A national treasure that failed to find a new owner after the Kangsong Art Museum put it up for auction in January has been bought by a cryptocurrency-based decentralized autonomous organization. Heritage DAO purchased National Treasure No.73, Portable Shrine of Gilt-Bronze Buddha Triad, and permanently entrusted the Buddhist relic to the museum for physical exhibitions, the museum announced Wednesday. “We were surprised by the offer to buy the national treasure from the cryptocurrency-

Arts & Design March 16, 2022

The following is part of a series that explores international galleries that have opened a location in Seoul, as a new art hub in Asia. --Ed. A visit to the rooftop garden is a must when you are at Koenig Seoul, a German gallery which opened in Seoul last year. Sculptures by artists represented by the gallery greet the visitors, offering a place for respite surrounded by art. Koenig Seoul, located at the MCM Haus building in the posh neighborhood of Cheongdam-dong, is the Berlin-based gallery&

Arts & Design March 15, 2022

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea has named video artist Choi Chan-sook as the winner of the Korea Artist Prize 2021 among the four finalists who showcased their works at the museum. The national museum shows commissioned works by four finalists of the annual award, which aims to support young and promising Korean artists. The newly commissioned works by the four artists -– Choi Chan-sook, Kim Sang-jin, Bang Jeong-a and Oh Min -- are on display at the exhibition &l

Arts & Design March 15, 2022

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea has published an archival book on Korea’s renowned architect Kimm Jong-soung based on archives of the architect’s career that Kimm donated to the museum in 2014. The 86-year-old Kimm is a leading contemporary architect based in Seoul who has designed a diverse portfolio of buildings in South Korea, including the Weightlifting Gymnasium for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Ajou University Hospital, S

Arts & Design March 13, 2022

The recent art fever is likely to continue at the upcoming Galleries Art Fair 2022, the first major art fair of the year, with the largest number of galleries participating at a new venue in Seoul. The five-day art fair will kick off Wednesday at Seoul Trade Exhibition and Convention in Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul. This is a change of venue for the annual fair which has been taking place at COEX in Seoul. Some 143 galleries will participate in this year’s art fair, continuing the momentu

Arts & Design March 11, 2022

The exhibition “MMCA Lee Kun-hee Collection: Masterpieces of Korean Art” showing artworks donated by late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee will extend its run for another month to April 13. The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea opened the exhibition on July 21, 2021, presenting some 50 artworks selected from the 23,000 artworks donated by the Lee family last year. The masterpieces by Korea’s modern and contemporary artists have been seen by more than 80,000

Arts & Design March 7, 2022

Architect Lee Jeong-hoon has won the MMCA Gwacheon Project 2022 for his proposal to create a large-scale architectural installation on the rooftop of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province. MMCA Gwacheon Project, an annual contest inaugurated in 2021, is organized by the national art museum to revitalize the Gwacheon venue’s outdoor space. Lee’s proposal to create an open-air canopy composed of a number of pipes, which aims to embo

Arts & Design March 6, 2022

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea has announced an open call for Project Hashtag 2022, a collaborative art project that aims to discover talented artists and offer an opportunity to exhibit their works. The annual project was initiated in 2019 in partnership with Hyundai Motor to promote interdisciplinary collaboration among artists, writers, researchers and producers from different fields. The project is open to any group of more than two people who are willing to expl

Arts & Design March 4, 2022

Two lacquered boxes with inlaid mother-of-pearl designs from the late Joseon era (1392-1910) will be transferred to the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia as part of its permanent exhibition. They are the fourth and fifth Korean artifacts to leave the country and find their homes in an overseas museum. The two artifacts were held by Yenaleu Gallery in Seoul, and the Australian national gallery expressed a wish to acquire the items in September 2021. A committee under South Korea’

Culture March 2, 2022

If you feel like traveling abroad, but have to wait a few more months for the pandemic to subside, a couple of photography exhibitions in town might help you quench your thirst for going abroad. The show “Accidentally Wes Anderson” at Groundseasaw Seongsu in Seoul is a photography exhibition created in collaboration with a global travel community named “Accidentally Wes Anderson,” founded in 2017. Some 300 photographs taken around the world take visitors to all parts

Arts & Design March 1, 2022

Lee Sook-kyung, artistic director of the 14th Gwangju Biennale, will bring a transnational perspective to South Korea’s largest biennale, while maintaining the spirit of Gwangju, a city where the legacy of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising is indelibly etched. Appointed in December as the artistic director for next year’s Gwangju Biennale, Lee is a senior curator of international art at the Tate Modern. “I will reconstruct the ‘spirit of Gwangju’ through a contemporary

Arts & Design Feb. 28, 2022

The exhibition “To you: Move Toward Where You Are” at Arko Art Center in Seoul touches on how the pandemic has influenced the concept of mobility as the yearslong pandemic continues to reduce physical mobility in our daily lives. A total of eight emerging artists and collectives have joined the exhibition; half of those artists are in their 20s or early 30s. Most of the works were newly commissioned for the exhibition with an aim to offer more opportunities to talented young artis

Arts & Design Feb. 28, 2022

Korean-Finnish artist duo Nana & Felix have picked up photographs of families, someone’s childhood or Christianity quotes kept in a frame from urban detritus. Once considered cherished memories, they were left behind for some reason, probably when people move out of cities. The artists found nearly 200 frames over the past several years in South Korea. At the center of the exhibition hall at Posco Art Museum in Seoul is the photography installation “Camera, Cigarette, Whiskey,

Arts & Design Feb. 26, 2022

Busan Biennale 2022 will kick off Sept. 3 across Busan with the theme of “We, on the Rising Wave,” exploring the history of the port city located at the southeastern tip of the country. The 65-day biennale will be led by artistic director Kim Hae-ju, a former deputy director of Art Songe Center, who participated in Busan Biennale 2006. The biennale will look into how the country’s second largest city has evolved, according to the Busan Biennale Organizing Committee on Wednesd

Arts & Design Feb. 23, 2022

Painter Toh Yun-hee remembers things by their colors. The artist does not hesitate to say it is the colors she encounters that motivate her to paint on a canvas. When the colors become linked to her memories, occasions –- or even sentences -- that remain in her mind, they are expressed as paintings. Toh has unveiled 41 new paintings at Gallery Hyundai in Seoul, the leading commercial art gallery in South Korea. The show titled “Berlin” is her second at the gallery, after &ldq

Arts & Design Feb. 22, 2022