Lifestyle - The Korea Times

From Silla's gold crowns to Nam June Paik, Gyeongju glimmers with art

GYEONGJU, North Gyeongsang Province — This fall, Gyeongju is not just a stage for world leaders gathering for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, but a living gallery where art breathes with time. From the 1,500-year-old gold crowns of the Silla Kingdom (57 BCE-935 CE) to the kaleidoscopic circuits of Nam June Paik’s video art, the historic capital shimmers with creations from across millennia. Contemporary artists reimagine Silla The Solgeo Art Museum takes its inspiration from the ancient kingdom’s splendor and Buddhist worldview for its latest exhibition. “Scent of Korea in Silla” invites four contemporary creatives to reenvision the cultural and spiritual essence of the dynasty’s golden age: Park Dae-sung, Ven. Songcheon, Kim Min and Park Seon-min. Park Dae-sung’s 15-meter-long “Korea Fantasy” is a showstopper that unfurls across a curved wall like a panoramic scroll. The painting envelops viewers in an expansive ink-washed landscape, weaving together Korea’s natural wonders with artifacts the artist had encountered over his lifetime: Mount Baekdu,

Oct 25, 2025By Park Han-sol

From Silla's gold crowns to Nam June Paik, Gyeongju glimmers with art

K-pop pioneer Kim Wan-sun finds solace in art

In 1986, at the age of 17, Kim Wan-sun debuted with her first album “Tonight,” captivating audiences with her sensual dance moves and bold, provocative images. Over the next five years, she dominated Korea's pop music scene, becoming the first female singer to reach such heights in the industry. Between 1987 and 1991, she was named Singer of the Year annually, earning the nickname “Korea’s Madonna.” Beyond Korea, Kim’s music and performances attracted fans in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. She found particular success in Taiwan, where her albums sold more than 500,000 copies — making her one of the early forerunners of K-pop. Nearly 40 years after the height of her fame, Kim has returned — not to the stage, but to the canvas. She is currently presenting a joint exhibition titled “Art Beyond Fame,” with rock musician and former Sanullim member Kim Chang-hoon, at Gallery Marie in Seoul’s Jongno District, featuring nine self-portraits. Except for one full-body portrait displayed in the gallery's entrance, most of her paintings depict herself from the side or back, often

Oct 23, 2025By Kim Se-jeong

K-pop pioneer Kim Wan-sun finds solace in art

Seoul City breaks ground on Han River island connecting art and nature

Seoul on Tuesday broke ground on Nodeul Global Art Island, a striking new landmark at the heart of the Han River, launching a 370 billion won ($260 million) project that aims to transform the island into a world-class center for art and urban leisure by 2028. Hundreds of residents and dignitaries, including Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and acclaimed British architect Thomas Heatherwick, attended the groundbreaking ceremony held on the island. The initiative is central part of the city’s Great Han River Project, which aims to revitalize the entire river corridor with new landmarks, the mayor declared. “If the Hangang River Bus represents the pinnacle of the Han River Renaissance ― a movement transforming the river into a stream of Seoul’s elegance and culture ― the Nodeul Global Art Island will be the final piece completing the grand picture,” Oh said. “It will become a new center of culture and art that changes the daily lives of citizens and elevates Seoul’s urban competitiveness to the next level.” The mayor said the proposed design is “not just about external beauty, bu

Oct 21, 2025By Jung Min-ho

Seoul City breaks ground on Han River island connecting art and nature

21st Performing Arts Market in Seoul brings global creativity to Korea

Every October, Seoul pulses with creativity, dialogue and possibility as the Performing Arts Market in Seoul (PAMS) returns. This year, the 21st edition of PAMS marks its 20th anniversary of promoting Korea’s performing arts on the international stage. PAMS 2025 takes place from Oct. 14 to Nov. 9, running for a total of 27 days. The main segment, known as Market Focus, runs Tuesday to Friday, offering events and programs that highlight key themes and participants of this year’s edition. The events have been scheduled across multiple major venues in Seoul, including the National Theater of Korea, Seoul Namsan Gugakdang, ARKO Arts Theater, Daehakro Arts Theater, SFAC Theater QUAD, TINC, Arts Theater at the Korea National University of Arts (Seokgwan-dong Campus), and Jindalrae Theater operated by the Gangbuk Cultural Foundation. PAMS 2025 is co-hosted by the Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS) and National Theater of Korea (NTOK), and sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Arts Council Korea (ARKO). In a greeting message, KAMS President Kim Jang-ho highlighted th

Oct 14, 2025By Bereket Alemayehu

21st Performing Arts Market in Seoul brings global creativity to Korea

At Sea Art Festival, art rises from Busan's tides

Since its inception in 1987, the Sea Art Festival in Busan has embraced the port city’s coastal topography, transforming its shores into a meeting ground between nature and contemporary art. This year’s edition unfolds where the Nakdong River, the country’s longest, meets the sea. Its main stage, Dadaepo Beach, is a landscape shaped by the collision of currents. To artistic directors Kim Keum-hwa and Bernard Vienat, it is a site of ceaseless creation and erosion, a place where “new ecological and cultural narratives are continuously generated.” Under the theme “Undercurrents: Waves Walking on the Water,” the biennale has gathered 46 site-specific works by 23 artists and collectives. These outdoor installations chart a journey through Busan, from a former incineration plant to a disused seaside cafe and to restored wetlands. In these unique spaces, pieces unfold that seem to breathe with the tide. For “Sonic Drift,” Marco Barotti plunged into the waters off Busan's coast to capture the hidden acoustics of marine life. Blended with the region’s age-old fishing chant,

Oct 10, 2025By Park Han-sol

At Sea Art Festival, art rises from Busan's tides

Basquiat’s kingdom of crowns and chaos unleashed in Seoul

It’s impossible to separate the fervent, graffiti-charged art of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88) from the rawness of his own blazing life. His searing visual language has arrived in Seoul in an exhibition titled “Signs: Connecting Past and Future” at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), curated by art historians Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer. The show brings together more than 70 paintings and drawings from private and institutional collections, along with 155 pages from the artist’s notebooks — filled with sketches, poetry fragments and wordplay — unveiled for the first time in Korea. Born in Brooklyn to a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother, Basquiat was not raised in poverty, but at 17, after being kicked out of his house for dropping out of school, he began a restless new existence on the streets of Manhattan. He spray-painted cryptic messages across walls, slept in cheap hotels and drifted from one friend’s couch to another. In 1980, he was selling drawings for $50 apiece. Within a few years, that same young rebel became the living definition of an “art star.

Oct 10, 2025By Park Han-sol

Basquiat’s kingdom of crowns and chaos unleashed in Seoul

Citywide séance: Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2025 calls forth spirits and stories

This year’s Seoul Mediacity Biennale unfolds as a vast séance — a ritual where the living seek to commune with spirits unseen. If its title, “Séance: Technology of Spirit,” isn’t a dead giveaway, the clues lie elsewhere. Nearly a third of the artists on view are themselves deceased. And many, in their lifetimes, sought to speak with the other side through their practice: Hilma af Klint, Georgiana Houghton, Onisaburo Deguchi, Emma Kunz and even Nam June Paik. Yet ultimately, the séance here is more than an invocation of the dead. It stands as a metaphor for summoning back all the “dead” stories and presences long purged by Western modern rationalism — the supernatural, the mystical, the ancestral, the subconscious and the transcendent. “The advent of modernity imposed this widening chasm between science and spiritual practice. This was especially true in East Asia, as well as in other parts of the world,” said Hallie Ayres, one of a trio of curators alongside Anton Vidokle and Lukas Brasiskis, at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), the biennale’s primary venue. “Thi

Oct 8, 2025By Park Han-sol

Citywide séance: Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2025 calls forth spirits and stories

BTS leader RM to curate exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

BTS leader RM is set to collaborate with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), becoming the first K-pop artist to do so since the museum’s founding. As part of the groundbreaking partnership, RM will serve as a guest curator, presenting pieces from his personal art collection and sharing his artistic vision with visitors. RM to showcase collection in special exhibition On Oct. 3, SFMOMA announced that it will host a special exhibition titled “RM x SFMOMA” in collaboration with RM. The exhibition will run from October 2026 to February 2027, featuring more than 200 works, including pieces from RM’s personal collection as well as selections from the museum’s own holdings. The show aims to organically connect the visual and conceptual contexts of both collections, offering insight into RM’s aesthetic sensibility and collecting philosophy. Notably, RM will take an active role as a curator, shaping how the works are presented to the public. A first-of-its-kind collaboration for SFMOMA This marks the first time in SFMOMA’s history that it has collaborated with a K-pop ar

Oct 4, 2025By Hankookilbo

BTS leader RM to curate exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Nam June Paik as ‘The Communicator’ takes spotlight in New York

“My interest lies in the entire world. For me, every day is a matter of communication.” So declared Nam June Paik (1932-2006), the trailblazing pioneer of video art. In Paik’s prescient mind — one that foresaw the coming of the information age and the hyper-connected global village — art was never a stationary, self-contained field. Rather, it was a participatory site of super-connectivity where analog met digital, East met West and traditions conversed with modernity. This is the spirit that animates the new exhibition, “Nam June Paik: The Communicator,” at the Korean Cultural Center New York. Marking the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule (1910-45), the show is presented in collaboration with the Nam June Paik Art Center in Gyeonggi Province and the Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-Koo Foundation. The artist’s works, buzzing and radiant, sought nothing less than the liberation of the senses through technology — a freedom unbound by time, space or ideology. On view are 25 video installations and TV robot sculptures from the Nam June Paik Art Ce

Oct 1, 2025By Park Han-sol

Nam June Paik as ‘The Communicator’ takes spotlight in New York

'Water Lily and Chandelier': From Monet to Ai Weiwei at MMCA

Occasionally in Korea, museums present their exhibitions under two entirely different titles — one in the native tongue, the other in English — instead of having them simply mirror each other in translation. Such is the case with the new show at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon (MMCA) in Gyeonggi Province. Its English title, “Highlights of MMCA Global Art Collection,” does its job with plainspoken clarity: a survey of 44 works by 33 international masters from the museum’s holdings, etched with familiar names like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol and Niki de Saint Phalle. The Korean version, however, strikes another chord altogether. Translating to “Water Lily and Chandelier,” at once evocative and layered, it is less a description than an invitation, its spare words hiding more stories than they first let on. The title itself derives from two key works that bookend the exhibition: “The Water-Lily Pond” by celebrated Impressionist Monet and “Black Chandelier” by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. Monet’s w

Sep 30, 2025By Park Han-sol

Arts & Theater