Photographer Koo talks about finding beauty in bric-a-brac as he opens exhibition of his collection of miscellaneous objects As a boy, Koo Bohnchang liked to explore his father’s front yard alone rather than playing ball with his friends, a constant cause of concern for his parents. Little did they know that their boy would grow up to be a famous photographer. Koo, who is now 58 and a professo...

Exhibitions “Hybrid Code”: Savina Museum of Contemporary Art offers 30 paintings, sculptures, photos, installations and video artworks which gave new functions to familiar objects by applying high-technology. The exhibition is divided into three sections ― Psychological Mutant, Expansion of Architectural Concept and Apply Science to Daily Life. It runs through April 14 at Savina Museum of Contem...

Presented by Universal Ballet, the nation’s oldest private ballet company, the humorous ballet “Don Quixote,” opens Friday at the Opera Theater in Seoul Arts Center in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul. Based on Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes’s novel of the same title, its ballet version premiered in the 1750s. Since then, it has been the world’s most-loved comical ballet. While the original nove...

Maestro Chung Myung-whun, Seoul Philharmonic to perform in Verdi’s ‘Simon Boccanegra’ Popular operas by Italy’s two most famous opera composers ― Puccini and Verdi ― will be staged in Seoul in April. The Seoul Metropolitan Opera Company will stage opera “Tosca,” one of the most frequently performed operas among Puccini’s works, from April 21 to April 24 at the Sejong Center for the Performing A...

Like the woman of the same name who was known to have been one of the four beauties of ancient China, the “Yang Guifei,” or “poppy flower,” was so mesmerizingly beautiful that he stopped short and stared for a long time. Artist Kwon In-su, who had never really been into flowers before, was totally captivated by the flower and ended up opening a solo exhibition entirely dedicated to it. “It was ...

Popular Longquan ware found in sunken ship off coast of Sinan shows beauty and culture of 14th century Asia The National Museum of Korea is holding a special exhibition featuring about 90 pieces of 14th century Chinese celadon ware found in a shipwreck. The featured pieces are known to be from the Longquan region of China’s southern Zhejiang province, where the most superior kind of Chinese cel...

Easy-to-follow story, timely changes and wit are keys to success for small-stage performances No matter how much blockbuster musicals boast of their leading stars, or how low and lewd some small theater shows become in a quest for custom, there remain several decent small-stage musicals that are long-running successes. South Korean original musicals such as: “Finding Kim Jong-wook;” “Sarangun B...

German museums pull out 116 artifacts from their Korean art collections for traveling exhibiti A two-year touring exhibition of Korean art and cultural artifacts in Germany will kick off Friday at the country’s Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne. The exhibition “Korea Rediscovered ― Treasures from German Collections” is co-organized by the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, and the Korea Fou...

Exhibitions “Philosopher’s Tree”: Michael Kenna’s black and white tree photographs entice visitors to go find their own tall trees to lie beneath. Kenna is referred to as a “landscape photographer,” especially known for his serene photos of trees delicately highlighted with natural light. The Brit received numerous awards including the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the Culture ...

Korean poetry paintings will be displayed in a major U.S. art museum for the first time next week. The exhibition “The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art,” which kicks off March 27 at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio, will offer a rare and in-depth comparison of poetry paintings by Korean and Japanese artists from the 14th to the 21st centuries. Browsing through the 80 poetry pa...

Chongdong Theater’s Korean traditional musical performance “Miso” ― whose audience is 30 to 40 percent Japanese ― is in a fix. Japanese tourists have been canceling their tickets since the horrendous earthquake and tsunami that hit their country. “Most Japanese groups that were supposed to come on the day the earthquake struck canceled. About 13 groups have canceled so far. Some who are already...

More than 140,000 Korean cultural artifacts are currently in overseas countries, the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage announced on Tuesday. Last January the research institution drew up a list of Korea’s missing cultural assets that have been located in foreign countries. At the time, the list had concluded that there are a total of 116,896 Korean items located overseas. The ne...