There’s an awful amount of twaddle on display in the country pavilions at the Venice Biennale. Probably the greatest amount of tosh was to be found in the Australian pavilion, which included a free-standing notice-board cast in resin, and where an empty plinth entitled Venus rising from the Waves was heard to elicit the understandable … [Read More]
Category: Event reports and reviews (page 35)
Korean footnotes from Venice Biennale 2011
In previous biennales, Korean artists have had prominent solo exhibitions as collateral events to the main exhibition in the Giardini. We’ve had Atta Kim, Lee Ufan, and Chun Woo-jung in previous years, as well as participations in group shows. In 2011 I failed to find any Korean solo events. There were, however, three high profile … [Read More]
Exhibition Visit: An Eternal Cycle at Mokspace
In a hectic London Korean exhibition calendar which often seems biased towards installations and video art, we should welcome an exhibition which features well executed paintings which you would happily hang on your wall. Mokspace’s current exhibition, An Eternal Cycle – Paradise and Purgatory, is doubly unusual in featuring Buddhist-inspired paintings. Such work is rarely … [Read More]
Festival Film Review: Leafie, a Hen into the Wild
At last year’s LKFF the surprise success was the animation Green Days – which for me was the first Korean animation really to stand comparison with Japan’s Studio Ghibli. This year the story may well be the same, with another animation from a director making his first full-length feature. In a country where animation screenings … [Read More]
Festival visit: Ahn Eun-me Company – Princess Bari
In reviewing the amazing work of Ahn Eun-me I am always faced with a problem: how to convey in words the extraordinary visual and musical experience that is so unique to her. When writing about her Chunhyang in 2006 I was at a loss for words. Trying to convey the intensity of the visual and … [Read More]
Brick Lane to Earls Court – a city of Korean Design
The Korea Design pavilion now seems to be an established feature of the 100% Design London exhibition at Earls Court. Each year we see a mixture of familiar design names and also some new faces. Beyond the official KIDP-sponsored pavilion (shown above) you can usually find some independent Korean designers who have either made their … [Read More]
Why I walked out of Possessed half way through
Maybe it’s because I was tired. Maybe it’s because I’m reading a particularly good book at the moment. Or maybe it’s because I arrived too late to get my favourite spot in the Spartan seating arrangements in the multi-purpose hall at the KCC (1). But as I sat through the first half of Possessed (2) … [Read More]
Premium Korea at Harrods
A high profile four-week exhibition of some of Korea’s luxury brands is just coming to an end. I can only speculate as to how much KOTRA paid to hire the Exhibition Gallery at Harrods for four weeks. But space at the UK’s premier luxury department store doesn’t come cheap, and it must have taken a … [Read More]
Festival visit: Korea Calling at the Thames Festival 2011
Korea Calling this year was very well attended. The two-day event near the South Bank’s OXO Tower (Saturday September 10/Sunday September 11) formed part of the Thames Festival. This was the event’s fifth year, and there were plenty of features on when I visited on the Sunday. At the centre of Korea Calling was a … [Read More]
In pictures: Highlights of the Thames Festival 2011
The Sookmyung Gayageum Orchestra playing Wondergirls and SNSD. And their amazing body-popping dancer The Kukkiwon Taekondo demo team performing in the pouring rain. Amazing that no-one broke their neck The crazy K-pop lovers in their noraebang tent singing along to their favourite K-pop tunes The amazing enthusiasm & energy of the seemingly hundreds of young … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Tradition Transformed – Contemporary Korean Ceramics at the V&A
Tradition, Transformed, Contemporary, Korean, Ceramic – the words used to describe the title of the exhibition as well as the thematic arrangement of this display in the V&A’s Ceramics & Korea Gallery from May until October 2011. Showcasing the innovative art forms produced by 18 Korean contemporary ceramicists aged 40-70 from the South Korean peninsula, … [Read More]
Festival visit: Gaksi, Mago
In Korean mytholoogy there is a legendary grandmother figure, a giant goddess who created islands and arranged the mountains and the oceans in their proper positions. In Jeju Island, she is known as Seolmundae Halmang – Grandmother Seolmundae; elsewhere in Korea she is known as Mago. The stories about her are sometimes comic, sometimes tragic. … [Read More]
Concert notes: Sooeun Kwak with La-on G at the KCC
For the third event in the KCC’s concert series this year we were presented with Sooeun Kwak’s gayageum ensemble, “La-on G”. The ensemble’s name is a combination of the Korean word for “pleasant”, and “G” standing for any and all of Gayageum, Green, Global and Generation. The music performed by the ensemble is all composed … [Read More]
Festival visit: Pop-Up! The Amazing Adventures of Moo Dong
Confession time: I didn’t actually make it to this show. It is showing in the morning, and that’s when my train is on its way up from London. But based on the reviews linked below, it’s well worth a visit. The show aims to bring great art works to life for a young audience, and … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: NOWS – Traverse over Time and Space, Hanmi Gallery
The third interim exhibition at Hanmi Gallery continues the theme of site-specific work by young Korean artists. On the ground floor, Eunsook Choi is an artwork in herself as she locks herself in the small glass-windowed office creating new paintings in real time. Juyoung Lee’s work responds to the imperfections of the building: mapping out … [Read More]
Festival visit: Perfordian Factory – Babbling Comedy 2
Babbling Comedy continues the fine tradition of non-verbal Korean acts which appeal to audiences of all ages. On paper, the performance contains little that seems innovative; and it would take a courageous producer to take on a comedy show that promises, as this one does, to include some hand-bell ringing. But in the overall context … [Read More]