An installation by a controversial Spanish artist which refers to Catalan separatist leaders as “political prisoners” was removed Wednesday from a major Madrid art fair at the request of the venue’s operator. The dispute over the work by Madrid-born artist Santiago Sierra, known for his provocative stunts, comes as tensions simmer between Spain’s central government in Madrid and pro-independence groups in Catalonia over their failed independence push. Titled “Political Prisoners in Contemporary Spain”, Sierra’s installation featured 24 pixelated photographs, including one of Catalonia’s ousted vice president Oriol Junqueras who has been in jail for the past three months over his government’s failed independence bid. The installation also included photos of the leaders of the two biggest grassroots pro-independence associations in Catalonia, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez, who are also in jail on charges of rebellion and sedition. They are among several Catalan political leaders and a

The world’s oldest known cave art was crafted by Neanderthals more than 20,000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe, showing that our extinct cousins were capable of symbolic thinking just like us, international researchers said Thursday. The report in the journal Science is based on new technology that reveals the most accurate age yet of ancient cave paintings at three different archeological sites in Spain. “This is an incredibly exciting discovery which suggests Neanderthals were much more sophisticated than is popularly believed,” said co-lead author Chris Standish, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton. “Our results show that the paintings we dated are, by far, the oldest known cave art in the world.” Since they were created some 64,000 years ago — at least 20,000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe from Africa — “they must have been painted by Neanderthals,” he added.

Eighty works by Spanish masters are arranged in a chronological overview, from the 1600s to the present-day. The still life paintings of great and universally acknowledged artists, such as Cotán, Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Miró and Dalí are shown alongside works by their predecessors and contemporaries, providing the most comprehensive picture possible of this genre and its evolutions. The still life has been known since time immemorial, but only flourished from the seventeenth century onwards, coming into its own as a separate genre. Spanish still life holds a particular position in the European context. While the connection with the Flemish and Italian models is unmistakeable, the early Spanish specialists of the still life developed a visual language of their own. The plain and simple style of the seventeenth-century ‘bodegones’ represents a peak in the genre’s history.

This winter, cultural organizations throughout Greater Boston are partnering to present an ambitious, region-wide exploration of art and technology, announced Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. Aligned with the ICA’s sweeping exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, this extraordinary collaboration offers the public concurrent exhibitions, performances, screenings, and programs at area cultural organizations, all exploring the relationship between art and technology. The organizations partnering with the ICA are: Berklee College of Music • Boston Cyberarts • Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University • deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum • Harvard Art Museums • Harvard Film Archive • Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • MIT List Visual Arts Center • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston • Museum of Science, Bos