British Museum opens ‘Korea’ exhibition: 2,000 years of Korean art, from the Iron Age to K-pop

LONDON — The British Museum opens this week a new exhibition that looks beyond Korea’s pop culture and explores 2,000 years of the country’s artistic and cultural heritage, as Reuters reports.

The exhibition spans from the early Iron Age to the present day, bringing together works dating from around 400 BC with creations by contemporary Korean artists. “Most people, especially young people in the UK… know Korea through its pop culture,” curator Sang-ah Kim told Reuters. “They may not know that Korea has a long history, over 2,000 years of creativity, resilience and technical mastery.”

Part of the exhibition are works from the collection of former Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee, who died in 2020, and his family. Among the highlights are bodhisattva statues and a collection of sutras from the centuries after the introduction of Buddhism to Korea, as well as the famous celadon ceramics of the Goryeo dynasty. Also on display is a work from South Korean artist Yeesookyung’s “Translated Vase” series, a sculpture assembled from shards discarded by potters, illustrating the beauty of imperfection.

Some exhibits may look familiar to visitors who encountered Korea through its contemporary cultural exports. “People, especially younger audiences… may be pleasantly surprised to see ‘Tiger and Magpie’ or ‘Sun, Moon and Five Peaks’ if they have seen Netflix’s animated film ‘KPop Demon Hunters’,” Kim said. The film uses traditional Korean imagery: the tiger and magpie paintings inspired the characters Derpy and Sussie, while the fictional group HUNTR/X performs in front of a digital interpretation of the folding screen “Sun, Moon and Five Peaks”.

The newest works include “Self-Portrait”, Suh Do Ho’s thread drawing reflecting on ideas of home, migration and belonging, as well as works by Lee Jung-seop, who was separated from his family during the Korean War and carved images into the aluminium foil of cigarette packs when he had no money for paint or canvas. Most of the exhibition’s works are loans from the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Korea. The exhibition opens on Thursday, 1 October, and runs until 31 January 2027.