Kukje Gallery’s Busan venue is holding a solo exhibition of Daniel Boyd, featuring 11 convex-dot paintings based on historical photos that Boyd has come across in different sources, from family photo albums to the photo collection of the British Museum. Boyd is an Australian artist who transforms photos of the colonial and postcolonial periods into paintings that raise questions about the colonial history of Australia and the power dynamic in the historical narrative.Boyd began his artisti

Arts & Design Dec. 23, 2019

In a video introducing Niantic’s mobile game Pokemon Go, which uses augmented reality, Pikachu is running around in an open-air cafe, past real people. The uplifting yellow creature even plays hide-and-seek using real-world objects like flower pots. “Watching the video, I thought this real world has become an image -- in an allegorical sense. It was somewhat scary too when I thought about how the real world and virtual reality overlap with one another, the one with Pikachu and the ot

Arts & Design Dec. 15, 2019

Paik Nam-june is inarguably the foremost video artist in South Korea. But who else can we talk about when it comes to video art, and what are the distinctive characteristics that other Korean video artists have developed? The exhibition “Korean Video Art from 1970s to 1990s: Time Image Apparatus” at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea’s Gwacheon venue in Gyeonggi Province chronicles video art in Korea between the 1970s and the 1990s, presenting some 130 wo

Arts & Design Dec. 11, 2019

The National Palace Museum of Korea is holding the exhibition “Treasures from the Shenyang Palace Museum,” featuring national treasures and relics from the Chinese museum in Shenyang. The Shenyang Imperial Palace was the official residence of Nurhaci and Hong Taiji, the founder of the Later Jin Dynasty and Nurhaci’s son, who built the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911). After the capital was relocated from Shenyang to Beijing, the Shenyang Imperial Palace remained a secondary capital.

Culture Dec. 10, 2019

Imagine a Middle Eastern man walking bare feet on the streets of Mecca in the 1970s, who soon takes out his keys and drives away in a Cadillac. This interesting juxtaposition of a Bedouin city and the influx of Western influence was a common scene in Mecca at the time, when Wael Shawky was a child in the city. His experiences in Mecca have influenced him a great deal, said Shawky, whose artistic efforts are mainly invested in grappling with the history of Arab world to better understand its

Arts & Design Dec. 8, 2019

Middle Eastern countries often face negative stereotypes among Koreans. But Seoul Museum of Art’s “Gohyang: Home” offers a closer look at nations in the region, beyond the stereotypes shaped and fueled by negative press.The exhibition consists of works of art that address social, political and historical issues, such as the history of the Crusades, the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel, the war in Afghanistan, myths of Arab nations and the lives of ordinary people,

Arts & Design Dec. 5, 2019

An exhibit is underway at an outdoor space near retired thermal power plants in Mapo-gu, Seoul, which await to be transformed into a cultural complex. The event, titled “Kraftwerk 2019: Homo Symbious,” features sculptural works that address ecological and environmental issues. Forty-four local artists are participating in the exhibition, showing works made of a wide range of materials, including wood, stone, earth, iron, copper, stainless steel, synthetic resins, fiber reinforced pla

Arts & Design Dec. 4, 2019

The National Museum is holding an exhibition on Gaya, an ancient confederacy of small city-states in the central-southern region of the Korean Peninsula around AD 42-562. Titled “Gaya Spirit -- Iron and Tune,” the exhibit comprises archeological findings of the past three decades, shedding light on the entity, which has often been overlooked in history due to the more powerful three kingdoms -- Baekje, Silla and Goguryeo -- that thrived on the peninsula in Gaya’s last centuries

Culture Dec. 3, 2019

Suwon IPark Museum of Art is holding a solo exhibition dedicated to Gary Hill, a US-based artist considered one of the pioneers of video art, titled “Gary Hill: Momentombs.” The exhibition in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, features 24 works from the 1970s to date.Hill gained recognition in the art scene in the 1970s and 1980s, when he began to produce video installations that incorporated sound and text. The artist, who often explores issues connected with the physicality of language, the

Arts & Design Dec. 2, 2019

Rhii Jew-yo was announced the winner of the Korea Artist Prize 2019 Thursday evening. Rhii was one of four finalists for the prize, organized by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. The others included Kim A-young, Park Hye-soo and Hong Young-in.  Rhii won for her work “Love Your Depot,” a storage system that consists of a broadcasting station, media lab, and a five-story tower.Rhii’s work is an alternative art storage space conceived after the artist

Arts & Design Nov. 29, 2019

Pansori artist Lee Ja-ram is known for her success in taking the audience to places that are utterly new. Her latest work, “The Old Man and the Sea” at Doosan Art Center, does a perfect job of bringing Ernest Hemingway’s story of a Cuban fisherman to the stage. Lee’s “The Old Man and the Sea” takes the form of pansori, or traditional Korean narrative singing. Except for a few changes, Lee’s pansori production follows the original storyline of Santiago, H

Performance Nov. 28, 2019

PKM Gallery is holding an exhibition where visitors can glimpse works by artists who have drawn a great deal of attention in the contemporary art world.PKM Gallery’s exhibition “Eternal Now,” co-curated by Park Kyung-mee of PKM Gallery and Saskia Draxler of Galerie Nagel Draxler in Cologne, Germany, features works by six artists: Hito Steyerl, Francis Alys, Kader Attia, Koo Jeong-a, Lee Bul and Martha Rosler. The works on display show each artist’s unique take on differen

Arts & Design Nov. 26, 2019

Arko Art Center is holding its 2019 Mid-Career Artist Exhibition, which comprises two separate solo exhibitions dedicated to Bae Jong-heon and Heo Ku-young. The annual art show started in 2000 as a way to offer South Korea’s midcareer artists financial support and an exhibition venue.Bae, 50, and Heo, 53, are showing works that feature everyday scenes and everyday objects. Bae works with discarded materials, structures and urban landscapes, often connecting his works to social issues.

Arts & Design Nov. 26, 2019

South Korean abstract master Kim Whan-ki’s major dot painting set a record for Korean painters at an auction in Hong Kong.“Universe 5-IV-71 #200” by the late Kim sold for HK$88 million ($11.2 million) at a Christie’s auction at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on Saturday. It is the first Korean painting to fetch more than 10 billion won ($8.48 million) at an auction, topping Kim’s previous record-setter, “3-II-72 #220,” a painting of

Arts & Design Nov. 24, 2019

After an hour and 20 minutes’ ride on a train from Cheongnyangni bound for Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, you reach a small station named after a 20th-century novelist beloved by many Koreans: Kim Yu-jeong. Originally called Sinnam Station, it was renamed in 2004, as part of a local project to commemorate the author, who hailed from a rural village called Sile, just a few minutes’ walk from the station. Surrounded by Geumbyeongsan, the town has preserved his birth house and a memo

Travel Nov. 22, 2019