Lifestyle - The Korea Times

Artist Brings Abraham Obama to Seoul

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia Staff Reporter American artist Ron English may not be a household name here but you might remember the memorable mash-up of U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama's faces called ``Rainbow Abraham Obama.'' English visited Seoul earlier this week to attend the opening of ``Bright Society,'' a joint exhibition with Korean artist Park Young-gyun at Opera Gallery Seoul, Cheongdam-dong. The 50-year-old artist looked tired from his flight the previous day when he met with The Korea Times at the gallery, Monday. He admitted he was still functioning on New York time which then was around 2 a.m., but gamely talked about the guerilla street art and ``Popaganda'' studio art he became famous for. ``Popaganda'' is the term he coined for his works that combine pop culture characters and American symbols to express satirical metaphors. Aside from the Rainbow Abraham Obama, Opera Gallery is also showing paintings such as the fat Ronald McDonald ``MC Supersized,'' genetically modified cowgirl ``Cowtown Cathy'' and dark humorous works featuring a thre

Oct 16, 2009

Clubs, Art Exhibitions, Kids and Sports

Clubs The Circle Cheongdam-dong Located in the upscale Cheongdam-dong neighborhood, the Circle is notorious for turning you down unless you're dressed chic and sleek. Faithful to its name, it has a round revolving floor - looking for your "lost" table gives clubbers the perfect excuse to sit down with a sexy stranger. Located on Dosan-daero near Hak-dong intersection. Call (02) 546-5933 or visit www.thecircle.co.kr. Club Answer Cheongdam-dong With giant chandeliers and digital images of famous paintings, it's like an ultra luxurious version of a typical Hongdae club. It offers an intimate partying environment with groovy electronic music by star DJs. You can reserve tables and the ones on the second floor provide an open view of the dance floor. Located in Cheongdam-dong across the street from Prima Hotel, near the entrance of Yeongdong-daegyo. Call (02) 548-7115 or visit www.clubanswer.co.kr. Underlounge Seoul Hongdae or Hongik University Area This is the local club of a hip Japanese chain that's also to be found in Shanghai. Located in the famous clubbi

Oct 15, 2009

Classical Concerts, Big Tickets and Museums

Classical Concerts Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Center Oct. 16 The Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra, led by conductor Kim Dae-jin, will hold a concert featuring pieces by Rachmaninov and Brahms with pianist Paik Kun-woo. Tickets cost from 10,000 to 70,000 won. For more information, visit www.ticketlink.co.kr or call (031) 228-2813~6. Located near exits 4 and 5 of Nambu Bus Terminal on subway line 3. KBS Symphony Orchestra KBS Hall Nov. 5 Conductor Othmar Maga will lead the KBS Symphony Orchestra for Mozart's "Piano Concerto No.22 in Eb major, K.482," Sibelius's "Symphony No.2 in D major, Op.43" and Webern's "Passacaglia, Op.1" with pianist Kim Sun-wook. Tickets cost from 35,000 to 90,000 won. For more information, visit ticket.interpark.com or call (02) 781-2243~4. Located near exit 3 of Yeouido Station on subway line 5. Patricia Barber Oulim Theater, Goyang Oulim Nuri Arts Complex Nov. 7 American jazz singer Patricia Barber will offer her unique style and voice for Korean fans. Tickets cost from 30,000 to 70,000 won. For more infor

Oct 15, 2009

Color Is Olafur Eliasson’s World

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia Staff Reporter Huge color wheels seem to pulsate with shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. The longer you stare at the painting, the more intense the colors become ― almost with an energy of its own. These are part of the "Colour Experiment" series by internationally renowned Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, who is known for his research with color, light and space. Eliasson created several new works for his solo show, ``Is the Sky Part of a Landscape," at the PKM Trinity Gallery, Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul. He has been doing experiments with color for the last two years, and established a studio laboratory for spatial experiments in Berlin, where he is currently based. Eliasson's artworks provide sensory experiences that engage the viewers with the space not just physically but mentally. For the Color Experiment series, he worked with a color chemist to try to mix one color for every nanometer in the spectrum of light, or in simple terms, a "rainbow." A nanometer is equivalent to 1 billionth of a meter. "It was an

Oct 14, 2009

Seoul Art Market Facilitates Exchange in Performing Arts

By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter The Performing Arts Market in Seoul (PAMS), the annual contemporary performing arts event, is taking place at the National Theater of Korea and the Namsan Arts Center through Oct. 16. Some 120 foreign performing arts professionals from 40 countries, and 1,000 local artists and producers are participating in the event to explore the current position of the genre. The art market, which was launched in 2005 with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, offers showcases, presentations, seminars and a fair for Korean artists and international presenters. For the PAMS Choice, which represents Korea's distinguished performing arts pieces in theater, dance, music and multimedia, a jury selects the top pieces out of numerous submissions. This year's PAMS Choice will showcase 15 works during the event. The program includes "Kyungsook, Kyungsook's Father" directed by Park Geun-hyung, "Therese Raquin" directed by Kang Ryang-won, "Deja vu" choreographed by Hong Seung-yeop and "7 Ways" directed by Jeong Geum-hyung. The benefit

Oct 14, 2009

First New York Sanjo Festival to Take Place Next Week

By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter The first New York Sanjo Festival and Symposium will take place from Oct. 19 to 20 at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The event organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Gukak FM will consist of a symposium and concerts with the world's leading Asian and Korean music scholars and Korea's foremost ``sanjo'' and ``sinawi'' masters who are recognized as National Human Intangible Cultural Assets. Sanjo is a style of traditional Korean music involving an instrumental solo. Its origin comes from the Korean indigenous shaman culture filled with native spirit and sentiment. Korean traditional musicians strongly identify with this music which grew to be the representative instrumental genre of the 19th century. This genre adopted elements and stylistic features from the court and folk music traditions and has come to reflect a ``pan-musical'' style that is quintessentially Korean. As solo instrumental music, sanjo offers many opportunities for dazzling virtuosic display in the course of its multi-movemen

Oct 13, 2009

Football Dance Portrays Speed, Explosive Energy

By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter Can you imagine a football match without a ball? Well, Norwegian choreographer Jo Stromgren's performance titled "A Dance Tribute to the Art of Football" is just that. The dance work about football features a variety of movements and situations with a comic twist to reflect the energy and sweat of the sport. It will be on stage Nov. 20 and 21 at Sejong M Theater as part of the Seoul Performing Arts Festival (SPAF), which kicks off today and will continue through Nov. 21. The SPAF 2009 features some 40 performances from 12 nations under the theme "Analog & Digilog." "In a football match, everything around the ball is already like a ballet. It is possible to see it as 22 'dancers' doing fantastic formations and movements. But you have to get rid of the ball to actually discover this, I think," Stromgren said in an e-mail interview with The Korea Times. His troupe became the first to charge into this new territory when it put the work on stage 12 years ago. The artist said that movements from sports have a different energy from the tradi

Oct 12, 2009

Glimpse of Contemporary Asian Art in Seoul

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia Staff Reporter The vibrant art scenes in Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing are already well known, but contemporary art from Istanbul is still shrouded with an air of mystery at least for the local audience. Elusive samples of Turkish contemporary art are shown side-by-side with works by Korean, Japanese and Chinese artists at the City_net Asia 2009 exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), downtown Seoul. This biennial art event hopes to encourage people to discover the current state of the art scene in four cities. Over 100 pieces by 40 up-and-coming artists were gathered by curators from SeMA, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Today Art Museum in Beijing and Istanbul Modern in Turkey, and shown in four separate sections. ``The City_net Asia 2009 is designed as a venue to provide visitors a valuable opportunity to collectively establish their thoughts on the identity of Asia and to explore the present and future of Asian contemporary art that reflect particular social and cultural issues of their own countries,'' the organizers said. The first sect

Oct 11, 2009

Concerts, Museums & Theater

Classical Concerts Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Center Oct. 10 The Seoul Philharmonic, conducted by Diego Matheuz, will offer Kodaly's "Dances of Galanta" and Haydn's "Trumpet Concerto in E flat major." Trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger will appear as soloist. Tickets cost from 10,000 to 50,000 won. For more information, visit www.seoulphil.co.kr or call (02) 3700-6332. Located near exits 4 and 5 of Nambu Bus Terminal on subway line 3. Kang Dong-suk's 'Best of the Best' Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Center Oct. 26 Music director and violinist Kang Dong-suk will hold the 20th edition of his annual concert for hepatitis patients. Tickets cost from 20,000 to 70,000 won. For more information, visit ticket.interpark.com or call (02) 720-3933. Located near exits 4 and 5 of Nambu Bus Terminal on subway line 3. 2009 Lee Byeong-woo's Guitar Concert Sejong Center for the Performing Arts Oct. 10 Lee Byeong-woo, a guitarist and music producer for various dramas and movies, will hold his 2009 concert at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. Ticket

Oct 8, 2009

Clubs, Art Exhibitions & Sports Games

Clubs The Circle Cheongdam-dong Located in the upscale Cheongdam-dong neighborhood, it's notorious for turning you down unless you're dressed chic and sleek. Faithful to its name, it has a round revolving floor - looking for your "lost" table gives clubbers the perfect excuse to sit down with a sexy stranger. Located on Dosan-daero near Hak-dong intersection. Call (02) 546-5933 or visit www.thecircle.co.kr. Club Answer Cheongdam-dong With giant chandeliers and digital images of famous paintings, it's like an ultra luxurious version of a typical Hongdae club. It offers an intimate partying environment with groovy electronic music by star DJs. You can reserve tables and the ones on the second floor provide an open view of the dance floor. Located in Cheongdam-dong across the street from Prima Hotel, near the entrance of Yeongdong-daegyo. Call (02) 548-7115 or visit www.clubanswer.co.kr. Underlounge Seoul Hongdae or Hongik University Area This is the local club of a hip Japanese chain that's also to be found in Shanghai. Located in the famous clubbing a