Francesca Cho will be participating in the group exhibition at the Mayfair Public Library, 15 - 31 July. The event is part of London Biennale.

This is the first exhibition to be held in the library space and complements nicely the National Year of Reading. ‘Free words’ explores the censored word, printed matter and use of language as means of expression, through the interpretations of five artists, with site specific installations, painting, photography and sound pieces:

• Marisol Cavia
• Francesca Cho
• Sumer Erek
• Marko Stepanov
• Katie Sollohub

Mayfair Public Library is at 25 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London W1K 2PB [Map]. Opening hours 11am-7pm weekdays, 10:30am-2:00pm Saturdays.

Links:

• Free Word Show channel on YouTube
• Notice of exhibition on City of Westminster website

No student of Korean film can call his or her education complete until they’ve seen some films by Kim Ki-Young. Until now, none of the films have been available on DVD.

Alas, no Housemaid yet, but this new four-film boxed set includes Goryeojang (a.k.a. Burying Old Alive) (1963), Chungnyeo (a.k.a. The Insect Woman) (1972), Promises (a.k.a. Promises of the Flesh) (1975), and Ieoh Island (a.k.a. Iodo) (1975), plus (according to the blurb at YesAsia) special features that includes commentaries by film critic Kim Young Jin and director Bong Joon Ho (presumably without subtitles), plus a photo gallery and 35 minutes of interview clips of the legendary director.

The set will be available from YesAsia from 10 July

Links:

• Buy your copy at YesAsia now. A bargain at $59.99
• LKL Review of KOFIC book on Kim Ki-young

Cho-in was founded in 2002 by Chung-euy Park. It has a wily eye on the international market, with its productions generally non-verbal, and having hired an English international manager (Lucinda Walker - right), who introduced the company to the KCC audience this week.

The company’s first two productions sound homely enough. Their brochure says introduces their first production, The Train (70 mins), thus:

This beautiful Korean folktale explores the fragility of everyday life, and the endurance of human love.

Similarly, the second production:

The Angel and the Woodcutter is a traditional folk tale loved by Koreans. It tells the story of an angel who ventures down to earth to bathe in the mountain streams, where she is discovered by a woodcutter and his mother.

But both productions are far from being children’s theatre. In The Angel and the Woodcutter (75 mins), the woodcutter is pressganged to join the army, leaving the angel to fend for herself in a brutal world; while The Train includes some nightmarish figures including a pimp who extracts money from some poor orphan children.

Chung-euy Park expresses his mission thus:

Cho-in Theatre productions give a voice to the people who are physically and politically weak and who suffer the most during war, but also show the strength of humanity for survival and for love.

This mission is continued in their third production, the ironically titled Hotel Splendid (120 mins), which tells the story of four of Korea’s Comfort Women in the Pacific War. One of the characters in this play is as young as 11 when she is abducted to service the appetites of the Japanese military. This is Cho-in’s first verbal production, performed in Korean with surtitles.

The company has captivated audiences, and gathered some rave reviews. Occasional LKL correspondent Colin Bartlett saw The Angel and the Woodcutter twice last year at the Fringe, and is going back to see it again this year.

The Angel and the Woodcutter will be showing this year at the Zoo Southside in Edinburgh, 3 - 25 August. Here’s a trailer.

Links:

• Cho-in Theatre’s YouTube channel
• Cho-in Theatre’s home page (Korean only - English section not working at time of writing this)
• Book tickets on the Edinburgh Fringe website

The stills below are from a brief extract of the earlier part of the production performed at the KCC on Monday, where the angel is brought home by the woodcutter and his mother, and they start their married life together. After this, the tale turns darker.

Festivals

• Dulsori participates in the Henley Festival, 9-13 July
• The Korean Food Festival takes place in New Malden, 12 July
• The Edinburgh Fringe starts, with lots of Korean participation, from 30 July
• The London Festival of Architecture continues until 20 July, with the Seoul: World Design City exhibition at the KCC

Visual Arts

• Sea-hyun Lee continues at the Union Gallery, till 7 July
• Secondary Sensation continues at I-MYU, also till 7 July
• Francesca Cho displays a new installation in Mayfair public library, 16-31 July
• Psycho Buildings continues all month at the Hayward Gallery, with input from Suh Do-ho.
• 17 – 20 July Shin Meekyoung demonstrates her soap sculptures at Waterperry House, Oxfordshire, part of Art in Action

Music

• Yu Byung-yun conducts Bruckner 6 with the Thames Philharmonia in Surbiton, 5 July.
• Dulsori teaches Samulnori evening classes at SOAS, 7-11 July.

Film

• Good news for film fans: in July the KCC are featuring the films of Lee Chang-dong. Green Fish on 10 July with Peppermint Candy on 24 July.
• Even better news: FINALLY some Kim Ki Young films get a release on DVD. At YesAsia from 10 July

TV

• In a 12-week story-line that’s as secret as what’s probably still going on at Yongbyon, Seok-Ha Hwang appears in BBC1’s Holby City as a North Korean, from Tuesday 8 July.

Lectures at the KCC

• 11 July – Architects from Zaha Hadid’s firm will explain the vision behind the design for Seoul World Design Plaza
• 18 July – Jane Portal talks about the British Museum’s Korean collection
• 22 July – Rhee Eonuh from Indarti Associates talks about Occidental Architects and their Architecture in Korea

Stage

• 17 July - Floating Water perform ID, or maybe it’s the other way round, at the KCC

DPRK

• North Korea All-Party Parliamentary Group is holding its AGM on Monday July 7 in House of Lords Room 3 at 4pm

Let me know what I’ve missed. Thanks in particular to Claire for the hot tip about Holby City, and to the KCC for giving me advance notice of their events list.

Report by Jennifer Barclay, with photos also by David Kilburn and Saharial

Let’s hope this is the first of many evenings devoted to young Korean artists living in the UK, because the Korean Cultural Centre provides an ideal central venue – and Friday night events mean out-of-towners like me can run across to Waterloo and catch the last train home, knowing we don’t have to be up early next morning for work. Judging by the turnout of well over a hundred guests, if word is spread through various channels there could be a regular audience for similar evenings organised by the eleven-year-old Korean Artists Association UK.

H. E. Ambassador Chun Yung-woo, formerly ROK representative to the Six Party Talks, this week saw his hard work come to fruition with the symbolic demolition of part of the Yongbyon nuclear installation in North Korea. Such a promising result had to be mentioned, but the Ambassador with modesty simply noted it was an auspicious occasion, and went on to give a brief, genial and upbeat speech recognising the value of artists in helping to define ‘who we are, the Korean people and nation’ and promoting ‘cultural exchange, friendship and understanding’.

Francesca Cho, chairman of the Korean Artists Association UK, made a great choice by asking London Korean Links’ founder, editor and principal blogger, Philip Gowman, to be master of ceremonies for the evening [Your cheque's in the post - Ed]. He put everything perfectly into context for a mixed Korean-British audience, and his musical knowledge particularly helped to introduce the first performance of violin and guitar by the elegant So Ra Lee and Jieun Park in little black dresses and strappy heels, and Roger Norkie, a South African honorary member of KAA. The beautiful Elgar piece felt, as he said, like music for the English ‘tea ceremony’ of cucumber sandwiches. The three pieces they played were not too long, popular and very nicely presented. A great start to the evening.

Next came poet Hye Kyoung Park reciting ‘The Face of Separation’. It was clever to choose something short and poignant, though I couldn’t catch the English version and thought it might be interesting another time for a native English speaker to perform the English half.

I’ve seen them before, and everyone loves them: Ji Eun Jung on kayagum – in a stunning silk gown that gives her arms freedom to roam with such precision across the wide instrument – and Sung Min Jeon on guitar. Personally, I love it when Ji Eun Jung plays older Korean music on the traditional 12-string kayagum, which looks like a zither, a big plank of wood with strings, invented in the sixth century. What an amazing sound – dare I say it, a bit bluegrass-like, with rhythmic ebb and flow – they call it a Korean harp but the sound has a more masculine twang to me, like a slide guitar. Then she swapped it for a 25-string later variation on the kayagum, and the two of them played ‘Amazing Grace’, Arirang and the Korean and English national anthems – the crowd were delighted. I think maybe the guitar was overpowering the kayagum slightly at first, but the sound mix was fixed halfway through.

Philip admitted that his wife Louise first knew of Korea when she saw the dance troupe the Little Angels on Blue Peter. And now a former member of the Little Angels, Sunnee Park, was to perform a shaman ritual dance. She waved incense into the corners of the room, shook a very loud bell at each wall to ward off evil spirits, span around with swathes of cloth in a pretty way, all the while trying to show the trance-like state of the shaman. It was a stylised dance inspired by shamanistic ritual, which for me didn’t convey the slightly scary, ecstatic emotion of the real thing. But as a dance based on an aspect of Korean culture, it works well.

To round off the performances came the troupe of very young students of taekwondo, led by Seung Soo Ha. ‘Don’t try any of this at home,’ quipped Philip, as perhaps the youngest and tiniest of the martial artists punched and kicked his way through a series of wood blocks. In another routine, three of the kids knelt to the ground together while another leaped over all their backs and then roundhouse kicked through another block. The tallest of them was blindfolded, took three steps back and then kicked an apple off a knife. What’s even cuter about these kids is that it’s not always perfect. When their instructor ended the display by punching his way through six blocks together, one sweet kid at the edge of the stage raised his eyebrows above the rims of his glasses and stuck his tongue right out in admiration.

The evening’s displays were cleverly kept to an hour, and there was time to mingle afterwards over a drink and a buffet, during which I discovered my new favourite Korean food, squid and vegetables cooked in a spicy sauce, which I believe is spelled something like ojinga hae muchim. Let’s hope I can find some at the Korean Food Festival coming up in New Malden on 12 July.

I was gutted to discover last week that I’d missed Dulsori performing at Petworth Park in Sussex, my own neck of the woods, only finding out about the concert a day later. Please let us know about Korean artists’ performances across the country. London Korean Links aims to spread the word, but it relies on getting the information from the organisers and sponsors. The Korean Cultural Centre and the Embassy seem to be doing a fantastic job of sponsoring fine events. Keep it coming.

Links:

• This article also appears on the Korean Artists Association website

When you turn up to a cultural event, it’s not always clear how much effort (and stress) has gone into organising it. But even with the most informal of events, there’s a great deal of work that has gone on in the preceding weeks.

With the KAA event at the KCC on Friday, it’s difficult for me to say how polished the evening was because I was presenting, so I can’t say how it came across to the audience. From my own perspective it all miraculously came together, despite last minute hitches.

Some of the problems had surfaced the day before: namely, precisely what software was available for projecting artwork images onto the walls of the KCC. Poor communication at the start of the process, between non-technologically minded people, led to wasted time at the end of the process. In the end, though, the powerpoint slideshows all seemed to work fine.

Even earlier in the process the lack of keyboard (and player) to accompany the classical musicians had been addressed and resolved satisfactorily.

On the day, performers had been asked to be there from 3:30, to check out the sound system and the running order. It was perhaps predictable that the first performer there was the non-Korean, and the run-throughs didn’t really get started till about 5pm. This was a shame because it meant that the two violinists didn’t really have enough time to iron out their stylistic differences in the Bach Double concerto: the Korean more detached and analytical, the South African pulsating with Latin fire.

“What’s the running order?”, asked one of the impromptu stage managers. We made an executive decision and stuck with it: the order that the performers were listed on the invitation. Seemed like as good a decision as any. And that’s how it all got sorted. Arbitrary but reasonably supportable decisions by people whose one aim was to ensure the event was a success. Democratic, a little bit chaotic… Maybe, a little bit Korean?

The most unexpected last minute glitch was, to be perfectly honest, entirely of one particular performer’s making. How can you possibly plan a 15 minute performance critically dependent on two CD players and a mixing desk, without checking first that the venue has such equipment? It was thanks to the cool head (and contact list) of one of the helpful hangers-on that the necessary equipment (together with an engineer to operate it) materialised in time for a quick run-through before the gig started.

Never having been involved in such a production before, I never realised the extent of preparation needed. While clearly such events can’t happen without the performers themselves, they also can’t happen without practical-minded people such as Demetri and Nam-hee who turned up with the performers and planned out who needed to move what bits of stage furniture and equipment at every point in the proceedings. Young-shin had decorated the stage backdrop with some of her own-design wallpaper and was busily co-ordinating the very professional displays of artist profiles. Mr Noh from the KCC was a lynchpin in terms of helping with the electricals.

A last-minute suggestion that maybe we should produce some programmes for the audience was considered momentarily and rejected; the native English speakers recruited to act as greeters, demoted temporarily to supervising the powerpoint slideshows on the mistaken basis that they wouldn’t understand the Korean names on the invitee list, were hastily reinstated. The buffet, expected to arrive sometime during the performance itself, turned up two hours early. Someone suggested that we delay the start by 10 minutes because people were still arriving, but not everyone agreed. Meanwhile, behind the scenes there were some hushed but heated talks aimed at avoiding a diplomatic incident, resulting in the early departure of one visitor whose name was not on the guest list.

The presenter knocked back a large glass of wine to steady the nerves, and we were away…

Links:

• Read Jennifer Barclay’s account of the evening here

Report by Saharial, with photo by Matthew Jackson

This informative lecture by Dr. Hyunsun Yoon examined the way the elderly are represented in both British and Korean advertising.

A growing demographic, the elderly population is regarded with a great difference between the two cultures, something demonstrated well when comparing various advertising clips. Confucian values of family, filial duty and respect for the elderly provide the basis for the Korean perception, the elderly portrayed as helpful, doing gentle activities, imparting wisdom and embodying the feeling of ‘Han’. ‘Han’ is a concept of wistfulness, nostalgia and reminiscence, often related to the unique political situation in Korea.

This advert for Werthers in the UK, ran for 15 years until it was pulled in the early years of this decade as the public were obviously unable to relate to the imagery.

and, albeit tongue in cheek, adverts such as those for Safe Storage and John Smith’s Beer regard the elderly as useless and disposable.

Safe Storage

John Smith Bitter

Adverts shown for companies like KT (Korea Telecom) show communication between parents and children on a daily basis, a government sponsored advert shows the grandmother helping to raise the children whose parents must go to work and feel they ‘abandon’ their filial duty. The UK adverts for BT usually deal with families that are dysfunctional in some way, an odd concept if you think about it – for a communications device.

It was definitely a lecture that gave one a lot to think about in terms of how cultural differences still rule the nature of advertising and marketing, even if the financial and product aspects get closer together. Both cultures use ‘overflow’ from popular dramas and ‘worlds’ to create a familiar feel. In the UK we have Sibyl from ‘Fawlty Towers’ transposed to Tesco while Korea has Dae Jang Geum transposed to advertise instant noodles.

An interesting point made by one of the many attendees for the lecture was that the Korean portrayal of the elderly is far more passive than those of the UK – the UK elderly are vociferous complainers, stubborn and determined and that we like it that way. We, he went on to add, will always take the humorous route in advertising whereas Koreans will always select the sentimental and emotional angle.

Commercial breaks will never be the same again…

This notice got me thinking about the Edinburgh Fringe, which was choc-full of Korean talent last year. Same again this year, with the emphasis on “physical theatre”, including the b-boy crew who gave us the “Ballerina who loves b-boys” last year. Some more traditional performances as well.

Here’s the results of typing “Korea” into the Edinburgh Fringe website. Do check the website for any changes, and for venue details.

Yo! Chunhyang - A Pansori Musical of Chunhyang

Fusion musical retelling of Korea’s Chunhyangga legend, mixing Western music and traditional Korean Pansori narrative. Forbidden friendship, corrupt officials, female virtue - is true love stronger than death? An Eastern spectacle for all ages.

venue: C
group: Handong Global University
category: Musicals and Opera
time: 17:45 every day from 30 July to 25 Aug 2008 inclusive

Sa-choom

Korea’s newest dance musical smash hit! Sa-Choom delivers an exciting, humorous, and interactive story of three friends coming-of-age. Featuring the hottest and most thrilling hip hop, modern, jazz, and breakdancing. You’ll be up and dancing along by the end!

venue: Musical Theatre @ George Square
group: Dobecom
category: Dance & Physical Theatre
time: 13:45 every day from 31 July to 25 Aug 2008 inclusive

Shut Up! - Listen!

Humans evolving without ears! South Korean director Myung-il Lee combines original music, dance, visual arts and theatre to envisage a future where humankind is exclusively obsessed with talking, paying for the privilege of being heard.

venue: Sweet ECA
group: Theatre Company ‘SU’
category: Dance & Physical Theatre
time: 13:30 every day from 11 Aug to 17 Aug 2008 inclusive

Mong Yeon (A Love in Dream)

Refusing to cope with the loss of love in the real world, our heroine retreats to a living world of dreams. Unique and beautiful Korean tale of love, loss, reincarnation and philosophy. www.modli.com

venue: C
group: Modl Theatre
category: Theatre
time: 13:55 every day from 30 July to 25 Aug 2008 inclusive

Mr Gong’s Hair Salon

Masks energetic physical theatre and acrobatic comedy, all with a far-Eastern twist. Join Mr Gong, his friends and enemies in this fast-paced frenetic non-verbal comedy. Direct from Korea.

venue: C central
group: Dae Gu Metropolitan Theatre Company
category: Dance & Physical Theatre
time: 12:40 every day from 1 Aug to 16 Aug 2008 inclusive

InvAsian Festival: Arirang Party

Another Korean extreme musical dance spectacular, direct from its hit run in Seoul, featuring world-class percussionist Choi So-Ri with a combination of street/tap/martial arts dance crews who’ll guarantee you’ll party the night away. Simply, breathtakingly the best.

venue: clubWEST @ Quincentenary Hall, The Royal College of Surgeons
group: Lunatic Company
category: Dance & Physical Theatre
time: 22:45 every day from 3 Aug to 25 Aug 2008 inclusive

InvAsian Festival: Family

Korean extreme mix of Taekwon martial arts/hip hop street dance/comic lunacy and overall physical brilliance. Add to this some amazing, pulsating musical soundscapes and you won’t believe your eyes or ears. A unique and explosive, spellbinding experience. Book early.

venue: clubWEST @ Quincentenary Hall, The Royal College of Surgeons
group: Lunatic Company
category: Dance & Physical Theatre
time: 15:00 every day from 3 Aug to 25 Aug 2008 inclusive

InvAsian Festival: ID

Part dance, part performance/installation, this inspired Korean cyclical art piece offers the chance to experience cultural identity and acclimatisation on a very personal level. Two 30-minute, separate performances in the hour for a maximum of twenty people only.

venue: clubWEST @ Quincentenary Hall, The Royal College of Surgeons
group: Floating Water
category: Events
time: 10:00 and 10:30 every day from 3 Aug to 25 Aug 2008 inclusive

InvAsian Festival: Skywalk

Skywalk (featuring MBCrew), the company responsible for last year’s ***** ‘Ballerina B-Boy’ hit, return with another extreme dance musical sensation. MBCrew are one of the leading exponents of the Korean-wave street dance phenomenon: their expertise is astonishing. Unmissable.

venue: clubWEST @ Quincentenary Hall, The Royal College of Surgeons
group: Skywalk
category: Dance & Physical Theatre
time: 21:15 every day from 3 Aug to 25 Aug 2008 inclusive

Choon-Hyang: True Love

Theatre Seoul’s youth musical company presents Korea’s adored traditional love story entirely in English. Choon-Hyang and Mong-Ryong must defend their love against all odds. Featuring Korea’s top child actors. ‘Brimming with energy and enthusiasm!’ - ***** (Plays International).

venue: Spotlites @ The Merchants’ Hall
group: Theatre Seoul
category: Musicals and Opera
time: 17:45 every day from 9 Aug to 17 Aug 2008 inclusive

Angel and the Woodcutter

Heartbreaking story with profound anti-war message. Exquisite movement theatre, told entirely without words, in a triumph of communication. Amidst war and desperation blooms a beautiful, hopeful Korean folktale. ‘Clearly masters of their craft’ (Scotsman).

venue: Zoo Southside
group: Cho-In Theatre
category: Dance & Physical Theatre
time: 16:10 every day from 3 Aug to 25 Aug 2008 inclusive

Links:

• Edinburgh Fringe website

Ingredients:

2 Korean (Chinese) Cabbage
Korean Mooli (White Radish) or Mooli
Korean Watercress (not English watercress)
Spring Onions
Korean Chili Powder (100g)
Salted Anchovy Sauce (half cup)
Salted Baby Shrimps (2 tbs)
Sugar (1 tsp)
Finely Chopped or Crushed Garlic (5 tbs)
Finely Chopped Ginger (3 tbs)
Sea Salt (100g)
Water (20 cups)

Method:

Trim the cabbage and with a knife, slit the cabbage heads lengthwise, and split into two by hand.

Dissolve the sea salt in the water (15%) and let the cabbage sit in the salted water for 3 hours, turning them from time to time.

When the cabbage is salted (the leaves will look like they are slightly wilted) rinse the cabbage under cold running water 3 or 4 times and then drain in a colander. Leave until the kimchi stuffing is ready.

Kimchi Stuffing (Ssok):

With a potato peeler peel and trim the mooli. Slice thinly (0.3cm) into 5cm strips using a mandolin or food processor.

Cut the spring onions into 5cm long strips.

If you have Korean watercress (not generally available here) cut into 5cm lengths.

In a large bowl put all the spices, chili powder, ginger, and garlic with the anchovy liquid and baby shrimps and mix well. Add to this mixture all the thinly sliced mooli, watercress, and spring onions. Mix well to make the kimchi stuffing.

In a separate large bowl place the salted cabbage and then spread the kimchi stuffing between the cabbage leaves, folding over the outer leaves to hold the stuffing in place.

Place in an airtight preserving jar. When the jar is three quarters filled, cover with the outer green loose leaves and press them down firmly.

In a bowl mix 2 tbs of water and 1 tsp of salt. Pour the liquid into the preserving jar and ensure that the liquid covers the kimchi. Close the preserving jar lid and then place it somewhere cool for 3 to 4 days.

When the kimchi starts to ferment, place the jar in the refrigerator, otherwise the kimchi will become too sour.

If you like a fresh kimchi taste (not fermented) place the preserving jar in the refrigerator as soon as you have made it.

Kimchi stuffing may be made with various vegetables or seafood (eg oysters, prawns) depending on individual taste, price and availability.

Links:

• Details of Kie-jo Sarsfield’s Korean Cookery classes can be found here.

A novel about a talented dancer from the wrong family background who finds she needs to escape across the border to China.

Those who have shown an interest in the reports from Amnesty International and Christian Solidarity Worldwide will not be surprised at some of the material described in this book, which is the outcome of the author’s human rights work with North Korean refugees in Northern China. Apart from the (relatively) happy ending, this short, well-written novel has a ring of authenticity.

Links:

• Buy Jia at amazon.co.uk or amazon.com

The event was partly to celebrate the launch of the Selected Writings of Han Yongun (above right), which was done in style, with plenteous wine and nibbles plus a traditional dance from Lee Chul Jin, who performed in Trafalgar Square the week before. He will be based at SOAS for the next six months.

The launch and conference was a who’s who of Korean studies, a great way of networking and hearing the gossip. Jane Portal, for example, was present, and people were speculating as to who was going to take on her Korean responsibilities at the British Museum now she’s off to Boston.

My day job got in the way of attending the full conference, but I managed to hear most of Vladimir Tikhonov discussing the merits and demerits of available Korean history textbooks available in English. None were thought to be totally ideal, with the standard work, Korea Old and New, lacking a little in regional perspective, while other more recent works in English did not take into account the latest historical research available in Korean. Tikhonov suggested that a new text book was needed, reflecting all the latest research, maybe written by a number of different scholars. But in discussion afterwards there weren’t any volunteers to write a chapter.

A similar problem was identified by Charlotte Horlyck, who reviewed the available literature on Korean art history in English – a rather short list compared with the wealth of information and different viewpoints available in English on Chinese and Japanese art. This means that any Westerner who is serious about studying Korean art history has to learn Korean: if restricted solely to western texts a student could potentially find the subject “boring” because more or less the same artefacts are discussed in more or less the same way in many of the texts.

Some of the texts available were catalogues linked to exhibitions of Korean art in the West. Dr Horlyck gave a useful summary of recent opportunities to view Korean artefacts: earlier exhibitions gave a broad overview of the Korean art world:

• A touring show in the US in 1979-1981: 5,000 Years of Korean Art.
• In 1984 came Treasures from Korea: Art through 5000 years at the British Museum
• In 1998 the Met published Arts of Korea to coincide with the opening of their permanent Korean gallery
• Korea - die alten Koenigreiche showed in Munich and Zurich in 1999.

More specialist exhibitions followed in 2003:

• The (New York) Japan Society’s Transmitting the Forms of Divinity: Early Buddhist Art from Korea and Japan, and
• Goryeo Dynasty: Korea’s age of enlightenment at the Museum of Asian Art in San Francisco.

All these exhibitions produced catalogues - most of them now only available on the second hand market, though the Met’s magisterial Arts of Korea is readily available. The British Museum and the V&A have also published books to accompany their permanent collections - respectively Jane Portal’s Korea: Art and Archaeology and Beth McKillop’s Korean Art and Design. Portal’s book has unexpectedly ended up as a text book in one US school: she gets the occasional complaint that the book wasn’t written with one chapter for each week of a term.

After the slightly gloomy picture painted in the lecture theatre, it was good to see the books available in the foyer. Saffron’s translation of Lee Dongju’s The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings and Francis Mullany’s Symbolism in Korean Ink Brush Painting from Global Oriental didn’t stay on the display table for long.

Here are some of the titles that were on display:

Links

• Saffron Korea Library
• Global Oriental
• Brill

PRESS RELEASE

The Korean Artists Association UK was formed by 7 Korean artists in 1997, at a time when the activities of Korean artists in the U.K. were not broadly recognized. Over the last 10 years the Association has organized a number of activities and has grown in membership.

Korean artists living and working in the UK have for a long time expressed the desire to have a body represent them. We are very grateful to be able to introduce Korean artists to Britain through an ‘Evening of Korean Culture’ to be held at the Korean Cultural Centre on 27 June 2008.

The Korean Artists Association UK held its first exhibition in 1999, and its most recent central London event was an evening of Chuseok festivities at Asia House in 2006. They now bring you an ‘Evening of Korean Culture’ at the Korean Cultural Centre. This will be a fabulous opportunity to see some of the beauty and variety of Korea’s artistic scene, with a varied programme of dance, traditional and contemporary music, poetry and the martial arts. There will also be an exhibition by talented artists.

1997년, 한국예술인들의 활동이 폭넓게 알려지지 못하고 있던 영국에서 7명의 한인예술인을 중심으로 재영예술인회가 설립되었습니다.

본격적인 활동이 시작된 1998년 이후, 지난 10년 동안 크고 작은 일들을 겪으면서 저희 예술인회는 성장해 왔습니다.

자신의 전문 분야에서 한국 전통 및 현대 예술을 세계에 알려온 재영예술인들의 숙원사업중 하나였던 한국 문화원의 개원으로 보다 나은 환경에서 전시 및 공연 등을 기획할 수 있게 되어 더없이 기쁜일이 아닐수 없습니다.

저희 예술인회는 이번 행사를 통해 순수와 열정으로‘한국 안에 품고 있는 세계’를 알리고 ‘세계가 기대하는 한국의 참 아름다움’을 알리는 ‘세계 문화인들의 교류의 장’으로 재영예술인회가 한발 앞서 나아가고자 합니다.

The programme for the evening is as follows:

6:30 Refreshments
7:00 Introduction by Mr Philip Gowman and welcome message from H.E. Ambassador Chun Yung-woo
7:05 – 8:00 Performance, recitation and demonstration by KAAUK members:

• So Ra Lee (Violin)
• Roger Norkie (Violin)
• Jieun Park (Piano)
• Hye Kyoung Park (Poetry Recitation)
• Ji Eun Jung (Korean Traditional Harp - Kayagum)
• Sung Min Jeon (Guitar)
• Sunnee Park (Korean Traditional Dance)
• Seung Soo Ha (Martial Art - Taekwondo)

8:00 Closing Message by Chairman of KAAUK
8:10 Food, Drinks & viewing of exhibition

Contact details

• Website: www.koreanartists.co.uk
• email - koreanartuk [at] gmail [dot] com
• tel - 07581 2561559

Supported by

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• The Korean Cultural Centre

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The Union’s press release follows:

UNION is pleased to launch a new catalogue by Korean artist Sea Hyun Lee.

Sea Hyun Lee’s paintings are a constant and obsessive shuffling of recurring fragments. His unmistakable series of landscapes are rendered in delicate but pervasive washes of red - large swaths of unmarked white meandering between islands of crimson land. The blank spaces are harshly set against the carefully detailed fragments in red yet cohering into the flawless totality that is created by each painting.

This body of work endlessly revisits and reconstitutes the landscape of the DMZ - The Demilitarized Zone cutting across the Korean Peninsula that acts as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. Reworking fragments of terrain, blocks of land and water, Lee creates a world functioning according to the logic of its own terms. In this sense, it is a world that is entirely hermetic - appropriately so, considering that the territory Lee depicts is defined by the very impregnability of its borders:

When I was serving my mandatory military service, I would be in a tactical area at night, close to the border. I would wear night vision goggles, which coated everything in red. The forests and trees felt so fantastic and beautiful. It was unrealistic scenery filled with horror and fear, and with no possibility of entering.

Lee’s painting functions both on a political and on an aesthetic level. The symbols employed in his work - whether it is the filter of red or the way in which each of his imagined landscapes combine elements of both the North and South Korean mountain ranges into a seamless single landscape - set the visual terms of his paintings, while also delivering a concise political message.

These are also deeply personal works that reference Lee’s own sense of the past and its losses. Here, Lee tarries with two familiar ideas: nostalgia and utopia. But he avoids approaching either with mere simplicity or mere skepticism. Instead, his paintings are infused with a sophisticated sense of nostalgia, and a wry idea of utopia.

Sea Hyun Lee was born in Geoje Island, South Korea in 1967. Graduating from M.F.A Chelsea College, London in 2006, he currently lives and works in London. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Neuberger Museum of Art, New York; Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Susak Expo, Island of Susak, Croatia; Museum of Hunabaci, Japan.

For more information please contact: +44 (0)20 7928 3388 or: info [at] union-gallery [dot] com

The Union is at 57 Ewer Street, London SE1 0NR, underneath the railway arches.

Links:

• Union Gallery website

It’s the 1980s. In Britain, leftist ideologues such as Red Robbo, Arthur Scargill and Derek Hatton had for years been railing against the government and the establishment using turgid language pilloried in satirical magazines, TV programmes and film ^[1].

Anyone who lived through that period in the UK is unable to take such language seriously. And any other English speaker will find the language of this worthy book so monumentally dull and politically loaded that they might find it hard to stay awake. The book’s proofreader clearly also suffered from this problem, failing to spot that many of the earlier chapters end tantalisingly in mid-sentence. On second thoughts, tantalisingly is probably the wrong word.

Here’s a sample of the prose in store:

The Joseon masses, ruined by the influx of cheap Japanese manufactured goods, Japanese land seizures, the strengthening of the landlord system, and Japanese oppression, resisted the Japanese colonial authorities and the feudal landlords and dependent capitalists who colluded with them by starting a fervent movement to restore Joseon sovereignty.

Though I make fun of the language, there is a serious side, which means it’s worth persevering. Whereas in the UK the ideologues were fighting a rearguard action against a democratically elected government, those in Korea were fighting against a military dictatorship with the blood of its own citizens on its hands, and were part of a broad coalition of students, intellectuals and workers which culminated in the mass demonstrations of 1987. And the anger contained in some of the language is not unjustified, and is explained by the particular perspective of the authors. Joshua van Lieu, who undertook the task of translating the work, provides the background in a helpful preface, from which it’s worth giving an extended quote:

A History of Korea is a product of a particular moment in South Korean social and political history. First appearing in 1992, it is a work published in the aftermath of the popular resistance movements of 1987 that brought an end to the military dictatorship and ushered in direct elections for the presidency of South Korea. The historians … were not dispassionate recorders of these events but rather active participants in the democracy movements of the time, who understood their scholarship as a contribution to the popular resistance against military rule and as a tool for the democratisation and unification of Korea. … They proposed their own visions of past, present and future Korean societies.

The perspective is therefore that of the grass roots, the people. The focus is on the people’s resistance to feudalism, the people’s opposition to Japanese colonial rule. The various strikes and different resistance movements are catalogued in laborious and bewildering detail. We hear of the Great Han Restoration Association, the Joseon Citizen’s Association, the Joseon Labour Alliance, which inevitably splits into the Labour Alliance and the Peasant Alliance. And that’s just for starters.

One of the book’s stronger points is the brief few pages covering the inter-war years (1945-50), where one gets a sense of the tragedy of division, when people who opposed the establishment of a separate government in the South, hoping instead for a single national government, ran the risk of being thought of as pro-north / pro-communist.

In order to come to a deeper understanding of Korean history … it is essential to shed the semi-national perspective engendered by national division and to adopt instead a perspective which encompasses the nation in its entirety. This pan-national perspective surpasses Cold War thinking and national division to advance toward unification.

One of the weaker points is the distorted perspective in respect of the economic achievements of the dictatorship. Talking of the 1980s, the dismissive summary of the Korean conglomerates reads as follows:

The focus of the jaebeol industries was basically the assembly of products for American and Japanese companies. Korean industry was therefore dependent on the foreign minority capitalists who financed its growth.

Maybe from the viewpoint of the downtrodden workers in certain areas of industry this might have rung true, but Hyundai was exporting ships by the mid 1970s and by 1987 had captured more than 10% of the US subcompact car market. Korea was not, in the time the book is talking about, just a place where foreign companies outsourced their labour-intensive work.

Of course, the question raised by this problematic summary causes one to suspect the assessments made elsewhere in the book.

If you’re struggling with this book, do at least read the brief final chapter before you put it down for good. For me, it’s the most interesting and fluently-written chapter, and sets out a history of Korean historiography over the past 100 years, focusing on the different perspectives of the Korean nationalist and Japanese colonial historians. It sets the context for the view of history presented in this work.

Overall, a book which is interesting, and probably important, for its very existence, and it was a courageous decision by Saffron to publish an English translation. But this is certainly not the place to go as your first introduction to Korean history.

Saffron Korea Library has a good collection of translations of books on Korean history, art and culture. They deserve your support.

1. Examples: the Dave Spart column in Private Eye, Citizen Smith on the TV, 1977-80, and the representatives of the anarcho-syndicalist commune in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975

After an impressive season, West Bromich Albion were great contenders to be beamed up Star Trek style to the Premiership, and by the end of the year they were crowned champions of a very tight, highly competitive Coca-Cola Football League. Whatever can be said about the quality of football in the league, the Championship is one of the tightest leagues around, and any one of four or five teams could have won been crowned top dogs. Make no mistake, West Brom thoroughly deserve to be in the best league in the world. West Brom’s promotion to the Premier League next season also sees the introduction of Kim Do-Heon, the fifth South Korean to play in the Premier League. Little is known about Kim outside of Korea, and since his arrival in England, he remains in the shadows. Shedding light on Kim is no easy task, so let’s all take stock of what we already know about him. He’s Korean. And that’s about it.

Although little is known about him here, the 25-year-old midfielder has a decent record for South Korea, where he played in the under-23 squad as a prominent playmaker and played for the Olympic team in 2004 that reached the quarter finals. However, as is the story with most Korean players, injuries and fatigue soon took their toll, and he was constantly in and out of the national team. Domestically he played for Korean giants Suwon Samsung Bluewing, winning the domestic K-league in 2004, but signing for Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma the very next year. There he faired much better, playing regularly, scoring goals and making vital assists. He’s often described as the Asian Paul Scholes for his passing accuracy, but this comparison is problematic as it conveys doggedness and strength, which is two things Kim doesn’t have. It also is slightly unfair on Kim, as he plays more as a winger than as a centre midfielder like Scholes. He could probably be compared better to his Korean counterparts, Park Ji-sung and Lee Chun-soo, which probably explains why he hasn’t had as much time in the national team when Park and Lee are fit. Apart from his passing skill he also possesses freakish fitness, like most Korean players, and legend has it that he can run 100 meters in 12 seconds.

Although information about him is scarce, the wonderful world of the Internet offers some pretty decent videos of him, especially his free kicks and dead ball skills. But like all things on the internet, they look nice, but are often hideously misleading. Kim has a tendency, like that of Lee Dong-gook to fail his own talents on the pitch. His performances for Suwon and Seongnam have never really transferred well on the international stage, and he has been given the cruel description of playing in ‘Ninja mode’. This is not because he’s a deadly assassin, but because he has the ability to go missing at will! This may even explain why he has not really cemented himself at West Brom, despite scoring in the 2-0 victory over Q.P.R, which sealed the Championship title for them. One example of this is in the F.A Cup semi-final against Portsmouth, which Kim had the honour of playing in. When a last minute corner gave West Brom the chance to equalise, all the momentum was with the Baggies, with the crowd roaring, every player in the box, and even the goalkeeper coming up. Kim stepped up to take the corner. He delivered a short low stinker of a corner, which was calmly headed away by a Portsmouth defender on the edge of the penalty area. Ninja mode? More like damp squid mode.

Kim may have bottled a big moment at Wembley in a FA Cup semi-final, but hey we all make mistakes right? These are early days for Kim and the new test of the Premiership comes quickly to him, and time will tell how well he can adapt. We have seen success stories (Park Ji-sung) and horror stories (Lee Dong-gook) and I truly hope that Kim can cement a place with West Brom and get some good Premiership play under his belt before the World Cup in 2010. Kim has the potential and the talent to be a player in the same mould as Park Ji-sung, and a player of that skill at West Brom could really become a cult hero. He just needs to work hard to make sure that Ninja mode stays well and truly in the shadows.

STOP PRESS!

During the finalisation of this article, Kim Do-Heon scored a hat trick in South Korea’s 3-1 World Cup Qualifier victory against Turkmenistan. Korea now advances to the second stage of qualifiers along with North Korea. Hopefully a sign of things to come!

It looks innocuous enough to start with. Here’s the little label that goes with it.

Sorry it’s a bit blurred, but you can read it.

A nice pretty pictorial map. The coastline has nice pretty crinkly edges. It’s not a terribly good photo, but I think you can just make it out. In the centre of the map is Mount Baekdu, with Lake Cheonji clearly visible in the middle:

Enough to stir any Korean’s heart with pride and yearning, and maybe not a little han.

We were told some of the background to this map. It’s the early Qing Dynasty. Choson Korea didn’t particularly like those uncivilised Qing. They’d just unceremoniously booted out the nice civilised Ming emperors. Mapping the borderlands between Choson Korea and Qing China was a matter of some importance; a matter of national security.

Hang on a moment.

Mount Baekdu’s in the middle of the map. You can just make out the Yalu River flowing south west from the mountain.

And what is that line running parallel with the Yalu and Tumen Rivers, maybe a hundred miles to the north and west of the current border with China? (Click to expand)

It’s a line of fortifications.

Does that mean Choson Korea claimed the carefully drawn territory within that line of fortifications? Even if not, the map suggests that there was some sort of buffer zone between the Yalu and the “border” delineated by the forts. Don’t tell the Chinese.

SECONDARY SENSATION

Sungjin Kim / Jihye Park / Yujung Chang
12 June – 7 July 2008

I-MYU-Projects is pleased to present Secondary Sensation a group show of works by emerging Korean artists, Sungjin Kim, Jihye Park and Yujung Chang. The works introduce an idea of dislocation, fiction and process layered as mismatched entities, repetitions that render the representation of an image as a ’secondary sensation’ or aftershock, an echo of a synthetic original.

SUNGJIN KIM’S large scale paintings point to a highly charged sensory aspect of the human body, the lips. The works have a hyperrealism derived from their photographic source, and a hyper artificiality created by it. Heightened by close cropping the works move beyond the parameters of the body and take on a language of landscape. Their ambiguity of form blurs representational distinctions and informs conceptual ones. In line with this the divergent and seemingly contradictory functions of the mouth, of consumption and communication come to the fore.

JIHYE PARK constructs tension within the pose and articulation of her painted female subjects, a tension played out as figures turn and tilt their heads away from view, or conversely adopt directly confrontational poses, penetrable gazes solicited from behind elaborately decorated Venetian masks. The paintings articulate an uncertainty of focus replicating the vastly varied the depth of field found in early photography, and conversely the masks Park uses become a further parallel to this as objects that disguise, omit and obstruct.

YUJUNG CHANG’S reduced paintings of interior spaces, objects and still life compositions are derived from photographs taken by the artist. Closely cropped and intricately composed Chang transposes these into realist paintings that become ’secondary’ conceits as they are themselves photographed and printed onto canvases as the final outcome of the work.

For further information please call: 0207 033 4480, or email: imyuprojects@gmail.com
Opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday 12-6 or by appointment

Links:

• I-MYU website

‘The Koreas at 60: Looking Back, Looking Forward’
FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT

The Association will host its biennial conference at Clare College, the University of Cambridge from Monday 8 September to Wednesday 10 September.

The Keynote Speaker on the evening of 8 September will be Prof. Meredith Jung-En Woo, Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia, USA. There will be a plenary panel of diplomats and scholars on the first day to discuss current affairs on the Korean peninsula, followed by a series of papers on topics of historical and contemporary interest to be given by British and international scholars. The Conference will begin with the Reception at 6:00PM on Monday, and conclude at 12.30 on Wednesday.

Further particulars on the Conference arrangements and the schedule of papers will be published on the BAKS website shortly.

For information regarding registration and to secure a place at the conference, please contact:

Dr. John Swenson-Wright
BAKS 2008 Biennial Conference Organiser
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
University of Cambridge
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge CB3 9BA
email jhs22 at cam dot ac dot uk

The London Festival of Architecture 2008 (20 June - 20 July 2008) will be the biggest event of its kind in the world with over 400 events happening throughout London. As part of the brilliant festival, Korean Cultural Centre UK and the Seoul Metropolitan Government present an exhibition entitled “U-Design City: Seoul” (20 June- 2 August) at the Korean Cultural Centre UK.

The Korean Cultural Centre is to be transformed, becoming the exhibition as visitors are given a glimpse into the future as Korea prepares for Seoul to become the World Design Capital of 2010. Media tables, Image poles, a scale model of World Design Capital and the annals of history of architecture in Seoul will form the physical aspect of the exhibition, with pictures, projections, videos and more.

The U-Design City of tomorrow is Seoul’s dream of is a sustainable city that is comfortable to live in and has a design industry and activities that are advanced in aesthetic, functional, environmental, and social aspects (Universal); a city of the future that allows for a seamless flow of communication to reach anybody, anywhere and anytime (Ubiquitous); an attractive city that has a distinctive identity based on design assets (Unique); and a city that is created based on the participation of each citizen and their creativity (by U).

The WDC™: Cultivating a Culture of Design

The IDA (International Design Alliance)and Icsid (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) established the World Design Capital (WDC) competition to promote and encourage the use of design to further the social, economic and cultural development of the world’s cities. In this spirit, the WDC honours one such city, recognising the achievements that promote innovative design, and use design to revitalise and reinvent its urban environment.

While many other awards recognise individual accomplishments in design, the WDC designation is unique as it aims to focus on the broader essence of design’s impact on urban spaces, economies and citizens. On October 20th, 2007, the Icsid held in San Francisco announced that Seoul was selected as The World Design Capital in 2010.

Becoming World Design Capital is both an honour and an extremely precious opportunity for us to challenge ourselves to meet high expectations. In the year 2010, Seoul will be ready to be showcased as a global design city for the entire world to see.

World Design Plaza

Seoul detailed the steps for implementation of the “World Design Capital Seoul in 2010” project, establishing a foundation in 2008; making substantial preparations in 2009; and realising the Dream of the WDC in 2010.

As a main project, Seoul is currently building the World Design Plaza, which is a central design support facility, in the heart of the city, while revitalising the city’s design through extensive urban projects, promoting the interaction of its citizens in its design, and actively promoting design education both in Korea and around the world. World Design Plaza which is designed by Zaha Hadid will be completed in 2010.

Seoul intends to bring to life each of its design visions. It aims to become a global design hub by continuing to make tangible results as the World Design Capital after 2011, through the operation of the World Design Plaza.

Exhibition Contents

• Explanation & Image Panels of World Design City Seoul 2010
• Introduction of architectural model DDP designed by London-based architect Zaha Hadid
• Architectural history of Seoul for 100 years
• Four visions of the exhibition and the WDC 2010 Seoul

Links:

• World Design Capital website
• Press release: Seoul appointed World Design Capital 2010

At the Edinburgh Film Festival:

The Mouse Trap (Gee-dut)
23 JUN 14:00
24 JUN 21:15
Woon Han / South Korea / 2007 / 6 mins
Showing as part of International Animation 1

The Juche Idea
24 JUN 17:30
25 JUN 21:45
Jim Finn / United States of America / 2008 / 62 mins
Art? Propaganda? Dubious cultural profiling? North Korean political kitsch explored…

Cadaver (Haebuhak-gyosil)
23 JUN 22:00
27 JUN 23:45
Derek Son / South Korea / 2007 / 111 mins
The hot new South Korean horror – catch it first here.

Milky Way Liberation Front
19 JUN 20:00
26 JUN 15:00
Yoon Seong-ho / South Korea / 2007 / 101 mins
Are you ready for South Korea’s Living in Oblivion?

Life Track
23 JUN 20:15
25 JUN 19:15
Jin Guang-hao / South Korea, China / 2007 / 99 mins
A stunning visual poem about lives lived against unimaginable odds.

With a Girl of Black Soil
23 JUN 19:45
24 JUN 19:00
Jeon Soo-il / South Korea, France / 2007 / 88 mins
A South Korean drama infused with the honesty of NeoRealism and Truffaut’s humanism.

Links

• Edinburgh Film Festival website