Art & Culture

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Famous traditional courtyard home destroyed in Beijing

IN THE 1950s, his plan to prevent modern development in the ancient city of Beijing was nipped. Three decades after his death, famous architect Liang Sicheng's former courtyard home in downtown Chinese capital met the same fate. Liang's...

Spanish painter Tapies dies at 88

AVANT-GARDE Spanish painter and sculptor Antoni Tapies, one of the biggest names in European contemporary art, died in Barcelona on Monday aged 88, his art foundation said.Tapies was hailed as "the last great artist of the 20th century" by...

Jakarta exhibition features bark paintings from Papua

AT FIRST glance, the patterns decorating the red ochre cloths are simple and repetitive the token fare of mawkish souvenir stalls throughout the Pacific. But look closer, note the strangeness of the bone-white reptilian creatures, spiny fish and...

Tuesday, 7 February 2012

UK marks Charles Dickens bicentenary

BRITAIN on Tuesday marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, acclaimed as one of the finest writers of the English language and one whose novels have become enduring classics.Events will take place around the country to mark the...

Artist paints 'real' truth of Wall St

ALL that glitters on Wall Street is fool's gold for a New York artist who has gone to extreme lengths to bare his views on the world's most famous finance centre.An exhibition of Zefry Throwell's work in Manhattan's trendy Meatpacking District...

Top auction houses to put art market rally to test

AUCTION houses pinching themselves after bumper 2011 sales are now turning their attention to 2012, amid cautious optimism that the two-year bull run for top works of art will continue.Sotheby's and Christie's, the world's leading auctioneers, hold...

Sunday, 5 February 2012

Maulud Rasul celebrations in Brunei

THE history of celebrating Maulidur Rasul only started a few hundred years after the death of Prophet Muhammad SAW, according to a talk given by a Ministry of Religious Affairs officer televised on the local television channel last year.The first...

Saturday, 4 February 2012

A lifetime of devotion to duty, country

QUEEN ELIZABETH II, who on Monday marks exactly 60 years on the throne, has spent a lifetime upholding her pledges to serve her peoples, earning a reputation in the process for calm shrewdness.When she ascended to the throne in 1952 aged just 25,...

Friday, 3 February 2012

Earliest Mona Lisa copy is revealed

SPANISH curators identified on Wednesday what they think is the earliest ever copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, painted in the artist's own studio and looking younger and more ravishing than the original.Madrid's Prado Museum unveiled a...

Vietnam celebrates Yen Tu spring festival

THE Yen Tu Pagoda Spring Festival has opened in the northern coastal province of Quang Ninh on the tenth day of the first lunar month, in the presence of Vice State President Nguyen Thi Doan, according to Vietnam News agency.Buddhist dignitaries,...

Poland gears up for anti-communist 'Walesa: The movie'

PROTESTERS mass in the streets of Poland's Baltic port city of Gdansk, hurling Molotov cocktails at security forces as a tank advances and the cameras roll.Looking on is celebrated Polish director Andrzej Wajda, 85, whose latest film is a biopic...

Thursday, 2 February 2012

Keeping China's ethnic art alive

ABOUT 20 years ago, most young girls of the Miao ethnic group had difficulty reading and writing.Many of them expressed themselves through traditional Miao embroidery stitching horsetail hair on batik and giving life to colours from abstract images...

Keeping China's ethnic art alive

ABOUT 20 years ago, most young girls of the Miao ethnic group had difficulty reading and writing.Many of them expressed themselves through traditional Miao embroidery stitching horsetail hair on batik and giving life to colours from abstract images...

Turkey restaurants go all out to woo Arabs

IN THE Turkish restaurants around Taksim Square in Istanbul, the menus are getting a new look. It's not so much the food that is changing but the languages, as more and more restaurateurs choose to include Arabic.Erkan Ali Karabulut, manager of Cafe...

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Stone road found in Thanh Hoa

A STONE road dating back to the 14th century has been discovered at the remains of the Ho citadel complex in the central province of Thanh Hoa. The 2km road linking the citadel's southern gate with the Nam Giao worship platform has been described as...

Looking into the future of China's famous fabric

TO visit the Chengdu Shu Brocade and Embroidery Museum is to view the unfolding of the social fabric of what today is Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu over the millennia, as each display is akin to a stitch in time. And it provides a look into...

Perak gov't to upgrade Darul Ridzuan Museum

THE Perak government has allocated RM100,000 to upgrade Muzium Darul Ridzuan here into the Perak Archaeological Museum in preparation for the Lenggong Valley to be declared a Unesco World Heritage Site. !State Tourism Committee chairman Datuk...

Historical house in Beijing dismantled

THE former house of Liang Sicheng (1901-1972) and Lin Huiyin (1904-1955), a famous couple of modern Chinese architects, in Dongcheng district of Beijing was demolished last week.Had it not been for the efforts of volunteers and NGOs, the house would...

Tuesday, 31 January 2012

Better communication improves ties with people

DURING the Spring Festival, Jiang Houcheng received two very special New Year gifts that pulled him out of his financial plight and raised his festive mood.The 67-year-old and his wife, both without jobs, have to raise their granddaughter alone with...

UNESCO bid to saveVietnam dying art

VIETNAMESE xoan singing have received a boost after the art form was listed by UNESCO as an example of world cultural heritage that need urgent protection.Rector of the Vietnam National Institute of Music Le Van Toan, a researcher who helped compile...