Well, if you can’t reminisce on your website’s 10th birthday, when can you? Here’s a collection of some of my favourite London memories of the past 10 years (and one or two from slightly further afield). Some of the moments lived up to expectation: a front row seat at a performance by K-pop ballad diva Lee … [Read More]
Category: Event reports and reviews (page 17)
Video: Living Statue “Comfort Women” protest outside Tate Modern
Braving the cold and rain, the living statue demonstration proceeded yesterday in front of Tate Modern. LKL arrived too late to take any photos, but above is one of the official photos and, below, a video of the protest. Links: justice4comfortwomenuk.wordpress.com [Read More]
KFA holds protest outside the US embassy
LKL wandered past the American Embassy yesterday afternoon to see the supporters the UK Korean Friendship Association who were protesting against the annual ROK-US joint military exercises. It will be remembered that the DPRK view of these exercises is that they are offensive, not defensive. Conveniently, the KFA published a press release about the demonstration. … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Yiyun Kang’s Casting, at the V+A
Yiyun Kang’s Casting installation, in which she projects lighting effects with pinpoint accuracy onto the complex 3-dimensional surfaces of Roman and medieval sculptures, is a slightly eerie and a very special experience. The technique, known called projection-mapping, requires painstaking measurements of the target surface to be taken, to ensure that the projection is not distorted by … [Read More]
Why Han Kang’s Human Acts is likely to be my book of the year
Han Kang: Human Acts Translated by Deborah Smith Portobello Books, 2016, 224pp Originally published as 소년이 온다, Changbi Publishers Inc, Seoul, 2014 Han Kang’s Human Acts hits the bookshelves in the UK just as The Vegetarian starts to make waves in the US. The latter book has already made its mark in the UK, making … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Noh Suntag at 43 Inverness Street and Fitzrovia Gallery
In his written introduction to the two parallel exhibitions at 43 Inverness Street and the Fitzrovia Gallery, Noh Suntag says “I am exploring how the Korean War lives and breathes in contemporary Korean society. I glare at the space where divided powers manipulate the war and division at will, treating them as a chapter of … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: a brief walk round London Art Fair 2016
No matter how well you prepare yourself for an art fair, you are bound to be caught unawares as you follow your planned route from stall to stall. In our visit of course we focused on Skipwiths, Shine and Hanmi, but elsewhere we came across the established photographer Boomoon showing at Flowers Gallery, and emerging … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Junebum Park’s Maths Test work-in-progress
At Tonbridge school, visitors have been privileged to see the work in progress of Korean video artist Junebum Park. And pupils have been privileged to be subjects, almost like laboratory rats, in his latest work. Park is known, among other things, for his Puzzle series, in which students are filmed from above as they struggle … [Read More]
Theatre review: In-Sook Chappell — P’yongyang
After Mia Chung’s You For Me For You at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, which finished on 9 January, it was a relief to sit down to a play where you could believe in the characters and enjoy natural dialogue that you could imagine people uttering in real life. The production, in a room above an … [Read More]
Theatre Review: Mia Chung’s You for Me for You
I’m not quite sure what it was about You For Me For You that had me squirming uncomfortably in my seat after a few minutes – a condition in which I stayed for the remainder of the play. I don’t think it was the subject matter: the tales of hardship in North Korea outside of … [Read More]
A surviving victim’s view on the Korea-Japan Comfort Women “deal”
In September this year 90 year old survivor of WW2 Japanese military sexual slavery Kim Bok-dong gave two public talks in London, at the Korean Cultural Centre and at Goldsmiths University. She said she had come, ‘not as a victim but as a human rights activist’, and explained that the surviving ladies were not just … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Korean artists at APT8
The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) has been hosting the Asia Pacific Triennial since 1993. The exhibition features artists from all over the region, and Korea has been represented from the start. The triennial is spread over two buildings (the QAG itself and the nearby Gallery of Modern Art which opened in 2006) which collectively are … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Sora Kim’s 2,3 at the KCC
Sora Kim’s 2,3 is her first solo show in London, put together as part of the second outing of the KCCUK’s Artist of the Year programme whose objective is to “introduce aspects of Korea’s vibrant art scene to a UK audience.” The exhibition is an interesting concept in which none of the individual works presented … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Lee Kwang-guk focus
If I had seen no other films at the 2015 London Korean Film Festival, the evenings of films by Lee Kwang-guk would have made the whole festival worthwhile. The first evening featured his second film, the short Hard to Say (2013), along with his debut feature Romance Joe (2012), while the second evening followed up … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Chung Chang-wha focus
Each year the LKFF includes a few golden oldies among its line-up of the latest commercial and art house offerings. This year the festival gave us the opportunity to get to know three films by veteran director Chung Chang-wha, made before he was scouted by Shaw Brothers in 1969. The earliest film to be screened … [Read More]
Festival film review: Zhang Lu’s Love And…
Two years ago the revered Korean film critic Tony Rayns asked Moon Sori an awkward question. The question was followed by a sharp intake of breath from the audience who couldn’t believe what they had just heard, and by a few false starts at a response by Ms Moon before she answered fluently. At the final … [Read More]