London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

The London Korean Links Awards 2012

The seventh eclectic and highly personal commemoration of the best of the past year.

Personality of the Year

Runner up

There were plenty of personalities in the South Korean Olympic team, particularly the pistol shooters, archers and the gymnasts. But the athlete that everyone will remember is fencer Shin A-lam, cheated out of a place in the women’s individual epee final by a second that never seemed to end, and then failing to win bronze. The International Fencing Federation later gave her a consolation medal.

Shin A-lam, waiting for the result of her appeal
Shin A-lam, waiting for the result of her appeal against Germany’s Britta Heidemann in the semi-final of the Women’s individual epee

Winner

Well, you can’t deny that for a few months he took one aspect of Korean Culture, and an affluent pocket of Southern Seoul, into the Western mainstream, and succeeded in topping the Western charts where the bigger commercial outfits before him had failed. It would take too long to list out Psy‘s achievements this year, but to get a mention in the Lex Column of the Financial Times must be a first for a K-pop star.

The record-breaking Park Jae-sang
The record-breaking Park Jae-sang

Special Award

For a programme of events which showed us so many aspects of Korea this year, All Eyes on Korea takes some beating. It got the Ministry of Culture an award from the President for outstanding achievement. And if I didn’t give it its own LKL award it might dominate the other award categories this year. It’s difficult to pull out particular events from such a distinguished collection, but I’m going to anyway. Joint runners up for All Eyes event of the year: the screening of Crossroads of Youth at the Barbican and the up to date Pansori from Lee Jaram. But the event of the programme, which combined a feast for the eyes, ears and stomach was Korea Shining Bright at the Victoria and Albert Museum: Baramgot playing in the surprisingly sympathetic acoustic of the central courtyard, a Lie Sang-bong fashion show in the Raphael Gallery and a spectacular dinner sponsored by CJ Foodville to celebrate the opening of their new Bibigo outlet.

Lie Sang Bong’s Spring Summer 2012 Dancheong collection
Lie Sang Bong’s Spring Summer 2012 Dancheong collection is displayed at the V&A (Image Source: Lie Sang Bong’s official Facebook page)

London exhibition of the year

Runner up

Any exhibition that can draw me back time after time, so that eventually I spent over 10 hours there, has got to be pretty special. And Kim Sung-hwan’s Temper Clay in the Tate Modern tanks, with ethereal musical contribution from dogr, certainly had me engrossed.

Sung Hwan Kim: The Tanks Commission, 2012 (installation view) © Sung Hwan Kim. Photocredit: Tate Photography
Sung Hwan Kim: The Tanks Commission, 2012 (installation view)
© Sung Hwan Kim. Photocredit: Tate Photography

Winner

For sheer scale of achievement and emotional impact, Hwang Jihae’s Gold Medal Winning Quiet Time garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It might seem controversial to have a garden as exhibition of the year, but Hwang’s work was definitely a work of art.

Hwang Jihae's Quiet Time garden at Chelsea
A mockup of a DMZ watchtower looks over Hwang Jihae’s Quiet Time garden at Chelsea

Album of the year

Is anyone else beginning to feel overwhelmed at the amount of music coming out of Korea? And the more music there is, the more difficult it is to identify the really stand-out acts. Established acts produced work which often didn’t live up to expectation: Shinhwa’s return for example lacked interest, and Neon Bunny, LKL’s own favourite act of 2011, disappointed with her follow-up album. And the number of rookie bands launched by the commercial houses seemed too much to absorb.

There are too many runners up to mention here, and maybe I’ll get around to listing some of them before long. But there’s a clear winner: Guilt-free by MoT member eAeon.

eaeon

Here is an artist who constantly surprises. Complex time signatures, unusual, sometimes hypnotic, brooding sounds and generally an extraordinary album.

Film of the year

In a year dominated by high quality blockbusters, Korean indie films found it difficult to get domestic screen time, having more success abroad. London Is sadly still awaiting its first screening of Pieta, but we’ve seen  plenty of other K-film this year. A trio of enjoyable popcorn flicks deserve mention – Thieves, Gwanghae / Masquerade and All About My Wife. Runner up, of the films that screened in London, is Eungyo / A Muse, a moving and disturbing study of old age, love and intellectual property. If it had been 10 minutes shorter it might have been excellent.

But of all the films we saw in 2012 the most tantalising and intriguing, the most visually arresting, and the one I most want to see again is the debut fllm by Park Hong-min, A Fish, blending shamanism, psychological mystery and the scenery of Jin-do. Unquestionably LKL’s film of the year.

Park Hong-min's A Fish
Park Hong-min’s A Fish: Mysterious, and assured

Book of the year:

2012 was a good year for Korea-related books. We had translations of Ko Un (First Person Sorrowful) and Kim Young-ha (Black Flower). On the DPRK we got John Everard’s Only Beautiful Please and Victor Cha’s Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future. Not to be outdone, the Economist’s Daniel Tudor applied the same epithet to the South in Korea: The Impossible Country. Interesting one-offs were Sonya Ryang’s ethnological study of the North Korean psyche through its literature, and John Rennie Short’s study of Korean cartography. Film fans may have found Kyung-hyun Kim’s Virtual Hallyu impenentrable, but fortunately Hye Seung Chung’s monograph on Kim Ki-duk had just as much academic  credibility while managing to be comprehensible and accessible at the same time.

Fiction wise, the menu extends from zombie apocalypse in the DPRK and the disappointing Orphan Master’s Son to the equally implausible but much more fun Joy Brigade from Martin Limon. But miles ahead in the fiction field is the beautifully crafted collection of short stories from Krys Lee: Drifting House – a clear winner for LKL book of the year

Drifting House
Krys Lee’s Drifting House

Live Event of the year

A lot of music and stage performances compete for this award. Seeing that I’ve given All Eyes on Korea its own award, I’ll focus on the best of the rest.

Of course, one has to mention Big Bang at Wembley Arena, who were undoubtedly the highlight of the year for many followers of Korean culture this year. And at LKL we commend the energy, dedication and sheer polish of their performance even when we can’t enter into the spirit of it all.

Honourable mentions go to two very different but equally spellbinding performances: Korea Moves at St James’s Piccadilly – captivating sounds as part of the London Jazz Festival – and the electrifying debut of HJ Lim at the Wigmore Hall.

But the winner of Live Event of the Year is the one I least expected to enjoy: Gumok – a simple, powerful and moving portrayal of the life of a young comfort woman.

Still from Gumok
Gumok: “I wanted to love someone… to be a mother” (photo © Jason Verney)

And the miscellaneous awards

Impractical dress of the year

Runner up

Ha Na-kyung, for her malfunctioning dress worn to the Blue Dragon Awards. Ha was voted worst-dressed celeb of the year by a panel of the Chosun Ilbo’s fashion experts, and this dress which is so last year (remember Oh In-hye?) explains why.

Ha Na-kyung at the Blue Dragon awards
Ha Na-kyung at the Blue Dragon awards – one of the more decent photos around

Winner

You can’t get much more impractical than a chocolate dress, but it’s rather a fun creation anyway, made to exhibit at the worlds biggest show dedicated to the confectionery.

Kim Yoo-jung at the 18th Salon du Chocolat in Paris
Kim Yoo-jung at the 18th Salon du Chocolat in Paris

Most tasteless joke involving a Korean leader

Runner up

The cartoon-like painting Golden Time – Dr. Choi In-hyeok salutes his newborn excellency by former minjung artist Hong Seong-dam (홍성담) shows Park Geun-hye giving birth to her father. Needless to say, the Saenuri party were not best pleased.

Hong Seong-dam: Golden Time – Dr. Choi In-hyeok salutes his newborn excellency
Hong Seong-dam: Golden Time – Dr. Choi In-hyeok salutes his newborn excellency (Image source)

Winner

‘If somebody asks you what you’re wearing, you say Kim Jong-il,’ said British comedian Sasha Baron Cohen in an Oscar publicity stunt, having tipped an urn of ashes purporting to be those of the late Kim Jong-il over the ceremony’s presenter.

Sacha Baron Cohen with Kim Jong-il's ashes
Sacha Baron Cohen with his two-strong Pleasure Squad and Kim Jong-il’s ashes (photo: Yonhap)

Exhibition of the (outside UK)

Runner-up

The retrospective in the Deoksu Palace of important colonial period artist Lee In-sung.

Lee In-sung: On an Autumn Day
Lee In-sung: On an Autumn Day (1934) Oil on canvas, 96 x 161.4cm (Image courtesy National Museum of Contemporary Art)

Winner

Dansaekhwa: Korean Monochrome Painting at the main National Museum of Contemporary Art building in Gwacheon was a real treat.

Yoon Hyong-keun's (윤형근) Burnt Umber & Ultramarine Blue
Yoon Hyong-keun’s (윤형근) Burnt Umber & Ultramarine Blue in the Dansaekhwa exhibition

Most unusual act of philanthropy

Runner-up

Song Hye-gyo – who donated a touch-screen device to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, enhancing the Arts of Korea gallery.

Song Hye-gyo
Song Hye-gyo

Winner

Lee Hyo-ri – who knitted 15 beanie hats for senior citizens living alone in Ahyeon-dong, central Seoul.

Lee Hyo-ri
Lee Hyo-ri

Thanks to all the artists, performers, organisers and sponsors for an outstanding year.

5 thoughts on “The London Korean Links Awards 2012

  1. I have to get that (and other) Eaeon albums. Thanks for the reminder.

    Mulgogi is indeed worth a rewatch – not sure if it would be my top K-film of the year (I’m terrible about picking ‘most favourites’ anyhow), but, yes, that’s one I definitely want to see again and hopefully soon!

  2. Let me know if you think of a better film for the #1 slot. I confess I haven’t seen one or two which could be contenders, but I definitely ruled out In Another Country the other day.

  3. 서방앤: It’s already next year in Korea, but I’d like to nominate the musical Gumok as my favourite performace of 2012. Of course there were more dazzling and accomplished events in the All Eyes on Korea festival, but it was wonderful to see a homespun low-budget but heartfelt and imaginative musical on the serious subject of sexual slavery.

    It’s right that in 2012 (and 2013) this issue should not be forgotten. It is shameful that the Japanese government still seeks to deny, cover up or play down the events of history.

    For anyone with 116 minutes to spare, the joint presentation in America this year by former ‘comfort women’ and holocaust survivors is strongly recommended.

    I hope these dignified old ladies receive justice in 2013, and wish Team Gumok more artistic successes.

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