Lifestyle - The Korea Times

Do Ho Suh returns to Seoul with exhibition beyond fabric walls

Do Ho Suh’s translucent fabric houses have long made him one of the most globally recognizable Korean contemporary artists. But an upcoming exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) Seoul seeks to move beyond the familiar fabric forms to bring together the 64-year-old artist’s childhood drawings and thread paintings with recent works shaped by fatherhood. “Do Ho Suh,” opening Thursday and running through Feb. 9, 2027, explores more than 500 works including installations, sculptures, drawings, videos and archival materials. “The MMCA exhibition shows everything from drawings I made in kindergarten to my very latest works,” Suh said during a press event in Seoul, Wednesday. The exhibition was initially conceived as a retrospective, he said, but the museum and the artist quickly concluded that format would not work for a practice containing large-scale, site-specific and permanently installed works that cannot be transported to the museum. Instead, the exhibit refocused on his early works — many of which have rarely or never been shown in K

Aug 26, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Do Ho Suh returns to Seoul with exhibition beyond fabric walls

Lee Jaram brings pansori 'Snow, Snow, Snow' home after acclaimed run in Avignon

Pansori performer Lee Jaram will return to Seoul in October with “Snow, Snow, Snow,” her contemporary reimagining of Leo Tolstoy’s “Master and Man,” following a sold-out run and standing ovations at this July's Festival d’Avignon in France. The two-night production will be staged Oct. 23 and 24 at LG Arts Center Seoul’s LG Signature Hall in southwestern Seoul's Magok area. It will be the first large-scale performance in Seoul, following its 2025 premiere at the center’s smaller stage. Written, composed and performed by Lee, “Snow, Snow, Snow” follows Vasili, a merchant who becomes lost in a blizzard while pursuing a profitable forest deal with his servant Nikita. Lee transforms Tolstoy’s 1895 short story into a one-person pansori epic, moving among the merchant, servant, horse, dog, narrator and the snowstorm itself with a fan, voice and the percussion accompaniment of gosu, or drummer, Lee Jun-hyoung. In France, its four performances from July 17 to 22 sold out, with people reportedly lining up outside in hope of securing returned tickets and joining the performan

Aug 25, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Lee Jaram brings pansori 'Snow, Snow, Snow' home after acclaimed run in Avignon

ReviewMusical 'Frozen' premiere brings blizzard of spectacle to Seoul

On one of Seoul’s hottest summer nights of August, winter arrived at Charlotte Theater. An hour before the Korean premiere of Disney’s “Frozen,” the theater lobby was already humming with families, couples, friends and solo musical fans. Long lines formed at the merchandise shop and in front of a call board and photo zone featuring a towering ice sculpture and illuminated snowflakes. Children in Elsa capes, sparkling crowns and princess shoes waited patiently beside adults eager to document the long-awaited arrival of the global musical hit. The sold-out audience came for snow and spectacle. It received both — along with a polished Korean production anchored by powerhouse turns from Jung Sun-ah as Elsa and Park Jin-joo as Anna. Based on Disney’s 2013 animated film, “Frozen” follows the estranged royal sisters Elsa and Anna. Elsa, terrified that her power to freeze everything around her will hurt those she loves, retreats into isolation. Anna sets out to save both her sister and the kingdom of Arendelle from an endless winter. The stage musical, which premiered on Broadway

Aug 14, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Musical 'Frozen' premiere brings blizzard of spectacle to Seoul

'Human Error' finds creative possibility in imperfection at Buk-Seoul Museum of Art

The ideal of technology perfection meets the unruly realities of bodies, identities of human relationships in the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art’s new exhibition, “2026 Title Match Inhwan Oh vs. Seo Young Chang: Human Error.” The 13th edition of the museum’s annual title match exhibition, on view from Thursday through Oct. 25, brings together two Seoul-based contemporary artists whose practices differ in medium and generation but converge on a shared question: What remains distinctively human when technology is increasingly expected to be frictionless, efficient and even creative? The exhibition’s title borrows a term commonly used to identify mistakes caused by human limitations. Rather than treating human error — mistakes arising from physical or mental imperfection — as a defect to overcome, the exhibition reframes it as a condition of human existence and a source of creativity, curator Yoo Eun-soon said, spotlighting the two artists’ distinct efforts to disrupt and move beyond technological systems rather than simply conform to them. Oh, 61, presents “We’re Not One; Neit

Aug 13, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

'Human Error' finds creative possibility in imperfection at Buk-Seoul Museum of Art

Brazilian artists find new inspiration in Seoul ahead of Gwangju Biennale

Brazilian choreographer and performer Maruan Sipert has been roaming Seoul for days, observing street cleaners, traffic, weathered walls and construction sites. For the Lisbon-based artist, these are not simply scenes from his first trip to Korea. They are choreography. The dancer brings these encounters back to the Brazilian Embassy where he is currently working to shape a new performance and installation for the 16th Gwangju Biennale, scheduled to open on Sept. 5. While Brazilian artists have been invited to the exhibit before, this year marks a milestone: Brazil will have its own national pavilion for the first time. “My interest is the discourse of the cities,” he said as to the source of his artistic inspiration. Seoul’s scale, relentless pace and workplace pressures have become central to his reading of the city, he said, where people seem perpetually in motion and urban life can feel both rhythmic and constraining. Sipert is one of nine Brazilian artists taking part in the pavilion. The Brazilian Embassy in Seoul has offered them space to prepare their works, opening the studi

Aug 13, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Brazilian artists find new inspiration in Seoul ahead of Gwangju Biennale

Seoul museum revives 1966 exhibition that unveiled capital's master development plan

The Seoul Museum of History will open a special showcase Friday revisiting the 1966 public launch of the city's inaugural urban master plan, museum officials said Wednesday. The exhibition, running from Friday through Nov. 8, marks the 60th anniversary of the 1966 Seoul Urban Master Plan, Korea's first comprehensive long-term development blueprint for the entire city. It revisits an earlier public exhibition held in August and September 1966 at what is now Seoul Plaza, where roughly 800,000 residents viewed drawings and models laying out the city's future development. In 1966, Seoul's population had more than doubled in just over a decade, growing to about 3.79 million from 1.56 million in 1955, while a major municipal expansion extended its administrative area from 268 square kilometers to over 600 square kilometers. While the city’s administrative boundaries have hovered at around 600 to 605 square kilometers ever since, its population has grown to nearly 9.4 million today. Jobs and public facilities remained concentrated in the city center even as the population surged, prompting of

Aug 12, 2026By Jhoo Dong-chan

Seoul museum revives 1966 exhibition that unveiled capital's master development plan

Myeongdong Theater in Seoul stages free lunchtime performances

The National Theater Company of Korea will launch a new outdoor lunchtime series at Myeongdong Theater this month, inviting office workers, residents and tourists to performing arts shows in the middle of Seoul’s bustling shopping district. Titled “Myeongdong Theater at Noon,” the program will take place every Wednesday from Aug. 19 through Oct. 28 at the theater’s outdoor plaza, presenting a total of 10 free performances. The initiative is designed to make art more accessible to people by staging short performances during an hour when most people are free, rather than requiring them to enter a traditional theater venue. No reservations are required to attend. The lineup features veteran artists and groups experienced in outdoor festivals and street theater. It includes traditional mask dancing by the Bongsan Mask Dance Preservation Society, as well as percussion and sangmo — Korea’s traditional ribbon-hat dances — performances by Yeonhui Jeomchuri and Yeonhui Group The Gwangdae. Project Tong, known for movement-based physical theater, will also participate. Theater Asura w

Aug 12, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Myeongdong Theater in Seoul stages free lunchtime performances

Cha In-pyo plays mentor onstage, questions whether he is one offstage

Every night at curtain call, the flowers go to Cha In-pyo. Thirty-three years into an acting career that has made him one of the most recognizable faces in the country, that is simply how it works. Lately, however, the flowers and cheers have started to bother him. "I already have fans. When a show ends, I get piles of gifts and bouquets," Cha said at a press conference held Tuesday in a fourth-floor rehearsal room at NOL Theater Daehangno Woori Card Hall in central Seoul. "A lot of the young actors in the team don't. I feel bad about it, and I keep asking myself what I could do to change that." It is a strange thing to hear from the man currently playing the lead role in "Dead Poets Society," which runs through Sept. 13. Cha plays John Keating, the English literature instructor who tells the boys of Welton Academy to seize the day and think for themselves. Onstage he is the mentor, but offstage, at 59, he is not convinced he has earned the title. "The adult I believe in is someone who doesn't take the whole harvest, who stands one step back and shares it with the people coming up," he sa

Aug 11, 2026By Pyo Kyung-min

Cha In-pyo plays mentor onstage, questions whether he is one offstage

Incheon exhibition traces 6,000 years of Greek history built on maritime power

In a city built on container terminals and modern shipping lanes, 348 treasures from 15 Greek museums have arrived to tell a story thousands of years in the making. The exhibition, which opened Tuesday at the Incheon National Maritime Museum reframes classical antiquity not as a dusty gallery of serene marble statues, but as a restless, waterlogged civilization shaped by trade winds, naval warfare and maritime ambition. Organized in collaboration with the Greek Ministry of Culture to mark 65 years of diplomatic ties between Athens and Seoul, "Greece: A Great Civilization Shaped by the Sea" stands as the largest exhibition of Greek antiquities ever mounted in the country. Spanning roughly 6,000 years from the Neolithic Era to the Hellenistic Age, the show departs from conventional surveys of Greek art. Rather than focusing solely on marble idealizations of the human form, the curators rethink classical antiquity through an oceanic lens, arguing that the Aegean Sea served as both a cultural highway and a crucible for political innovation. "Greece is the quintessential maritime nation, broa

Aug 11, 2026By Jhoo Dong-chan

Incheon exhibition traces 6,000 years of Greek history built on maritime power

Star ballerina Kim Joo-won to lead Korean National Ballet

Star ballerina Kim Joo-won has been appointed as the new artistic director of the Korea National Ballet, filling the leadership that was left vacant after Kang Sue-jin stepped down in April following a 12-year tenure. On Thursday, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism appointed the 49-year-old artist as the new artistic director of the state-run institute. Her term will end in August 2029. Founded in 1962, the Korean National Ballet is the nation’s flagship ballet company. The ministry expressed expectations that Kim's appointment will help broaden the audience base for ballet and enhance the national troupe's international competitiveness. "Kim is an artist who has grown alongside Korean ballet through her extensive experience as a principal dancer with the Korean National Ballet," Culture Minister Chae Hwi-young said. "With her rich experience, academic credentials and arts administration expertise, she is the ideal person to lead the troupe's new leap forward." Born in Busan in 1977, Kim graduated from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Russia before joining the Korean National Ball

Aug 6, 2026By Baek Byung-yeul

Arts & Theater