Iramb Zusha

At 87 years old, Taiwanese glove puppeteer Chen Hsi-huang is the star of a new documentary which reflects his determination to revive the dying traditional craft and a late-life renaissance as a high-profile promoter of the art form. The film, entitled “Father”, tells the story of how Chen pursued the craft in the shadow of his father, the legendary puppeteer Li Tian-lu, who drew huge audiences to his shows in the 1950-1970s and appeared in several movies. Also known as “Budaixi”, glove puppetry spread to Taiwan in the 19th century from the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian and was mainly performed at religious and festive occasions, becoming a popular form of entertainment. Puppeteers manoeuvre small glove dolls on ornate wooden stages to present historical and martial arts stories accompanied by live folk music. Chen said he values the traditional puppetry because it is characterized by subtle movements, with the puppeteer taking on all roles, from a young woman to an old man. ...

NEW YORK:  An iconic 1972 painting by British artist David Hockney soared to $90.3 million at Christie’s on Thursday, smashing the record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a work by a living artist. With Christie’s commission, “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures),” surpassed the auction house’s pre-sale estimate of about $80 million, following a bidding war between two determined would-be buyers once the work hit $70 million. The previous record for a work by a living artist was held by Jeff Koons’ sculpture “Balloon Dog,” which sold for $58.4 million in 2013. Hockney’s previous auction record was $28.4 million. The 1972 work by the 81-year-old British artist, one of Hockney’s most famous paintings which depicts a man in a pink jacket looking down on another figure swimming underwater in a pool, was reported to have been consigned by British billionaire currency trader Joe Lewis. Christie’s did not identify the seller or the successful bidder, who was bidding...

LONDON: Seven rare vintage posters of Mickey Mouse are expected to fetch thousands of dollars at an auction that coincides with the 90th anniversary of the cartoon character’s first film appearance. The seven posters, dating from the 1930s and 1940s, went on display on Friday at a commemorative exhibition in London organised by Disney. They are going under the Sotheby’s hammer in an online auction that runs until Nov. 26. A price list in a statement from the auctioneer and Walt Disney Co. UK & Ireland suggests they could fetch more than 130,000 pounds in total. “We’re expecting a lot of interest… There are collectors who collect animation posters from all over the world and Mickey Mouse historically is the most valuable of all the animation characters,” Bruce Marchant, Sotheby’s film poster consultant, told Reuters. “They’re particularly rare posters from England, France, Belgium and two of them are the only known surviving examples and for three of the others, there are certainly ...

RIYADH: Saudi women have mounted a rare protest against the abaya, posting pictures on social media wearing the obligatory body-shrouding robe inside out. The conservative petro-state has some of the world’s toughest restrictions on women, who are required to wear the typically all-black garment in public. Powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in March said wearing the robe was not mandatory in Islam, but in practice, nothing changed and no formal edict to that effect was issued. Using the hashtag “inside-out abaya”, dozens of women have posted pictures of flipped robes in a rare protest against the strict dress code. “Because #Saudi feminists are endlessly creative, they’ve come up with new form of protest,” activist Nora Abdulkarim tweeted this week. “They are posting pictures of (themselves) wearing their abayas inside-out in public as a silent objection to being pressured to wear it.” Another woman on Twitter said the online campaign, which appears to be gaining traction after ...