June's big event
- » from 16 June:
3rd New Malden Arts Festival 
- including
» from 18 June:
NANTA! 
- Read the programme summary on LKL here
- » from 16 June:
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Here are the events for July:
Exhibitions and sales
The Christie’s sales of Korean work is on 1 July
The Ideal Worlds exhibition at Sesame closes on 3 July (sorry for missing this off last month’s listings)
The Phillips de Pury / Korean Eye Moon Generation exhibition at the Saatchi gallery closes on 5 July
The Korean Old Pop exhibition at I-MYU continues until 18 July
The Living Heritage exhibition continues at the KCC until 21 July
Music and performance arts
Various cultural performances take place in the Fountain Pub in New Malden on 4 July
Pianist Ahn Meehyun performs at the Wigmore on 12 July
Food
The annual Korean ...
Notice of I-MYU's latest exhibition, which is well worth a visit.
Korean Old Pop
Text by curator Min Byung Jic
This exhibition is not about the ‘old’ Korean Pop Art. This is because we consider Pop Art as something already inherent in contemporary art ‘for a long time’, not as a fixed form or style of art permeated or combined by the elements of popular culture. Pop Art as represented in this exhibition is closer to a matter of attitude or state of mind than to that of style. It is an attitude or spirit to transfuse the looseness and freedom of popular ...
The Manhwa exhibition at the Korean Cultural Centre finished this week, in preparation for the new Living Heritage exhibition. It was an interesting exhibition, giving some of the history of manhwa from its beginnings in early twentieth century newspapers, to the graphic novels which are avidly consumed today and which form a major part of the Korean content industry.
Exhibitions with such a broad remit can never hope to do more than scratch the surface of the work of individual manhwa artists, but, by chance, in the last couple of days writer Andrew Salmon has introduced us to the work of ...
I must apologise to the folks at the Sesame gallery in Islington for failing to post this events notice earlier.
IDEAL WORLDS
South Korean Contemporary Art
Koh Sang Woo - Luca Sangjun Kim - Gee Song
4 June - 3 July 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday 4 June 6-8pm
Speeding into the future, full throttle, firing on all cylinders - what if you stop and think about what’s been left behind?
This is the predicament for the contemporary artists of South Korea, a nation that has rocketed from rural economy to technological powerhouse in the space of only a few years. Living through seismic geographical and social changes, ...
Coinciding with the interest in Korean art being generated by the Korean Eye: Moon Generation exhibition in the Saatchi gallery, Christie's are holding an auction of contemporary photography on 1 July, in a sale which includes several Koreans who have featured on the pages of LKL.
Probably the most eminent of the photographers represented is Bae Bien-u, who had a solo show at the Bozar exhibition in Brussels earlier this year, and who a couple of years ago had a celebrity investor in the shape of Sir Elton John.
Other photographers familiar to the London art scene are the following artists:
Bae Chan-hyo, ...
An Exhibition of Intangible Heritage Properties produced by twenty-five of Korea’s finest Master Craftsmen and Women. 29 June ~ 21 July 2009
The Korean Cultural Centre proudly announces the upcoming exhibition of Living Heritage at the Korean Cultural Centre UK.
The title Living Heritage is one given by UNESCO that refers to the most fragile of cultural assets: the collective knowledge behind the expressions, beliefs, rituals, dance, music, cuisine, customs and skills of each community. We have brought together a vast range of beautiful pieces from 25 Korean masters, each revealing an essence of Korea through its supreme craftsmanship. The ...
There are so many books on the Korean War, which commenced 59 years ago today, that it's difficult to know where to start. One history which has stood the test of time is by Max Hastings. Clocking in at 35% fewer pages than David Halberstam’s recent well-received account, Max Hastings's The Korean War nevertheless has at least twice as much detail.
Where Halberstam over-invests in interviewing US troops who experienced the first shocks of the initial Chinese intervention at Unsan, Hastings interviews Americans, Brits, Koreans and Chinese, covering a wide variety of aspects from different perspectives.
Where Halberstam closes the war at ...
Two of London's main art dealers and auction houses are majoring in Korean art at the moment. Phillips de Pury, tucked in behind the old Army & Navy store in Victoria, has an exhibition and sale of major contemporary artists which it hopes will become an annual event, while Christie's is preparing for an auction of contemporary Korean photographers, as well as a couple of other Korea-related items.
It's encouraging to see Korean art maintaining a toehold in the market, in the face of so much interest in contemporary Chinese work. But the Phillips sale has a lot of sponsors behind ...
News of the screening at the Cultural Centre on 25 June, the anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Lee Man-hee's classic war film - difficult to get to see. As usual, pre-registration is required.
Title: The Marines Who Never Returned
Time & Date: 7 pm, 25 June 2009
Venue: Multi-Purpose Hall, KCC
Director: Lee Man-hee
Starring: Choi Mu-ryong, Chang Dong-hui
Runtime: 110 mins
Genre: War
Film Information
The Marines Who Never Returned (Dora-oji Anneun Haebyeong 돌아오지 않는 해병) is a superb movie among representative Korean War movies. Released in 1963, it ran for 42 long days, drawing an audience of 194,124. It was also selected as the ...
Jennifer Barclay reports on the Anglo-Korean Society evening at the Korean Cultural Centre, 16 June 2009
Short documentaries on some of Korea’s ancient cultural artefacts were shown at the Korean Cultural Centre on 16 June, presented by members of the non-profit Korean Spirit and Cultural Promotion Project.
Matthew Jackson and Hang-Jin Chang, who graduated together from Oxford University in 2004, are familiar figures to anyone who supports Korean cultural events, dressed in traditional Korean clothing – striking on Matthew’s six foot six frame – to give away free books about Korea’s history and culture. Matthew now proved himself an excellent ...
Dulwich Picture Gallery is hosting four performances of a contemporary dance production over two weekends in celebration of its new exhibition, The Polish Connection. The dance performance has been developed in relation to an installation by Antoni Malinowski. Working from the 18th Century portraits of King Stanislaw the vectors of the Polish King's gaze are manifested as the black lines of Malinowski's wall drawing. These lines are then translated into dancers' movements.
Rolf Gehlhaar's music based on the sound of English and Polish words provides the rhythmic structure for the choreography. The dancers' movements are closely related to the specificity of ...
Two days before the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1874, the second of the Global Korea lectures at the Cultural Centre looked at another time, nearly 60 years ago, when the Korean Peninsula was at the top of the UN’s agenda.
It was a shame that a transport strike resulted in a reduced turnout for Major General Mike Swindells’s talk. Those who successfully arrived independent of the tubes were treated to a fascinating presentation. While billed as “a veteran’s perspective on the miracle on the Han”, the talk was focused on the War itself, and on the experience of veterans ...
It's impossible not to admire the hard-working, multi-talented Koreans who perform in the energetic shows like Breakout (2007), Jump (2002), and, the original, Nanta (1997), which is currently showing at the Rose Theatre. And it's impossible not to be entertained.
There's probably little to say about Nanta which hasn't already been said. The performers are outstanding all-round entertainers. While the show is built around percussion, there's slapstick, singing in four-part harmony, comic martial arts, some rather dangerous knife-work, lots of audience participation, juggling, more slapstick, the ribbon-hat dance, more music, a certain amount of cooking and even some simple magic tricks.
Catch ...
"Aigoo!" grumbled veteran pop diva Yoon Bok-hee as she bent down to untangle a kink in the microphone cable. Her back didn’t seem to be giving her any problems though. She told us twice, to much applause, that she is now 63 years old, and very sprightly she is too. This was all part of the banter which forms much of the interaction between Korean performers and their audiences – Kim Soo Hee last year provided a similar level of conversation.
Yoon’s programme at the intimate Rose Theatre in Kingston consisted of items for which she is famous – gospel songs, ...
Guerrilla artists take on the establishment