DOHA, Qatar -- Strolling outside the National Museum of Qatar, pieces of black basalt just outside the museum entrance come into sight -- seemingly rough but polished, the installation looks like artwork and, at the same, like chairs. The installation "Afterimage of the Beginning 2023," collected by the museum, was created by Korean artist Choi Byung-hoon who pioneered his own genre of art, so-called “art furniture,” and has pursued it for the past 30 years. The work was in

Arts & Design April 15, 2024

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s three paintings -- created in the transition from street artist to gallery success -- will be put up for auctions in May at Philips in Hong Kong and New York, and are worth as much as $87 million in total. The paintings have been unprecedentedly shown at auction events. Formerly collected by Francesco Pellizzi and the Pellizzi Family, the paintings will be shown at the auctioneer’s major evening sales in May in the two cities. Pellizzi is co-founder and edito

Arts & Design April 12, 2024

As the sun sets, a group of dancers and percussionists in the Maghreb region in Africa perform around a fire, the dance getting more fierce as the percussion rhythms grow faster and faster. The 10-minute film depicting the scene is played on six screens in a dark room. Viewers will be captivated by the performance, feeling as though they are standing among the dancers. When the camera moves closer to the fire, the whole room seems as though it is on fire. The dancing goes on until the sun rises.

Arts & Design April 11, 2024

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea announced Tuesday four finalists for Korea Artist Prize 2024, the annual artist prize given to a promising Korean artist. The finalists – Kwon Ha-youn, Yang Jung-uk, Yoon Ji-young and Jane Jin Kaisen – will showcase their art at the exhibition from Oct. 25 to March 23, 2025 at MMCA Seoul as part of the award program. Their works will be reviewed by a jury of seven experts from home and abroad who will then announce a winner in

Arts & Design April 9, 2024

Although she may not yet be familiar to audiences in Asia, the late Brazilian artist Lygia Pape (1927-2000) is known as a pioneering contemporary artist in Latin America and one of the leading figures who founded the Neo-Concrete Movement in the region. The Neo-Concrete Movement in 1959 pursued a liberation from static form and a movement toward heightened sensuality through the interaction of objects in real time and space. “(Pape and other Neo-Concrete artists) really continued the explo

Arts & Design April 7, 2024

Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has acquired two media artworks by Jun So-jung and An Jung-ju, jointly marking the first acquisitions from a Korean artist since video art founder Paik Nam-june’s work for the museum’s collection. “We were one of the first museums in Europe to start a video collection and time-based media collection. We started that in the 1970s and built up quite a big collection -- about 2,000 time-based-media works in total," Rein Wolfs, director of the mus

Arts & Design April 4, 2024

Art Busan 2024, the largest annual art fair in Busan, will return in May, strengthening its exhibition program and locality amid a sluggish art market. The art fair also plans to tap into the global art market to expand its brand overseas. “It is a shame that the art market is assessed on its commercial aspects, although it is understandable. We will continue to do what Art Busan can do with our own programs,” said Jeong Seok-ho, managing director for Art Busan, at a press conference

Arts & Design April 2, 2024

Spring has come to Samcheongdong, where the cherry blossoms are just about to bloom. This is a perfect time to stroll around the neighborhood of galleries: Kukje Gallery, Hakgojae Gallery and Barakat Contemporary, to name but a few, which are all located within close walking distance of each other. Pioneering 89-year-old sculptor with chainsaw at Kukje Gallery Korean sculptor Kim Yun-shin has grabbed recognition at home and abroad at the age of 89. Kim has been working on "Add Two Add One,

Arts & Design March 30, 2024

Two major South Korean cities – Gwangju and Busan – will be filled with art, with two biennales in the regions coinciding later this year. The 15th edition of the Gwangju Biennale, directed by French curator Nicolas Bourriaud, will be held from Sept. 7 to Dec. 1, titled “Pansori, a soundscape of the 21st century.” The biennale will bring together 73 artists from 30 countries; among the artists are 11 Korean artists Literally meaning “the noise from the public place,

Arts & Design March 29, 2024

Cyril Kongo’s first graffiti exhibition in Seoul French-Vietnamese graffiti artist Cyril Kongo’s first solo exhibition in Seoul kicked off March 14 at Museum Wave, bringing together some 45 works from the artist's early days to his collaborations with luxury brands such as Chanel, Hermes and Maserati. The artist became interested in graffiti during his adolescent years in the French Congo and launched his career as a graffiti artist in Paris in 1986. The exhibition, “Graff

Culture March 29, 2024

When Seoul Auction held its inaugural auction in Hong Kong in 2008, there was only a “single goal” in mind -- to herald Korean art to the global art scene, introducing it to new collectors in Asia. For the past 16 years, the resolve has remained firm for Korea’s leading auction house. On Monday, at Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, the auction house kicked off a preview of its "Contemporary Art Sale” scheduled to take place in Seoul at 3 p.m., Friday. “We have put in so m

Arts & Design March 26, 2024

American artist Ian Cheng has returned to Seoul with his recent simulation work, “Thousand Lives,” at Gladstone Gallery, two years after his first solo museum exhibition at the Leeum Museum of Art, where he showcased the integration of art and artificial intelligence. Upon entering the gallery, visitors encounter what appears to be a video game screen showing a turtle named “Thousand” wandering around a messy room. As visitors move closer to the screen and lean down, the

Arts & Design March 24, 2024

DOHA, Qatar -- As you near the National Museum of Qatar in Doha, a large-scale layered structure comes into sight. The museum, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, is reminiscent of the “desert rose,” a crystal cluster of gypsum formed in the desert that indicates the presence of water. The museum, which opened in 2019, presents the story of Qatar from prehistoric times to the present, and also houses contemporary art collections that include some of the world’s most renow

Arts & Design March 23, 2024

Celebrating 100 years of operations, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington will present Korean artist Suh Do-ho’s Public Figures sculpture in the museum's Freer Plaza, where it will be installed for five years. The commissioned work will be unveiled April 27, becoming the first new sculpture to be displayed in front of the building in over three decades, the museum has announced. Suh has created a plinth for a monument with numerous small, individualized f

Arts & Design March 20, 2024

Sometimes one may desire to explore the type of art an artist previously pursued and examine how those past artistic practices have shaped their current art world. This notion underpins the recently unveiled “Edition R” project at Gallery Hyundai, a prestigious gallery in Seoul. “Incorporeal Landscape,” the first edition of "Edition R," invites three artists -- Kim Min-jung, Toh Yun-hee and Chung Zu-young -- who have had a relationship with the gallery spanning

Arts & Design March 18, 2024