Note to Correspondents

TRADITIONAL KOREAN CRAFTS ON DISPLAY AT UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS

An exhibition entitled “Traditional Korean Crafts” will open with a formal ceremony and reception in the Main Gallery of the General Assembly Visitors’ Lobby at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, 19 July.  It will remain on display until 27 August.

The opening ceremony will begin with a musical performance by the Gayageum Trio and a fan dance by the Korean Traditional Music and Dance Institute of New York.  Opening remarks will be made by Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, with statements by Mrs. Ban, spouse of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Choi Young-jin, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations, and Kim Jong-kyu, Head of the Organizing Committee of Traditional Korean Crafts.  There will also be a demonstration of drumming and wood-carving by renowned artist Park Chan-soo.

The exhibit will feature about 150 crafts by master craftsmen and women from the Republic of Korea, displayed inside an actual model of a sarangbang (traditional Korean scholar’s quarters), an anbang (lady’s quarters) and other areas of a traditional Korean household from the eighteenth century.  Crafts will include dojaki (ceramics), gaat (traditional hats for noblemen), binyeo (ornamental hairpin) and lacquer ware.

On Fridays and Saturdays, for the duration of this exhibition, there will be demonstrations of a traditional Korean printing press, showing examples of the Jikji, a collection of Buddhist treatises printed in July 1377, and known to be printed with the oldest moveable metal type in the world.  Visitors will also be able to participate in the art of knot-making, called maedup.

This extraordinary display is organized by the Korean Craft Promotion Foundation and the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations.

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen at tel: 212 963 8531 or Liza Wichmann at tel: 212 963 0089.

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For information media • not an official record