books: $28) The deeply human story of the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease.

5. How to Lose Your Mother by Molly Jong-Fast (Viking: $28) The author recalls her famed mother, writer Erica Jong.

6. Not My Type by E. Jean Carroll (St. Martin’s Press: $30) The journalist chronicles her legal battles with President Trump.

7. The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad (Random House: $30) A guide to the art of journaling, with contributions from Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem and others.

8. The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $27) The novelist blends truth and fiction in an exploration of faith and love.

9. Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (Penguin Press: $32) Inside President Biden’s doomed decision to run for reelection and the hiding of his serious decline.

10. Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (W. W. Norton & Co.: $32) The naturalist explores rivers as living beings.

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4. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17)

5. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi (Metropolitan Books: $20)

6. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18)

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Even by the exacting standards of France’s gastronomes, it sounds like a meal that is truly out of this world. When the French astronaut Sophie Adenot travels to the International Space Station next year, she will dine on French classics such as lobster bisque, foie gras and onion soup prepared specially for her by a chef with 10 Michelin stars.

Parsnip and haddock velouté, chicken with tonka beans and creamy polenta, and a chocolate cream with hazelnut cazette flower will also be on the menu, the European Space Agency said on Wednesday.

Food delivered to the ISS must meet strict specifications. It cannot be crumbly or too heavy and must be able to be stored for two years, the agency said.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are available only when a new spacecraft arrives with supplies. So most meals in space are canned, vacuum-packed or freeze-dried from a set of options provided by space agencies.

To spice things up, one out of every 10 meals is prepared for specific crew members according to their personal tastes.

Adenot said: “During a mission, sharing our respective dishes is a way of inviting crewmates to learn more about our culture. It’s a very powerful bonding experience.”

Her menu was developed by the French chef Anne-Sophie Pic, who holds 10 Michelin stars and was named best female chef by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2011.

Pic said it was an “exhilarating challenge” to develop the menu, which includes four starters, two mains and two desserts.

Adenot, 42, a former helicopter test pilot, is scheduled to arrive for her first tour on the ISS in 2026.

A pair of Nasa astronauts returned to Earth in March after being unexpectedly stuck on the ISS for more than nine months because of problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.