Korean Art Odyssey Connecting the dots: Towards more integrated approaches for Korean art abroad

A visitor views the “100 Ideas of Happiness. Art Treasures from Korea” exhibition at the Residenzschloss, part of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, in Germany. Organized in collaboration with the National Museum of Korea, the show is part of an ongoing cultural exchange between the two institutions. Courtesy of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

By Kwon Mee-yoo, Pyo Kyung-min

• Published Nov 29, 2025 1:00 AM KST
• Updated Dec 12, 2025 4:47 PM KST

CHICAGO/JEJU — As global interest in Korean culture reaches new heights, museums across the world are approaching Korean institutions with unprecedented frequency, seeking joint exhibitions, research partnerships and even permanent Korean galleries.

But this rush of attention has also exposed structural limits of the existing system for cultural exchanges and support for Korea-related programs. Overseas, staffing shortages, conservation gaps and short-term project cycles continue to restrict what institutions can achieve, even as demand accelerates.

These challenges have formed the backdrop to Korea's reorganized support system for Korean-themed collections and galleries abroad — a structure that aims not only to streamline responsibilities, but also to answer a larger question of how to turn short-term momentum into lasting infrastructure.

Korean cultural heritage began appearing in overseas exhibitions as early as the 1960s, when most exchanges were limited to museum-to-museum loans. Over the decades, the Korea Foundation, under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, helped expand these initiatives as part of Korea’s public diplomacy. As interest in Korean art exhibitions abroad grew, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) also allocated funding to support international shows. However, as the ministries' primary function is administrative, overseas museums increasingly preferred to collaborate directly with the National Museum of Korea (NMK) for access to its collections and curatorial expertise.

In 2022, Korea streamlined its support structure by consolidating responsibility for Korean collections, galleries and exhibitions abroad under the NMK.

Under this new framework, the NMK acts as the central hub for overseas museum support — coordinating object loans, offering curatorial and scholarly advice and providing practical guidance on exhibition planning. This move has allowed for more efficient and specialized assistance, enabling the NMK to respond more directly to requests from partner institutions. Museum officials note that in the past, the process often ended with sending objects abroad, but now the NMK also collaborates on online promotions and offers academic consultations tied to each project.

Each year, the museum accepts applications from overseas institutions seeking support, selecting organizations that align with the mission and purpose of its Korean gallery support program. Assistance is divided into short-term projects such as researching, cataloguing and conserving Korean objects, and mid-to-long-term initiatives that include establishing or upgrading galleries, hiring dedicated staff and organizing special exhibitions.

In 2025, the NMK’s support reached 24 museums in 13 countries. Leading museums in the U.S. and U.K. expanded their Korean galleries with NMK’s help, while institutions in Germany, Canada, Vietnam and New Zealand also received support for exhibitions, staff and collection development. Short-term projects focused on conservation, research and staff placements at select museums, with exhibitions and displays held in Switzerland and San Francisco, reflecting Korean art’s growing global presence.

Since the transition to the new system in 2022, demand from overseas museums has surged in step with global interest in Korean culture. The museum sees the current moment as an opportunity to shift from one-off, event-driven projects, such as those tied to the 1988 Olympics or diplomatic anniversaries, toward a more proactive, long-term strategy.

The Korean government’s active support has played a key role in elevating the presence of Korean art at major institutions such as the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. In 2021, just before the museum complex’s grand opening, the MCST and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation signed an agreement that included substantial backing for the new Korean gallery and the appointment of a Korean art curator.

The gallery's relatively small size — about 60 square meters, roughly one-tenth the size of the adjacent Chinese and Japanese galleries — and some displays originally explained from a largely Japanese perspective, sparked criticism over whether it truly aligned with the Humboldt Forum’s stated commitment to confronting colonial legacies. Still, the partnership paved the way for new possibilities, enabling the museum to stage a range of Korean art exhibitions, including a solo show by Kimsooja and a special exhibition featuring key works from its Korean collection.

Maria Sobotka, curator of Korea collections at the Museum für Asiatische Kunst in the Humboldt Forum, noted Korean support has brought much-needed visibility to the museum’s Korean holdings, which had long been overshadowed due to their modest scale and lack of a dedicated curator.

"The founders of the museum were aware of the fact that Korean art plays a big role within East Asia throughout the history ... (and) always tried to collect Korean art," she said. "Now, thanks to the generous support from Korea, it's possible not to show the relevance of these holdings within our institution, but also to a wider audience. And we really hope that this partnership will also continue."

Nurturing networks

Strengthening overseas Korean galleries depends on building both the human and institutional capacity to sustain them over time.

This is where the Korea Foundation plays a complementary role. Established in 1991 to promote international relations and cultural exchanges, the public diplomacy organization shifted its focus to developing global networks and expertise after Korean gallery projects were transferred to the NMK.

The Korea Foundation’s annual Curator Workshop, now a leading pipeline for developing international curators capable of sustaining Korean art programming abroad, is a central part of these efforts. Since 1999, the program has brought over 440 curators to Korea, including the 2025 cohort with participants from institutions such as Tate Modern, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Palais de Tokyo and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

This year's “Curating Korea” workshop took place in September, coinciding with a season when the global art world turns its attention to Korea for Frieze Seoul, Kiaf Seoul and a slew of other major exhibitions and events.

Robert Slifkin, professor of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, who joined this year's program, said the workshop shifted his understanding of how Korean art is being presented on the ground.

“The trip opened my eyes to the depth and intelligence of Korean art from antiquity to the present and it will certainly inform aspects of my own teaching and writing,” he told The Korea Times.

While the Korea Foundation notes that the workshop’s impact cannot be measured in a single year because “major exhibitions often require several years of planning,” past participants illustrate how the program functions as a long-term catalyst.

Marsha Haufler, an East Asian art historian at the University of Kansas, and Kris Imants of the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, co-organized the traveling exhibition “The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens,” from 2016 to 2017.

In Paris, Musée Cernuschi curator Maël Belec mounted three solo exhibitions of Korean artists — painter Kim Tschang-yeul, ceramicist Baeksan and artist Yeesookyung — in 2023, following his involvement in the program.

Curatorial capacity

Another key initiative from the Korea Foundation focuses on strengthening institutional capacity for Korean art abroad by helping major museums establish endowed curator positions dedicated to the field.

Chee Yeon-soo, associate curator of Korean art at the Art Institute of Chicago, is one of the four Korea Foundation-funded curators around the world. Appointed in July, Chee said the creation of her position has broadened internal awareness of Korean art within the museum and “expanded opportunities” for its preservation and display.

Even so, she noted that deep structural barriers remain. Audience expectations, donor interests and funding priorities continue to be anchored in European art, shaping what museums can realistically pursue.

“Korean art exhibitions are often prepared within a competitive environment,” she said, referring to the constant need to justify resources and attention for non-Western collections.

Chee noted that meaningful support is now available, including her nomination through the Korea Foundation endowed-curator program and the NMK’s fellowship initiatives that dispatch short-term professional assistance from Korea.

"With globalization, awareness and support for East Asian art have certainly grown. Our department head is using this momentum to develop projects that raise the profile of East Asian art internationally and we’re planning a joint exhibition with an institution in China. These initiatives would be difficult without institutional backing, but the level of support in recent years has been increasing, which is encouraging," she said.

Even so, the museum’s growing engagement with Korean art continues to expose critical gaps in the broader U.S. landscape, from uneven curatorial coverage of Korean collections to limited specialist infrastructure.

Chee emphasized the importance of building up this foundation. At the Art Institute of Chicago, efforts are underway to expand the conservation center and bring in more East Asian painting experts — a long-term investment to ensure Korean collections are not only displayed, but also studied and cared for at a deeper level.

Diversifying exchange

The next step for Korean galleries and collections abroad is moving from short-term loans to a more sustainable, collection-driven model. Instead of simply lending objects for special exhibitions, support is now directed at helping overseas museums build and research their own Korean collections with the guidance of dedicated Korean art curators.

Because Korea’s Cultural Heritage Protection Act restricts the permanent export of cultural properties over 50 years old, more recent strategies prioritize select loans of premodern works while encouraging active acquisition and commissioning of modern and contemporary Korean art abroad.

No single institution can meet the rising and diverse demands of Korean art’s global audience. While the NMK continues to serve as the central hub for loans, expertise and consultation, its capacity is limited by staffing and resources. A more resilient and effective ecosystem will depend on the NMK’s ability to establish standards and frameworks, while collaborating and sharing roles with other partners.

The special exhibition “Between and Beyond: A Centennial Journey,” held at the Jeju Folklore and Natural History Museum from May to August, exemplifies a new phase in Korean-German museum collaboration. Jointly organized with the Dresden Museum of Ethnology, the project reunited more than 60 artifacts from the historic Stötzner Collection — many returning to public view in Korea for the first time in nearly a century.

Dresden’s ethnographic collection is renowned for its breadth, including over 200 objects gathered by German explorer Walther Stötzner during his travels in Korea, particularly Jeju Island, in 1929. Unlike the rare treasures that often headline international exhibitions, these artifacts are everyday items like tools, clothing, fishing gear and ritual objects that capture daily life on Jeju some 100 years ago. The collection offers a unique window into early 20th-century island life, including features on haenyeo (women divers) and local beliefs documented through Stötzner’s photographs and writings.

“Some of the objects in this collection no longer exist in Korea itself, which underlines their significance as cultural testimonies of everyday life in the first half of the 20th century,” said Sylvia Karges, Acting Director of Ethnographic Collections at the Dresden Museum of Ethnology. “We are deeply honored to ... make this part of history accessible to a broad Korean audience.”

The collaboration was the result of years of groundwork. When Park Chan-sik, director of the Jeju museum, learned about the Dresden holdings, he reached out to the German institution. Their partnership led to a formal MOU and more than two years of preparation to realize the show. For Korean curators, the exhibition offered a rare chance to compare Jeju’s surviving folk objects with those preserved in Germany, sparking renewed interest in research and international exchange.

“This was our museum’s first major experience with an international exchange exhibition and it inspired our curators to take a deeper interest in global collaboration,” Park said. “We hope to make international exchange a regular part of our work, perhaps every two years. There is potential to collaborate with museums in places like Okinawa and Taiwan, which, like Jeju, have unique island identities. If opportunities arise, we want to build on these partnerships and continue sharing meaningful materials and new research."

University museums, though less prominent, offer strong collections and research expertise that make them valuable partners for international collaboration. At Seoul National University (SNU) Museum, rising global interest has brought more overseas loan and image-licensing requests. Rather than focusing on rapid exhibition turnover, the museum expanded its academic and research-oriented engagement abroad.

Earlier this year, Lee So-young, director of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, visited the SNU Museum to explore potential collaboration. While no formal agreements were made, both sides exchanged ideas on exhibitions, research and future cooperation.

Joint projects with the Oc Eo Site Management Board in Vietnam and Kanazawa University in Japan, including archaeological fieldwork and comparative studies, are examples of academic and research-oriented cooperation.

At the same time, Korean diaspora and private-sector networks are playing an increasingly prominent role. Diaspora gallerists and collectors facilitate the movement and recognition of Korean artworks, while Korean heritage board members and donors help influence acquisitions and institutional priorities from within. Support from private foundations and corporations is also enabling new curator positions, research funds and conservation projects.

"The active involvement and leadership of Korean Americans are vital. We’re already seeing strong engagement from Korean American board members at major New York institutions — including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the Whitney. I believe deeply in investing in the next generation of Korean American leaders across our broader community and organizations like the Council of Korean Americans and the Korean American Community Foundation are doing important work to cultivate that pipeline," Tina Kim, founder of Tina Kim Gallery in New York, said.

What lies ahead is not just a matter of adding more partners, but of braiding these stakeholders together into a more coordinated and interconnected ecosystem. For Korean art to achieve sustainable and meaningful visibility globally, national institutions, universities, regional museums, diaspora professionals and the private sector must operate as a cohesive network.

This multi-layered structure is only now beginning to take shape. The NMK anchors the operational foundation for overseas exhibitions; the Korea Foundation develops curatorial and scholarly expertise; and university museums provide the academic research and intellectual context that grounds the field. Progress will depend not on the number of actors involved, but on how effectively these sectors are coordinated — supporting each other, sharing knowledge and building infrastructure that outlasts trends to give Korean art a stable, prominent place on the global stage.