The Smile of Buddha exhibition is the centrepiece of the Made in Korea festival currently showing in Brussels, which also includes photography, ceramics, architecture and video art. As the Korean ambassador to the EU says in his introduction to the exhibition catalogue, not many people in the West know much about Korea, and this exhibition … [Read More]
Heritage Category: Cultural Tourism (page 7)
The Tripitaka Koreana part 2 – the Depository Buildings
Matthew Jackson continues his series of articles on the important treasures from Korea’s past The depository buildings which house the Tripitaka Koreana library are unique in almost every sense. Officially the largest wooden storage complex in the world, they are registered together with the Tripitaka itself as part of the UNESCO World Heritage (http://whc.unesco.org/). The … [Read More]
The Tripitaka Koreana – part 1
Matthew Jackson continues his series of articles on the important treasures from Korea’s past One crowning achievement of Korea’s Buddhist heritage that is not included in the Bozar ‘Smile of Buddha’ exhibition is the Tripitaka Koreana. There is a practical reason for this, as it consists of 81,258 woodblocks, weighs 280 tons in total, and … [Read More]
Crowning glory at the Smile of Buddha
Matthew Jackson reports from the “Smile of Buddha” exhibition in Brussels I had never been to the Bozar Centre (French: “Palais des Beaux-Arts”) in Belgium prior to the current “Smile of Buddha” exhibition of Korean Buddhist art. It is an impressive place (right) and I highly recommend it if you are ever in Brussels. The … [Read More]
The Pensive Bodhisattva comes to Brussels
By Matthew Jackson The centrepiece of the Bozar exhibition of Korean Buddhist Art, beginning in Brussels on the 10th of October, will be the Pensive Bodhisattva statue, Korea’s National Treasure No. 83. It is difficult to describe in words why the statue is regarded so highly as a work of Buddhist art, because its qualities … [Read More]
“Made in Korea” festival in Brussels
The “Made in Korea” festival in Brussels is a big-budget four month perspective of Korea’s arts. Centred around the Centre for Fine Arts, this is a unique opportunity to see some of Korea’s ancient treasures and also some more contemporary visual and performing arts. Definitely worth a trip to Brussels. First, a summary of some … [Read More]
The Sarira Casket
Matthew Jackson describes one of the Buddhist treasures in the Seoul National Museum. Of the few people I have asked who have visited the Seoul National Museum, no one has mentioned the Gameunsa Sarira Casket as the high point of their tour. When I visited the museum myself, even though I was specifically looking out … [Read More]
Saturday documentaries at the KCC
This Saturday there will be a screening of a short film entitled “The History of Gold” at the Korean Cultural Centre at 12pm, 2pm and 4pm. Each screening will last around 30 minutes. Silla people decorate their houses with silk interwoven with golden thread, and use golden plates and cutlery at meals (Arab historian, 10th … [Read More]
Namdaemun before, during and after
First, some pictures of Namdaemun as it used to be: The YouTube Namdaemun Then and Now group contains loads of more recent, pre-fire, images. Here’s a couple of samples: Next, a YouTube (from MBC) of the fire itself: Some spectacular stills of the fire are on pwalks’ flickr page (HT to Seoul Man … [Read More]
2008 Travel diary day 1: the ruins of Namdaemun
LKL’s 2008 visit to the land of morning calm was not a terribly well-planned affair. I was over in Hong Kong on a business trip, and managed to tack on a Korea extension at the end, which was little more than a long weekend. The itinerary ended up as follows: 14-15 Feb: The ruins of … [Read More]
The Namdaemun Gate tragedy
There are some current events which are so unexpected and shocking that the first moment of becoming aware of them is indelibly printed on the memory. It is said that anyone who was adult at the time can remember where they were when they first heard of the death of JFK. I certainly will always … [Read More]
The Leeum Art Gallery, Seoul
A brief walk from Hangangjin subway stop (line 6) near Itaewon is the Leeum Gallery, set up by Samsung. No expense has been spared on the building itself, with prestigious foreign architects engaged to build it, and an impressive collection of artworks. The building itself is very spacious, and has three main sections. Older artworks … [Read More]
Danoje: an enjoyable but slightly baffling event from Think Korea
If you had read the blurb on the Bloomsbury Theatre website you might have been expecting two seperate pieces to be on the programme at the NewRa Dance Company’s performance: a performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring; and a performance of a Korean springtime ritual. Here’s the material from the Bloomsbury site, which was repeated … [Read More]