Often when I go along to an event which I suspect will be good, I try to manage my expectations downwards. If I succeed in persuading myself that the thing may be quite mediocre then at worst I won’t be disappointed and at best I will be delighted when the event surpasses expectation. With Eun … [Read More]
Category: Event reports and reviews (page 11)
Book review: Han Yujoo – The Impossible Fairy Tale
Han Yujoo: The Impossible Fairy Tale translated by Janet Hong Graywolf Press, MN, USA 192pp / Tilted Axis Press, UK 352pp / 2017 Originally published as 불가능한 동화 (pub 문학과지성사, 2013) Sometimes, I like having my brain stretched when reading a book: something to get stuck into, to make me think. But there are limits. I … [Read More]
Festival film review: Becoming who I was
Nine years ago Moon Chang-yong and Jeon Jin were in Ladakh, Kashmir – a mountainous region 100 miles or so northeast of where the Dalai Lama lives, and less than 50 miles from Tibet’s westernmost extremity. They were filming a documentary about practitioners of traditional medicine in the various regions of Asia. Their subject was … [Read More]
Gig review: Park Jiha at King’s Place
Park Jiha brought the 2017 K-music festival to a close at King’s Place on 25 October with a mellow set of pieces taken from her album Communion which was deservedly shortlisted for the 2016 Korea Music Awards in both the Best Crossover Album and Best Jazz & Crossover Performance categories. Park is a versatile player, … [Read More]
Exhibition + Performance: Geumhyung Jeong’s Unperformed Objects + 7Ways (NSFW)
It’s not often you go to an art event where, in retrospect, you might have expected an 18+ rating on the door. The only other time I seen a performance as risqué as Geunhyung Jeong’s at an art institution was when I allowed myself to be dragged along to an event at the ICA at … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Soon-Hak Kwon — everynothing, at Union Gallery
The Union Gallery in Teesdale Street is going through a refit at the moment: as well as the exhibition space on the ground floor, a new showroom space is being developed in the basement. Soon-Hak Kwon, a Union regular, specialises in documenting the history of a gallery space by creating ultra-high resolution life-size images of … [Read More]
Festival film review: The Mimic
I don’t quite know how you go about reviewing a film like The Mimic. As I watched its early sections, enjoying the ride reasonably enough, I nevertheless thought back to some of the Whispering Corridors series (and sadly the weakest of them, Blood Pledge) in which plot is subservient to gratuitous scares. Probably if you … [Read More]
In pictures: Between Heart and Mind — Kang Soon-yul at Han Collection
Some photos from the exhibition of new work by Kang Soon-yul – Between Heart and Mind – at Han Collection last month. Her work is hanji collage in squares, circles and spheres created out of tiny fragments of paper on which words such as “Love”, “Heart/Mind” and “Mother” are painstakingly hand-written. As she says in … [Read More]
Kingston Korean Festival 2017: the photos
Here is a collection of photos from the Korean Festival held in Kingston’s ancient market place on Saturday 16 September 2017. 16,706 people attended the festival and 526 people enjoyed the audience participation programmes on the day! LKL, unfortunately, wasn’t one of them, and these photos are taken with permission from the organisers’ Facebook page … [Read More]
Film review: Memoir of a Murderer
Memoir of a Murderer asks us to step inside the mind of someone who is losing his memory, a sufferer of Alzheimer’s disease. The movie opens with a scene focusing on the face of a gaunt and aged-looking Sol Kyung-gu as single dad Kim Byung-soo. As we watch, his face begins to twitch. At first … [Read More]
Gig review: Kim Hyelim + Alice Zawadzki
I have to confess: I was a little nervous as I set off for Dalston on a dark Monday evening. If I had a minor gripe with the opening gig of the K-music festival at the Union Chapel, billed as a collaboration between East and West, it was that there was not enough collaboration: Kathryn … [Read More]
Gig review: Jeon Jeduk and Park Juwon at Pizza Express
What can one say about a pair of such flawless musicians? Jeon Jeduk, blind since birth, has been compared with Toots Thielemans and Stevie Wonder; Park Juwon… I’m not sure who he’s been compared with, but as I listened to his set I was reminded of the stunning album Passion Grace and Fire by guitarists … [Read More]
Gig review: Heemoon Lee + Prelude
Last Sunday night we had the choice between two Korean performers, both known for their unusual dress sense and unique stage presence and more importantly both leaders in their respective fields. With one, the price tag was upwards of £60, for which you had to queue up at a large North London venue, submit to … [Read More]
Kim Juree’s work at the V+A is melting …
An integral and intended feature of Kim Juree’s work is that it self-destructs. As I said a couple of months ago when first reporting on the V+A’s Contemporary Korean Ceramics exhibition: “Kim makes models of 1980s-1990s houses being demolished in her naighbourhood. The houses are characterised by a unique combination of western and Korean architectural … [Read More]
Gig review: Kathryn Tickell + Black String
After witnessing so many astounding gigs at Club Inegales, where musicians from different cultures come together to create new and unrepeatable sounds, it really should not surprise me when a collaboration that looks slightly weird on paper is actually a stunning success when it happens. Collaboration, between Korean and British-based musicians, is one of the … [Read More]
Fringe Review: After 4 – Over the Moon
Sometimes, no matter how much I might be bowled over by a performance, I cannot put into words what I found so stunning about it. So it is with Yoo Sun-hoo’s work After 4: Over the Moon. Part of the magic of the piece is the peaceful, poignant music that provides the accompaniment, performed live … [Read More]