Arts
Book Talk: Absurdist Jim Henson film that wasn't
NEW YORK - Although he was best-known as a creator of children's puppets like Kermit the Frog, Jim Henson had a parallel career as an experimental filmmaker before "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show" made him a household name.
Hockney close to home with Yorkshire landscape show
LONDON - A major new show of British artist David Hockney's recent landscapes is a homecoming of sorts, rooting the 74-year-old in his native Yorkshire and far from the swimming pools of Los Angeles for which he is most famous.
Poet Burnside wins prize overshadowed by funding row
LONDON - Scottish writer John Burnside on Monday won the 2011 T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, overshadowed this year by the withdrawal of two nominees over a sponsorship deal with an investment company.
Tread carefully in Chinese art market, experts say
SINGAPORE - Investors should not indiscriminately buy pieces by popular contemporary Chinese artists since commercial success has made some complacent and later paintings and sculpture may lack the originality of earlier work, art advisers warn.
"Private: #1 Suspect" tops best-sellers list
NEW YORK - "Private: #1 Suspect" jumped to the top spot of the Publishers Weekly best-sellers list on Thursday.
Bill Cosby muses on life in latest book
NEW YORK - Media icon Bill Cosby at 74 still looms larger than life over the American psyche.
A Minute With: Damien Hirst on hitting the "spot"
LOS ANGELES - Damien Hirst may have slowed down since bursting onto the scene as unofficial leader of the "Young British Artist" movement in the 1990s, but he remains one of the most divisive figures in the art world today.
Boston's Gardner museum unveils major expansion
BOSTON - Boston's venerable Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum unveiled a major new wing Wednesday designed to honor the magic of the original building, modeled on a 15th century Venetian palazzo, while making room for growth.
Guggenheim proposes $178 million Helsinki museum
HELSINKI - The Guggenheim wants to build a 140 million euro ($178 million) museum on the Helsinki waterfront as part of its growing stable of contemporary art spaces around the world.
Exhibit illuminates Statue of Liberty poet Lazarus
NEW YORK - A New York exhibit sheds new light on the life of Emma Lazarus, whose sonnet on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty transformed the monument into a symbol of hope for millions of immigrants.