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David Hockney shares new work as symbol of hope in pandemic

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“Do remember they can’t cancel the spring” by David Hockney (Image via Instagram)

One of the world’s greatest living artists has delivered a much-needed message of hope with a new painting unveiled this week.

David Hockney, 82, shared the new piece on Thursday via Instagram, through Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. A drawing composed on his iPad, the image depicts a cluster of bright yellow daffodils blossoming in the midst of a green field with a grey and barren landscape in the distant background.

The new work is titled, “Do remember they can’t cancel the spring.”

The British artist is a painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer known as one of the key figures in the pop art movement of the 1960s. The iconic imagery he has produced includes a series of three swimming-pool-themed paintings – “The Splash,” “A Little Splash,” and “A Bigger Splash” – which are his most widely-recognized works. A 1972 work, “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures),” set the record for the largest amount paid for an artwork by a living artist when it sold at auction in November 2018 for $90 million – though that record was subsequently broken when Jeff Koons’ “Rabbit” sold at Christie’s in New York for $91 million a few months later.

He has been openly gay throughout his career, exploring his sexuality through artworks such as “We Two Boys Together Clinging,” named after a poem by Walt Whitman.

Hockney has been weathering the coronavirus lockdown at his home in Normandy, the northern French where he relocated from Los Angeles in 2018, jokingly citing the ability to smoke in restaurants as one of the reasons for his transatlantic move, according to The Daily Mail.

He told interviewers, ‘I’d like to just work and paint, and to be able to smoke and eat in a restaurant at the same time. Thank God for Normandy. The French know how to live. They know about pleasure.”

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More than 1 million people attend Madonna concert in Rio

Free event took place on Copacabana Beach on Saturday

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Madonna performs on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach on May 4, 2024. (Screen capture via Reuters YouTube)

An estimated 1.6 million people on Saturday attended Madonna’s free concert on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach.

The concert, which was the last one as part of Madonna’s Celebration Tour, included a tribute to people lost to AIDS.

Bob the Drag Queen introduced Madonna before the concert began. Pabllo Vittar, a Brazilian drag queen and singer, and Anitta, a bisexual pop star who was born in Rio’s Honório Gurgel neighborhood, also joined Madonna on stage.

Congresswoman Erika Hilton, a Black travesti and former sex worker, and Rio Municipal Councilwoman Mônica Benício, the widow of Marielle Franco, a bisexual Rio Municipal Councilwoman who was assassinated in 2018, are among those who attended the concert.

“Madonna showed that we fight important fights for the human rights of Black (people), young (people), women and LGBTQIA+ people, and against all injustice, discrimination, and violence,” said Associaçao Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais (National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals), a Brazilian trans rights group known by the acronym ANTRA, on its X account. “What they call identitarianism’ is our subversion to the retrograde and conservative tackiness that plagues the country.”

The Associated Press reported the concert was Madonna’s biggest ever.

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PHOTOS: Gay Day at the Zoo

Smithsonian observs International Family Equality Day

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Gay Day at the Zoo (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The DC Center for the LGBTQ Community, SMYAL and Rainbow Families sponsored Gay Day at the Zoo on Sunday at the Smithsonian National Zoo. The Smithsonian observed International Family Equality Day with special exhibits and an event space.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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PHOTOS: Taste of Point

Annual fundraiser held for LGBTQ youth scholarship, mentorship organization

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Taste of Point DC (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Point Foundation held its annual Taste of Point fundraiser at Room & Board on May 2.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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