Poet Ko Un Holds Art Exhibition
By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
Ko Un, the nation's foremost contemporary poet, and also an artist, will hold an exhibition of his paintings from Sept. 4-12 at the Culture Center of the Korea Foundation to mark the 50th anniversary of his debut on the local literature scene.
For the exhibition, 35 of his paintings and 19 examples of calligraphy will be on display.
Ko, 75, studied arts before quitting because of the outbreak of the Korean War (1950-53).
For the exhibition, Ko concentrated on his paintings.
Along with his art exhibit, a new collection of 107 poems titled ``Heogong'' will be published this week to commemorate his anniversary.
Also, the Ko Un's Literature Symposium will be held at ChoongAng University, Sept. 8.
Changbi Publisher will look at his 50-year literature career in the autumn issue of its journal, focusing on his poems and literary spirit.
He began his literary career in 1958 with a poem published in the monthly magazine, ``Contemporary Literature.''
Since then, he emerged as one of the nations' representative poets, releasing masterpieces such as the on-going popular-historical poem ``Maninbo'' (Ten Thousand Lives). Next year, he will finish writing ``Maninbo'' which he started writing in 1986.
Nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005 and 2006, Ko was born in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province in 1933.
He has published more than 100 volumes of poetry, fiction, essays, translations and drama, ranging from short lyrics to epic poems such as the seven volumes of ``Baektusan'' (Mt. Baekdu), and the Buddhist-inspired novel ``Hwaeomgyeong'' (The Avatamsaka Sutra).
The Buddhist-monk-turned-poet has begun gaining an international recognition in recent years.
His works, marked by vivid and colloquial poetic language, have been translated into several languages.