Photographs capture fleeting moments in time, but what would be revealed if an image could show an entire century?

That is the question behind the latest "thought experiment" by the American conceptual artist Jonathon Keats, whose past endeavours include a bid to genetically engineer God, and porn films for houseplants -- complete with close-ups of bees pollinating flowers.

The legendary interpreter who served as the English-language voice of every Soviet leader from Nikita Khrushchev to Mikhail Gorbachev has died in Moscow aged 81.

In a career spanning more than three decades, Viktor Sukhodrev was a fixture at Cold War-era summits and responsible for translating Khrushchev's famed phrase "We will bury you" -- a symbol of superpower rivalry.

Bulgarian opera great Nicola Ghiuselev who performed in most of the major European theaters died on Friday at the age of 77, his family announced.

The bass singer, renowned for his title role in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, is mostly associated with Russian and Italian repertories.

A Sudanese judge on Thursday sentenced a Christian woman to hang for apostasy, in a ruling which Britain denounced as "barbaric."

Born to a Muslim father, the woman was convicted under the Islamic sharia law that has been in force in Sudan since 1983 and outlaws conversions on pain of death.

The Gaza Strip is tough turf for artists. An Israeli-Egyptian border blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory keeps them away from an international audience and potential buyers, while the local art market is close to nil.

A new exhibit now offers them a chance to showcase their work outside Gaza.

A painted portrait of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban, fetched $102,500 at auction Wednesday in New York -- with the money going to female education in Nigeria.

The proceeds will be donated from her Malala Fund to a special fund designed to assist local NGOs working to educate girls and women in Nigeria, where more than 200 schoolgirls are missing after being snatched at gun point last month by extremists.

U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday hailed the love and sacrifice he said was "the true spirit of 9/11" as he inaugurated a searing Ground Zero museum about al-Qaida attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Obama said the museum, in the footprint of the former World Trade Center Twin Towers, would ensure that the horror and heroism of September 11, 2001 would never be forgotten by future generations.

A mass ping-pong match on a giant doughnut-shaped table and the chance to become a citizen of an imaginary country were among the more offbeat interactive works on display as Hong Kong's Art Basel fair opened Wednesday.

The "Ping Pong Go-round" was a literal hit with dozens of guests attending a VIP preview before the event -- which showcases the rapid growth of the Asian art scene -- opens to the public Thursday.

France tackled the fractious legacy of Pablo Picasso on two fronts Tuesday, firing the director of the shuttered museum dedicated to the artist and recommending state protection for the studio where he painted "Guernica."

The reopening of the museum, closed for the past five years for renovations, has been pushed back until September. France's Culture Ministry said Anne Baldassari, who led the renovations and has been head of the museum for a decade, was dismissed because of the need to "reopen under the best conditions, protect the employees and restore confidence between the museum and its partners."

A painting by American Barnett Newman, "Black Fire I," went under the gavel for $84 million Tuesday at Christie's postwar and contemporary art auction in New York, a record price for the artist.

Barnett's black and white piece topped the $80.805 million raked in for Francis Bacon's "Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards," a collection of three canvases painted in 1984.