A wide variety of cultural facilities and programs have just become more accessible to the public. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Presidential Committee for Cultural Enrichment have jointly proclaimed the last Wednesday of every month to be “Culture Wednesday.”

The plan begins on Wednesday, January 29, the last Wednesday in January. With the aim of providing more opportunities for people to go to museums, art exhibits, baseball games and the like, more than 1,100 public and private facilities have decided to take part in the movement.


[Movies] You can get discounted tickets for the first movie screened between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on the last Wednesday of every month. Theaters that provide the discount include the big names—CJ CGV, Lotte Cinema and Megabox—as well as independent theaters such as the Seoul Theater, Daehan Theater and Jeonju Cinema. Tickets will go for KRW 5,000, down from the usual KRW 8,000.

[Sports] Discounted tickets to professional basketball and volleyball games will also be available on Culture Wednesdays: seats will be 50 percent off for families with elementary school students. Discounts for professional soccer and baseball games are still not finalized, but the two most popular sport leagues are likely to join the movement this March.


[Performing arts] A wide variety of performances are planned for January 29. The National Theater of Korea will feature “Korean Fantasy,” a traditional dance show, while the National Gugak Center will showcase gugak performances, both for free. The Seoul Arts Center will offer seats at 30 percent off for the musical “Hero” and for Choi Ja-hyun’s piano recital. It will also offer 60 seats at its New Year’s concert for free, on a first come first serve basis. The Chongdong Theater in downtown Seoul will offer tickets at half price to the traditional opera “Miso,” which tells a love story from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). Tickets to traditional musical performances will be offered at 30 to 50 percent off at the Hanguk Performing Arts Center, too. Presented only in Korean, the plays are recommended to those who would like to learn Korean through the performing arts.


[Visual arts] Visitors will have the chance to experience exhibits at both public and private art museums, galleries and science museums for free or at a discounted price. The Seoul branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art will showcase a special opening exhibition and the Gwacheon branch will have a number of pieces of art on display, including David Hockney’s “Bigger Trees Near Warter” (2007), all for free. The Gwacheon branch will also be showing the “Rewriting the Landscape: China and India” exhibit.

The exhibit “Incense Burners of the Goryeo Dynasty” is going on at the National Museum of Korea, the “Jongga, the Head of the Family of a Respected Clan” exhibit will be at the National Folk Museum of Korea and the permanent exhibits at the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History are also all open to the public for free.

The Seoul Arts Center will join the “Culture Wednesday” movement by offering tickets to a number of popular exhibitions at half price. Entry is allowed up until 9 p.m., an hour before closing time. Exhibitions on offer this month include “Picasso to Jeff Koons: The Artist as Jeweler,” a retrospective on design giant Javier Mariscal and “Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005.” The professional photographer Annie Leibovitz has created countless landmark works for magazines like Rolling Stone, a music magazine, Vogue, dedicated to fashion, and many more. The Annie Leibovitz exhibition opened December 7 and has been enjoying much popularity, attracting more than 40,000 viewers in just one month.

Along with those museums and art galleries, the National Science Museum, at both its Gwacheon and Daegu branches, other museums and art galleries run by municipalities and even the National Arboretum will all be open to the public for free.



[Historic assets] Four of Seoul’s major palaces—Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung—as well as the Jongmyo Confucian shrine and the Joseon Royal Tombs will all be open for free on the last Wednesday of each month.

The “Culture Wednesday” initiative is expected to widen the opportunity for visitors to learn more about history and culture and to improve the quality of their lives, as the plan’s benefits continue to expand.
More information in Korean can be found here: www.culture.go.kr/wday

By Lee Seung-ah
Korea.net Staff Writer
slee27@korea.kr