The Korea Herald

Islam’s treasures back on display at New York’s Met

TheaterOct 27, 2011

NEW YORK (AFP) ― Masterworks of Islamic art will once again be on view at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, which next week reopens an exhaustive installation following an eight-year renovation.New York’s biggest and most comprehensive art museum unveils on Nov. 1 its “New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.”Refurbished at a cost of some $50 million, the 15 galleries will display 1,200 breathtaking works from the Middle East and North Africa m
Swede with Korea connection back for the fans

MusicOct 27, 2011

Musician-writer describes Koreans’ bizarre side in ‘Halla Seoul’Swedish singer-songwriter and author Lasse Lindh said he will return the love he has received from Korean fans in his upcoming concert in Seoul in November.The 37-year-old gained instant popularity here after his song “C’mon Through” appeared in the soundtrack of the 2006 MBC sitcom “Soulmate.” The unexpectedly enthusiastic response of Korean fans to his music led him to decide to live for a year in Sinchon, Seoul, in 2009.Lindh wil
‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ gets London prize

FilmOct 27, 2011

LONDON (AP) ― The beautiful, terrifying domestic drama “We Need to Talk About Kevin” has won the London Film Festival’s best-picture prize.Lynne Ramsay’s film stars Tilda Swinton as a mother grappling with grief and guilt after her teenage son carries out a high-school massacre.“Shakespeare in Love” director John Madden, who chaired the judging panel, on Wednesday called it “a sublime, uncompromising tale of the torment that can stand in the place of love.”The 55-year-old London festival introd
Singer Amy Winehouse poisoned by alcohol: inquest

MusicOct 27, 2011

LONDON (AFP) ― Singer Amy Winehouse was more than five times over the British drink-drive limit when she died, an inquest heard Wednesday, as a coroner delivered a verdict of death by misadventure.The inquest heard that Winehouse, 27, who was found dead at her London home on July 23 following years of alcohol and drug addiction, repeatedly ignored her doctor’s warnings about the effects of prolonged bouts of drinking.The hearing in London was told that the “Back to Black” singer had suddenly dru
Twisted revenge tale gives anime dark edge

FilmOct 27, 2011

BIFF award-winning ‘The King of Pigs’ first of its kind in KoreaAfter this year’s huge box office hit “Leafie,” Korea’s animation scene sees the arrival of a highly controversial work sure to leave an impact long after its theater run.A low-budget feature debut by director Yeun Sang-ho, “The King of Pigs” claims to be “the first animated vicious thriller in Korea.” Unlike “Leafie,” which sold over two million tickets with its PG rating, the film targets adult viewers only. Ironic, since the $150
Coroner: Amy Winehouse died from too much alcohol

MusicOct 27, 2011

LONDON (AP) — Amy Winehouse drank herself to death. That was the ruling of a coroner's inquest into the death of the Grammy-winning soul singer, who died with empty vodka bottles in her room and lethal amounts of alcohol in her blood — more than five times the British drunk driving limit
Exhibit examines American interest in Rembrandt

TheaterOct 26, 2011

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) ― The North Carolina Museum of Art has curated an exhibit of 30 works by Rembrandt from American collectors, which is especially appropriate considering that the museum’s first director was partly responsible for authenticating many works as painted by the Dutch artist that turned out not to be actual Rembrandts.“Rembrandt in America” opens Oct. 30 at the museum, then travels next year to Cleveland and Minneapolis.The 30 paintings are from private collections and mor
Strike keeps Paris’ Orsay Museum shut

TheaterOct 26, 2011

PARIS (AFP) ― Striking staff at Paris’ newly revamped Orsay Museum voted Tuesday to extend a protest which has kept the museum closed to thousands of would-be visitors for almost a week.Workers decided to extend their action launched last Thursday to demand 20 more people to staff the larger, renovated venue, whose world-leading impressionist collection draws three million visitors each year, the museum said.Twenty-five years after its creation in a century-old former railway station on the sout
Retrieving the past: ‘The Visit’

MusicOct 26, 2011

Lee Soo-in presents ‘han’-inspired adaptation of Durrenmatt’s 1956 tragic comedyCan one’s past be bought?Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby famously tried but failed. It is one of the things that money can’t seem to buy. As Oscar Wilde noted, “No man is rich enough to buy back his past.” Yet director Lee Soo-in’s new adaptation of Swiss playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt’s 1956 tragicomic play, “The Visit,” takes a different approach to the question, with a rather morbidly romantic take on the already gruesom
Holiday releases range from Muppets to Marilyn Monroe

FilmOct 26, 2011

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― Only Hollywood could assemble a holiday guest list that ranges from the Muppets, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Puss in Boots and dancing penguins to J. Edgar Hoover, Margaret Thatcher, Marilyn Monroe and a steed in the trenches of World War I.The latter are among a batch of potential Academy Awards contenders from past winners and nominees: Leonardo DiCaprio as the FBI boss in director Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar”; Meryl Streep as former British Prime Minister Thatcher in “The Iron
Rock spirit keeps X Japan alive: leader

MusicOct 26, 2011

Yoshiki Hayashi says he likes K-pop groups such as Girls’ GenerationHeavy metal band X Japan has gone through many painful experiences including the deaths of two former members but its rock ‘n roll spirit will survive, said the group’s leader, drummer and pianist Yoshiki Hayashi.The act has been on a world tour in 2011 and the first leg of its Asia tour will be Seoul on Friday at the Olympic Park Gymnasium. It is the first time that the band is coming for a concert in Korea, after the cancellat
Lindsay Lohan poses nude for Playboy: report

FilmOct 26, 2011

LOS ANGELES, Oct 25, 2011 (AFP) - Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan has posed nude for Playboy in a deal worth nearly $1 million dollars, the TMZ celebrity news website reported Tuesday.The actress, who has faced a string of legal problems and is currently on probation, had wanted $1 million dollars an
U.S. man’s possible Michelangelo on display in Rome

TheaterOct 25, 2011

BUFFALO, New York (AP) ― A possible 16th-century Michelangelo painting that hung for years in a local family’s home is being displayed in Rome as part of an exhibit of Renaissance art, a development its owner calls a major milestone as he works to have it accepted by the art world.Scholars disagree on whether “La Pieta With Two Angels” was painted by Michelangelo or by one of his collaborators.For now, 48-by-63-centimeter work is described as “Michelangelesque” in a show sponsored by the philant
West opens door a crack to the rise of Chinese art

TheaterOct 25, 2011

PARIS (AFP) ― China’s new clout on the global art market, and its taste for home-grown works, is driving up the price of contemporary Chinese artists ― forcing the Western art world to make space at the table for the rising stars.Last year China became the world’s leading auction marketplace for fine art, after overtaking France, Britain and finally the United States in the space of five years, according to research by Artprice.And China’s rise as an art hub is flipping the traditionally Western
Biography has Van Gogh filmmakers rethinking

FilmOct 25, 2011

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The producers of a new film about Vincent Van Gogh are rethinking its ending in the wake of a definitive biography that doubts the long-held belief that the Dutch painter took his own life.“Van Gogh” would be the first English-language feature film about the giant of post-Impressionism since “Lust for Life” in 1956, in which Kirk Douglas portrayed Van Gogh shooting himself while painting in a French wheat field.In their just-released “Van Gogh: The Life,” biographers Steven Na