SEOUL, March 4 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s 1-trillion-won (US$823 million) art market is driving consumers to read more books about art investment. Yes24, a leading online bookstore, reported a 549 percent increase in art investment book sales last year, after they fell by 56.4 percent in 2019 and then grew by a mere 5.6 [...]
CHANGWON, July 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Abandoned school buildings are turning into new platforms of culture, breathing new life into local communities. The old Yongho Branch School building, left abandoned on Yongho Island in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, is currently undergoing renovations to become a cat protection facility. The school, which opened in 1940, was [...]
SEOUL, May 13 (Korea Bizwire) — When contemporary artist Mari Kim was suggested to “mint” one of her artworks to sell it as an NFT, she did not hesitate. “The sooner, the better,” she thought to herself. NFTs, or “non-fungible tokens,” have taken the global art world by storm, with artist Beeple’s digital work fetching [...]
SEOUL, March 19 (Korea Bizwire) — The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Thursday the launch of the ‘Arterior’ project, in which regional artists help improve the design of signboards, interiors and product packaging for old stores in their neighborhood. Arterior is an abbreviation of the two words – art and interior. The project aims to improve [...]
SEOUL, June 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Conservation science, the discipline of conserving art, architecture and other cultural works, serves as a tool for restoring art as closely to the creator’s intended vision. The discipline combines aspects of chemistry, physics, biology and engineering — nerdy fields that are hardly considered romantic or associated with timeless beauty [...]
SEOUL, May 7 (Korea Bizwire) — Lee Hyo-jin, a 30-year-old job seeker, quietly kept her gaze on a masterpiece by South Korean monochrome painter Lee Ufan inside an exhibition hall at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s (MMCA) Seoul branch on Thursday. It was her first artistic expedition after an over two-month coronavirus [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) will dedicate one of its exhibition halls to a collection of iconic paintings, the museum’s director has said. The Seoul gallery of the MMCA will host a permanent collection of 40 paintings by modern Korean painters, including Gu Bon-woong, [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — A number of art galleries have been staying open late for those who want to enjoy a so-called “mucation,” a portmanteau of the words ‘music’ and ‘vacation’. Art museums, which typically maintain an indoor temperature in the low 20°C range due to the preservation and management of artwork, offer [...]
PAJU, Aug. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — Camp Greaves, situated 2 kilometers from the demilitarized zone (DMZ), was an army camp for American troops for more than half a century starting in 1953. The American military withdrew from the camp in 2004, and the area is now emerging as a popular tourism venue. Having served as [...]
SEOUL, Jul. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — As workers at businesses with over 300 employees are now limited by law to a 52-hour work week, those in the performing arts and fine arts have high hopes for the future due to the potential increase in audience or spectator numbers as the new regulation is set free [...]