MMCA partners with Google for concurrent offline and digital exhibitions

PARIS (AFP) - An original drawing from the popular Tintin adventure “Explorers on the Moon” sold for a record 1.55 million euros ($1.64 million) at a Paris auction on Saturday, auction house Artcurial announced.The 50-by-35-centimeter drawing in Chinese ink by the Belgian cartoonist known as Herge shows the boy reporter, his dog Snowy and crusty sailor Captain Haddock wearing spacesuits and walking on the Moon while looking at Earth.It had been expected to sell for between 700,000 and 900,000 eu

US photographer holds second exhibition in Seoul

 Chung Kyung-wha (PRM)Classical music“Hyungi Kim Brahms Violin Sonata Recital”: Herald Philharmonic Orchestra violinist Hyungi Kim will tackle the works of Brahms in her upcoming solo recital. A graduate of Seoul National University’s College of Music and a member of the Korean Chamber Orchestra, Kim is slated to perform sonatas for violin and piano “No. 1 in G Major, “Regen”, Op. 78,” “Thun”, Op. 100” and “No. 3 in d minor, Op. 108.” The concert will be held at the Seoul Arts Center’s Recital H

LONDON (AFP) -- Wearing a blonde wig and bicycle helmet, a disheveled Boris Johnson sings and raps at a demonic Vladimir Putin -- Brexit as tragicomedy has hit the London stage.Five months after Britain’s shock referendum to leave the EU, “Brexit: The Musical” opened this week with a star role for Johnson, the gaffe-prone Brexiteer turned foreign secretary.“The trick (to play Boris Johnson) is mainly to pretend to know what you are doing but really sound like you don’t have a clue of what’s goin

Three people have been arrested for allegedly forging and selling copies of artist Lee U-fan’s paintings, the Seoul Metropolitan Police said Tuesday.　An art dealer only identified by the surname Gu, her husband Kim and painter Park are suspected of having created six of 13 seized paintings thought to be forgeries of works by well-known painter Lee U-fan. Painter Lee maintains that the 13 paintings in questions are his authentic works.Police said Gu and Kim are suspected of distributing some 40 c

NEW YORK (AP) -- A rediscovered painting by Frida Kahlo is going to auction this month in New York.The 1929 portrait, called “Nieuroa con Collar” or “Girl with Necklace,” will be part of Sotheby’s Latin America: Modern Art sale on Nov. 22. Its presale estimate is $1.5 million to $2 million.Kahlo’s husband, artist Diego Rivera, gave the work to her personal assistant in 1955, the year after she died.Until it surfaced over the summer, the only record of the portrait had been a black-and-white phot

ROME (AFP) -- Police in Rome are examining CCTV footage in a bid to identify vandals who damaged one of the city’s most famous pieces of public sculpture, Bernini’s “Elephant and Obelisk.”The landmark work, tucked away in a little square near the Pantheon, features an elephant carrying the obelisk on its back and was first placed in the Piazza della Minerva in the 17th Century. Gian Lorenzo Bernini oversaw the sculpture of the elephant, which had the tip of its left trunk broken off in the overn

BERLIN (AFP) - From sculptors to actors and filmmakers, Berlin has become a magnet for Syrian artists fleeing their country's brutal violence to a place where they can express themselves without fear.While Beirut and Paris have long been the destinations of choice for Arab artists, the German capital has in recent years earned a reputation as a more adventurous, progressive alternative for exiled creators.As well as offering affordable spaces to live and work, Berlin is “the city of anarchy and

Edvard Munch’s “Girls on the Bridge” sold for $54.5 million in New York on Monday, the second-highest auction price paid for a work by the Norwegian painter, Sotheby’s said.The 1902 painting depicting women in colorful dresses that contrast with a dark, anguished landscape, fetched a price solidly higher than the auction house’s estimate of above $50 million.The painting has broken records every time it has gone under the hammer. It went for $30.8 million in 2008, compared with $7.7 million in 1

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) - Abu Dhabi's Louvre museum said Sunday it was commissioning artists Giuseppe Penone and Jenny Holzer to create artworks to be displayed at its grand opening next year.Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and built at a cost of half a billion euros, the Louvre Abu Dhabi will feature 9,200 square meters of gallery space.“Giuseppe Penone and Jenny Holzer have worked closely with the Louvre Abu Dhabi team to develop sculptures and installations reflecting t

NEW YORK (AFP) -- New York's fall auction season kicks off this week with a sparkling array of masterpieces expected to draw bidders from around the world at Christie’s and Sotheby’s.From Edvard Munch’s Expressionist “Girls on the Bridge” to Willem De Kooning’s abstract “Untitled XXV,” the two major auction houses have put together an impressive collection of paintings and sculptures from some of the 20th century’s greatest names for the prestigious sales running Monday to Thursday.There will be