An art auction of "unprecedented quality and calibre" and boasting some of the biggest names in contemporary New Zealand art pulled in around $2 million when the works went under the hammer in Auckland last night.

Waihi Beach photographer Cathy Franzoi has been placed third in the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards and will have her image - of her three sons on an old sofa - on digital display at Somerset House in London.

Aussie-based showbiz star Jay Laga'aia is returning to New Zealand for his first major home-turf role in a decade.

Arts supporters are getting used to having to fund new public works themselves, so far over $600,000 of donated money has been put into public artwork in Hamilton.

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra can be justly proud of being just two seats short of a full house on Thursday for the first concert in its Bayleys Great Classics Series.

Open a cupboard at the new Artstation show, Cupboards, and you'll find shelves loaded with nostalgia.

The take from an auction of rare New Zealand paintings is expected to top $2 million.

Tilda Swinton is sleeping in a glass box in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

Choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet take the biblical story of the Tower of Babel with its smiting of the human race into painful divisions of nationality and language.

The renowned poet Hone Tuwhare wrote a poem entitled, A Pakeha Friend Tells a Maori Joke.

Book clubs, commuters and celebrities have gone wild for Gone Girl, the smash-hit thriller that has Hollywood in a spin. Tim Walker talks to author Gillian Flynn about being this year’s literary sensation

The Auckland Arts Festival's centrepiece demonstrates what happens when the sophisticated elegance of commedia dell'arte collides with the eccentric weirdness of classic British comedy.

Auckland Arts Festival celebrates Benjamin Britten's centenary not once, but twice next week.