Five Korean fashion designers will stage a dynamic fashion show featuring traditional Korean music during New York Fashion Week next month. The 7th Concept Korea, to be held alongside the New York Fashion Week 2013 F/W collection, will feature five promising and established Korean designers including Kathleen Hanhee Kye, Kim Hongbum, Son Jung Wan, Lie Sang Bong and Choi Bo Ko who will showcase their collections at the Lincoln Center on Feb. 7. The designers, selected by fashion experts to repres

Arts & Design Jan. 22, 2013

Works by internationally renowned architects are on display in Seoul, offering a glimpse of recent global developments and trends in architecture. The first international architecture exhibition features 131 award-winning star architects from 27 countries, including MVRDV, Helmut Jahn and Riken Yamamoto and Korean architects such as Seung Hyo-sang, Kim In-cheurl and Jang Yoon-gyoo.  The exhibition is Korea’s first international exhibition certified by the International Union of Architects, as we

Arts & Design Jan. 21, 2013

Artday, a sister company of The Korea Herald, holds a charity auction with Lotte Department Store Yeongdeungpo this week. The event presents a collection of hand-painted kites made by 41 famous Korean artists. The paintings are drawn on different-shaped traditional Korean kites ― the square “bangpae kites” and the triangular “ray kites.”Kite flying is a traditional Korean winter pastime that people enjoyed during New Year’s Day.  The event invited a number of famous Korean artists representing d

Performance Jan. 20, 2013

Lee Hi-sang, chairman of DongA One Group, savors every last drop when he drinks wine. He calls each drop “blood and sweat.” As a wine lover, he not only imports some of the best wines in the world to Korea, but also works from scratch to make top-quality wine that is internationally recognized. Lee introduced some of the world’s most famous wines to Korea in 1997 when Koreans were more into soju or beer. In 2005, he entered the world of winemaking by purchasing Dana Estates in Napa Valley, Calif

Food Jan. 18, 2013

Exhibitions“Maden Pictures 13”: Arario Gallery Cheongdam presents a photography and video exhibition as its first show of the year. Titled “Maden Pictures 13,” the exhibition shows the artwork of five young artists who use photography as a medium to convey their social and personal voices and make the viewers think about their intentions beyond the constructed images. The scenes in the photographs exhibit their own fascinating story. The exhibition runs from Jan. 15―March 3 at Arario Gallery Che

Performance Jan. 18, 2013

Internationally-renowned South Korean artist Kim Sooja will present a new “bottari” series at the Korean Pavilion of the Venice Biennale this year. Kim has been chosen as the sole artist to represent the Korean Pavilion for the 55th Venice Biennale. The world’s leading art event is scheduled to be held from June 1 to Nov. 24 at various venues in Venice. The bottari series is the artist’s representative artwork that features cloth bundles in various contexts. The artwork was shown at the biennale

Performance Jan. 17, 2013

Sheraton Incheon Hotel is offering a green getaway for readers of The Korea Herald. The “eco-friendly package,” which includes two consecutive nights’ stay on Saturday and Sunday with breakfast as well as food and beverage equivalent to 100,000 won in value during the stay, will be upgraded exclusively for readers of The Korea Herald, with a free upgrade to the Park View Deluxe Room that offers panoramic views of Central Park in Songdo and Incheon Bridge. The package is priced at 460,000 won, ex

Travel Jan. 16, 2013

Young artists who majored in Korean painting are seeking various ways to add a contemporary touch to traditional ink-and-wash paintings. Sul Park, 29, has come up with a unique variation on traditional Korean paintings by using collage. In her ink-and-wash landscape paintings, cut and torn pieces of rice paper in different shades of black form a landscape. She creates perspective in her paintings using different shades of paper colored with “meok” ink stone. Her works attracted international att

Performance Jan. 14, 2013

Music producer and photographer Kim Young-il has been keeping track of sounds and images of Korean tradition. The 52-year-old has been capturing portraits of performers of “gugak,” traditional Korean music, as well as releasing gugak albums through the sole gugak label in Korea.Now, he is bringing two pillars of his career to the New Year’s exhibition at Atelier Hermes, a gallery sponsored by the Foundation d’enterprise Hermes. The exhibition, titled “Precious People,” features portraits of Kore

Culture Jan. 13, 2013

Lotte Hotels and Resorts announced that it will open a new hotel on the famous Philippine resort island of Cebu. According to the hotel, the new Lotte City Hotel Cebu will be located on top of J Centre Shopping Mall in Mandaue City and is scheduled to open in 2014. The hotel is being built on the existing structure of the shopping mall, occupying the 6th to 23rd floors. Its construction began this month.The new hotel will feature 350 rooms as well as a swimming pool with kid’s pool, a sky lounge

Culture Jan. 11, 2013

With the start of the New Year, you’re bound to be making resolutions and trying to change patterns. Didn’t travel much last year? Didn’t take a vacation at all? Make a positive change right now by planning a trip in the next few months! With must-see spots for the next three months in mind, the members and editors of VirtualTourist.com were polled, and here are their “5 Spots to Hit in the Next 3 Months.”1. See the northern lights in NorwayNASA has predicted that the winter season in the Northe

Travel Jan. 11, 2013

Natural settings have been popular photography subjects ― awe-inspiring landscapes, and news photos capturing historical moments have inspired many audiences and they still do. But staged photography, which has become popular since the 1980s through the works of artists Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall, has become a standard art practice. And photography is able to create any image, no matter how unrealistic it is. Arario Gallery Cheongdam presents a photography and video exhibition as its first show

Performance Jan. 10, 2013

The ancient mountain fortress Namhansanseong, which served as a strategic defense facility at various times in Korea’s turbulent history, is one of the most frequently visited cultural heritage sites in the country today. The fortress stands testimony of past conflicts from the seventh to 17th centuries, enduring foreign invasions big and small since the Unified Silla era. Registered as National Historic Site No. 57, the fortress was included on the tentative list of UNESCO’s World Heritage Site

Culture Jan. 9, 2013

A Buddhist painting from Goryeo period (918-1392) was found in an Italian museum, according to the National Museum of Korea on Wednesday. The full-length portrait of Amitabha Buddha was discovered when a curator of the Korean national museum was researching the collection of Korean artifacts at the National Museum of Oriental Art in Rome. “The painting was in good condition,” said Kwon Gang-mi, another curator of the museum. “And it wasn’t known to the academia in Korea or Europe.” The painting,

Culture Jan. 9, 2013