A painting by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian sold Thursday for $50.56 million at a Christie's auction in New York, the most ever paid for his work.

"Composition No. III, with Red, Blue, Yellow and Black," a geometric oil painting made in 1929, sold at an impressionist and modern art auction for more than twice its maximum estimated value, which Christie's said was between $15 million and $25 million.

A guitar played by George Harrison in the Beatles' early days, previously on display in a British museum, goes on auction in New York Friday, valued at $400,000 to $600,000.

The electric guitar is the two-day auction's star item, amid hundreds of possessions once owned by rock 'n' roll's biggest stars, which auctioneers hope will rake in millions.

In a cramped Bangkok room filled with statues of deities and plumes of incense smoke, a master is at work.

With expert precision Ajarn Neng repeatedly plunges a razor sharp needle dipped in black ink into the back of a disciple, each stab producing a perfectly placed pixel that forms a traditional Thai tattoo.

A state-approved Chinese church has issued a rare public criticism of proposed local government regulations on religious buildings, including limits on cross sizes, after a wave of church demolitions and symbol removals in the area.

Zhejiang province, one of China's wealthiest and a center of Christianity in the country, has released draft rules requiring crosses for Catholic and Protestant churches to be attached to the front of the building, rather than on the roof, state media have reported.

Ten Arab countries said on Thursday they would coordinate to counter artifact smuggling and preserve the region's heritage sites, as jihadists in Syria advanced to the gates of ancient Palmyra.

Representatives of the countries concluded a two-day meeting in Cairo with a condemnation of the Islamic State group's destruction of historic sites in Iraq.

A play by best-selling French author Michel Houellebecq -- whose book imagining France under Islamic rule stirred controversy -- has been pulled from a Croatian arts festival due to security fears, organizers said on Thursday.

Houellebecq's drama "Elementary Particles" ("Les Particules elementaires") was to have been staged at this year's Dubrovnik Summer Festival.

Islamic State group fighters advanced to the gates of ancient Palmyra Thursday, raising fears the Syrian world heritage site could face destruction of the kind the jihadists have already wreaked in Iraq.

As it overran nearby villages, IS executed 26 civilians -- 10 of whom were beheaded -- for "collaborating with the regime," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. 

In the past three days, Christie's in New York City has sold over $1 billion worth of art, a frenzied spectacle that showcases the world's rising class of uber-wealthy and its appetite for trophy art.

Wednesday's bidding was spirited at Christie's contemporary art auction highlighted by iconic works by Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and others.

In an unusual move by Tehran's mayor, hundreds of copies of famous artworks — both of world masters and Iranian artists — have been plastered on some 1,500 billboards across the city, transforming the Iranian capital into a gigantic, open-air exhibition.

The 10-day project, which ends Friday, has stirred both appreciation and criticism. But whether people like it or not, the message is simple, according to Ehsun Fathipour.

U.N. and Arab officials began a two-day conference on Wednesday to seek ways to combat the "unprecedented" destruction of heritage sites by jihadist groups in the Middle East.

The Cairo conference comes amid an international outcry after the jihadist Islamic State group circulated a video last month showing its militants bulldozing the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq.