The Korea Herald

SeMA to focus on contemporaries

Jan 25, 2012

An ‘artistic liberal,’ new head of Seoul Museum of Art gears up to bring about changesThe new director of Seoul Museum of Art, Kim Hong-hee, labels herself an “artistic liberal.” “I am interested in the avant-garde, the underground, and have run alternative art spaces. I believe that alternative things change culture, and that a museum director who used to be an individual curator can bring innovation,” Kim told The Korea Herald at her new office situated in Seosomun-dong, Seoul. Kim started he
Smithsonian to open video games exhibit

Jan 19, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The Smithsonian American Art Museum is holding its first major exhibit exploring the art and evolution of video games.The unusual exhibit opens March 16 and will be on view in Washington through Sept. 30.“The Art of Video Games’’ will focus on the graphics, technology and storytelling of some of the best games for systems ranging from Atari to the PlayStation 3. It will include 80 video games that were selected with help from the public, which voted online last year.The museum
Photos by censored Chinese artist to show

Jan 19, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) ― Photographs by the wife of imprisoned 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo will be shown at Columbia University next month.Beijing artist Liu Xia has been under house arrest since shortly after her husband was awarded the peace prize. Her photos were smuggled out of China just before she was placed under house arrest.Liu’s works are censored in China. The series of 25 photos depict lifelike dolls in various settings. One shows her husband holding a doll. In another, a tied-up
Hockney goes back to his roots

Jan 18, 2012

LONDON (AFP) ― Britain’s greatest living artist, David Hockney, has swapped the Californian sunshine for the landscape of his native Yorkshire for a blockbuster exhibition which goes on show this week.Hockney has portrayed country lanes and hedgerows in a riot of colour that leaps off the wall at the Royal Academy of Arts, a short walk from Piccadilly Circus in London.In the show, “A Bigger Picture,” Hockney and his team also show the countryside shifting through the seasons on a giant bank of v
‘Spider-Man’ producers punch back at Julie Taymor

Jan 18, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) ― Producers of Broadway’s “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’’ have fired back in their legal fight with one-time director Julie Taymor, claiming the woman who they once called a visionary later failed to fulfill her legal obligations, wrote a “disjointed’’ and “hallucinogenic’’ musical, and refused to collaborate on changes when the $75 million show was in trouble.In a countersuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Taymor and her company
American art takes the stage at the Louvre

Jan 16, 2012

PARIS (AP) ― American tourists fill the galleries of the Louvre Museum, yet American art is surprisingly scarce.Paris’ premier museum and three U.S. art institutions are seeking to change that with an exhibit tracing the birth of American landscape painting and its influences.“As soon as I arrived at the Louvre, I noticed that American art was not displayed at the level it merits,’’ said Louvre director Henri Loyrette.Even the exhibit’s English-French melange of a name breaks tradition: It’s cal
‘Our home’ captured from above

Jan 16, 2012

French aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand showcases beautiful views of EarthLiving in the urban jungle, occupied with trivial, everyday matters, rarely do we realize how many grand and beautiful things we overlook. French aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand reminds us of what we have been missing out on through photos of different landscapes that are so mystical that they seem almost fictional. At his first-ever solo exhibition here titled “Earth from Above ― It’s My Home,” currently
Damien Hirst connects the dots in global exhibit

Jan 12, 2012

NEW YORK (AFP) ― British artist and self-marketing genius Damien Hirst looks to connect the dots in a big way with the opening Thursday of a global show for his body of colored spot paintings.The Gagosian Gallery network, with 11 locations in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Athens, Geneva and Hong Kong, has been turned over entirely to Hirst’s geometric blizzard of round spots.At a media preview Wednesday in one of the New York galleries, Damien Hirst posed for photographs and spent
Exhibition sheds new light on Joseon Dynasty paintings

Jan 12, 2012

Hakgojae Gallery presents orchid, bamboo paintings in New Year celebrationsHazy moonlight shimmers on a tranquil bamboo forest. The bamboo, so upright and leafy, seem to be swaying gently in the night breeze, but never losing grip completely. Haegang Gim Gyu-jin’s ten-fold-screen depicts a sentimental yet calm night that invites viewers into a moment of fantasy. Bamboo and orchids were some of the subjects highly favored by Joseon Dynasty artists and scholars, including Gim, to feature in their
Korean-initiated int‘l art fair to launch in Hong Kong in May

Jan 11, 2012

HONG KONG (Yonhap) -- A South Korean-led international art fair will open in Hong Kong in May, in a bid to provide a platform where participants in the art industry can meet and exchange views, organizers said Wednesday.The Hong Kong Contemporary art fair, arranged by Moon Eun-myung, a South Korean art dealer operating in the special administrative region, will run from May 17 through 20.The event will take place alongside the city’s renowned Hong Kong International Art Fair and the Christie‘s A
Picasso and Mondrian paintings stolen in Greece

Jan 10, 2012

ATHENS (AP) ― Thieves carried out a well-organized, pre-dawn heist at Greece’s biggest state art museum on Monday, taking two oil paintings by 20th century masters Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian, police said.A police statement said the burglars who entered through a balcony door also took a pen and ink drawing of a religious scene by Italian 16th century painter Guglielmo Caccia. It said a fourth work by Mondrian also was removed from the National Art Gallery in one of the best-guarded areas of
Song Hye-kyo funds MoMA Korean guidebook

Jan 10, 2012

Actress Song Hye-kyo has fully funded the publication of a new Korean handbook for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, according to a Korea promotion expert.Actress Song Hye-kyo(right) and Korea PR expert Seo Kyoung-duk (Yonhap News)Song, one of the most popular Korean actresses who also starred i
Picasso stolen from Athens' National Gallery

Jan 10, 2012

A Pablo Picasso painting gifted to Greece by the Spanish-born master was stolen from Athens' National Gallery early Monday with two other important artworks, prompting scorn from the Greek police minister. In this June 30, 2011 handout file photo provided by the Greek police shows a 1939 female
Korea National Ballet seeks new direction

Jan 9, 2012

Troupe’s head Choi Tae-ji to organize ballet-meets-gugak show for its 50th anniversaryThe year 2011 was a monumental one for Korea National Ballet. Its March show “Giselle” marked the ballet company’s first-ever sell-out and fueled ballet fever across the nation. Most shows during the rest of the year sold out as well, ballet-related fashion items were popular, and a TV comedy even featured ballet as its main theme. Then in September, KNB successfully staged “Prince Hodong” at San Carlo Theater
W200b of confiscated artwork to be auctioned off

Jan 8, 2012

Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation will sell artwork confiscated from the suspended savings banks in South Korea this year at foreign auctions. The state-run insurer said Thursday that it had started the search for a lead manager to take charge of the sales. The aim is to raise funds for the depositors of the banks that were ordered to shut down last year by the Financial Services Commission. Items to be auctioned include a total of 91 artworks seized from Samhwa Mutual Savings Bank and Domin M