K-wave AI News

Hello and welcome to your AI guide to the latest cultural updates from Korea.

Here's our top story.

The Korea Beauty Festival 2025 has kicked off in Seoul as part of the Culture Ministry's global tourism initiative. The festival celebrates the booming K-Beauty industry with events taking place across Seoul's busiest districts, including Dongdaemun, Myeong-dong, Hongdae, and Gangnam. Centered on five key categories, namely hair, makeup, fashion, medical, and wellness, the festival offers a variety of programs such as personal color analysis, free makeup touch-ups, hairstyling sessions, and herbal oil crafting. It will run through July 18. K-Beauty has become a major driver of Korean tourism, with cosmetics exports reaching a record high last year, surpassing 10 billion U.S. dollars.

World-renowned conductor Chung Myung-whun and pianist Cho Seong-jin lit up a summer evening in Busan with a masterful display of classical music. The performance, held to mark the grand opening of the Busan Concert Hall on Sunday, brought together a rare collaboration between Chung, Cho, and pianist-organist Cho Jae-hyuck. Highlights included Cho Seong-jin performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, known as the "Emperor," with the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra led by Chung, as well as Cho Jae-hyuck delivering a powerful rendition of Bach's Toccata and Fugue on the pipe organ. The concert came on the heels of Chung's appointment as the first Asian music director of Italy's prestigious La Scala opera house.

Museum SAN, located in Wonju City in Gangwon-do Province, is hosting a major solo exhibition by acclaimed British sculptor Antony Gormley. Titled "Drawing on Space," the exhibition explores Gormley's long-standing contemplation of the relationship between sculpture, space, and the human body. Featuring 48 works, it marks Gormley's largest solo exhibition ever held in Korea. Museum SAN's newly constructed exhibition space, "Ground," co-designed by globally celebrated architect Tadao Ando, is 또한 impressive scale. The exhibition runs through November 30.

That's all from me. Stay tuned to the Kulture Wave.