Past Ok-wave: Can museums flip pop culture-driven curiosity into lasting understanding?

DENVER, Colo./WASHINGTON — For many years, the American public’s picture of Korea, if it existed in any respect, was largely confined to the 1950-53 battle and the ever-shifting tensions between the 2 Koreas.

In lower than 10 years, nevertheless, the nation’s popular culture exports, buoyed by the worldwide attain of social media, have blown open that slim body and sparked a completely new curiosity. Such a shift has begun to echo throughout museums as effectively, as extra establishments reopen devoted Korean galleries, increase their collections and stage new exhibitions.

Persuading a museum to tackle Korean tasks was once an uphill effort, Hyonjeong Kim Han recalled. Within the early years of her tenure on the Asian Artwork Museum of San Francisco, which spanned from 2010 to 2021, at any time when she proposed a Korean exhibition or cultural program, “they persistently requested what outlined ‘Koreanness’ and the way we may present it in another way from Japan or China,” she informed The Korea Instances.

As we speak, the panorama feels reworked. “It’s nothing like once I began working on this area in 2006,” stated Kim Han, now senior curator of Asian artwork on the Denver Artwork Museum (DAM). “It’s a lot simpler to deliver up Korean artwork.”

However higher visibility brings its personal set of challenges. One of the urgent points emerges when individuals who have encountered Korea solely by way of its popular culture start entering into museums or enrolling in Korean research packages.

At universities, many college students enter Korean research drawn by the glitz of Ok-pop and Ok-dramas, defined Park Ji-young, Nationwide Museum of Korea fellow of Korean artwork at DAM. Then, virtually instantly, they collide with unfamiliar historical past, classical texts written in Chinese language characters and a completely new vocabulary. For a lot of, it seems like hitting an sudden wall.

Museums witness an analogous dissonance. “The glittering, hypermodern picture of Korea they know from popular culture is commonly oceans other than the antiquities and deep art-historical traditions they arrive to face within the galleries.”

By nature, common tradition exalts and ornaments; it weaves unverified tales into its narratives for dramatic impact. When that turns into the first lens by way of which individuals perceive Korea, they danger oversimplifying a multilayered tradition — or, at occasions, strolling away with an impression that’s essentially mistaken.

Denver Artwork Museum (DAM) in Colorado is one U.S. artwork establishment that has a robust Korean artwork curatorial presence. Courtesy of DAM

Bridging this hole is crucial if newcomers are to maneuver past surface-level fascination and towards a extra grounded understanding of the nation. Nonetheless, specialists say, there merely aren’t sufficient specialists to show Korea’s historical past and tradition with depth and accuracy. Academia has not expanded at a tempo that matches public curiosity, and curatorial positions are nonetheless restricted.

Within the area of Korean artwork, a handful of universities — together with the College of Kansas, Dartmouth Faculty and UCLA — do supply devoted programs or graduate packages. However the total pool of skilled students stays small, and people specializing in premodern artwork are fewer nonetheless. As modern Korean tradition instructions extra world consideration, universities have more and more employed school whose experience aligns with that demand.

“We have to train the roots that nourished in the present day’s popular culture — the Korean artwork that predates the twentieth century — however the alternatives to take action are diminishing,” Kim Han stated. “Many universities are targeted on hiring in common media or modern artwork, and albeit, they should, as a result of that’s the place pupil demand is.”

The same sample has taken maintain in museums. Over the past 5 years, a string of headline Korean exhibitions mounted within the U.S. have centered largely on trendy or modern artwork, from the Philadelphia Artwork Museum’s “The Form of Time: Korean Artwork After 1989” to the internationally touring “Hallyu! The Korean Wave.”

“In fact, it’s essential to discover such durations that earlier exhibitions ignored,” Park famous. “However as a substitute of presenting modern tasks alongside conventional ones, it feels as if establishments are shifting towards displaying solely what’s present.”

Set up view of the Philadelphia Artwork Museum’s “The Form of Time: Korean Artwork After 1989” exhibition from October 2023 to February 2024 / Courtesy of Philadelphia Artwork Museum

Along with the scarcity of skilled specialists, one other pressing hole lies within the essential lack of publicly out there English-language publications and first analysis supplies. This stands in stark distinction with Korea’s home scenario, the place scholarship within the nation’s artwork historical past has expanded at a exceptional velocity over the previous decade, widening its interpretive frameworks and refining its theories on how artifacts are learn and understood.

“Korean society, together with its educational circles, is thought for altering extremely shortly. However the English-language sources have largely stagnated,” she added.

That shortage, in accordance with Kim Han, creates its personal pitfalls. With few English sources out there, aspiring students could also be led to consider that mastering this restricted pool of supplies is sufficient to declare experience in Korean cultural historical past.

“Debates amongst many alternative specialists are what helps mood and problem each other. However as a result of solely a small variety of universities and museums have Korean artwork specialists, their voices can simply change into overrepresented. The opinions of 1 or two people can begin to appear to be authoritative data about Korea as a complete.”

Addressing this concern requires long-term commitments.

“I consider it’s important to suppose by way of long-term technique and to broaden assist for your entire ecosystem surrounding Korean artwork,” stated Tina Kim, founding father of Tina Kim Gallery in New York.

Chief amongst these methods is cultivating the subsequent technology of students with each world fluency and forward-looking views. Strengthening the educational pathways and institutional infrastructure that permit such coaching to take root is essential.

Some efforts are already underway.

“I’m enthusiastic about Joan Kee’s management on the Institute of Positive Arts at New York College, the place she is launching a Korean artwork research program that can assist practice the subsequent technology of specialists,” Tina Kim added.

A customer browses conventional Korean equipment on the Nationwide Museum of Asian Artwork retailer throughout its 2024 Chuseok celebration. Courtesy of Nationwide Museum of Asian Artwork, Smithsonian Establishment

Cultural relevance

Inside museums, DAM’s two curators careworn, experience in Korean artwork should be paired with a deep sensitivity to the native cultural rhythms and conversations of the locations they serve.

Many establishments are exploring avenues to construct that cultural relevance and form Korean exhibition narratives and packages in order that they resonate with the sensibilities and wishes of native audiences.

Kim Ji-yeon, curator of Korean artwork on the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, echoed this sentiment.

“Typically you suppose that after each object is put in, the work is finished. However in actuality, it’s a continuing effort of reinterpreting and making it newly related,” she stated. “Nobody, as an example, anticipated the ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ increase in 2025 (with its playful nods to conventional Korean artwork and folklore). It’s essential to remain alert to what’s occurring exterior the museum and the way individuals’s perceptions maintain altering. The objects themselves stay the identical, however we are able to make them frequently evolve.”

On the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum of Asian Artwork (NMAA) in Washington, D.C., that effort extends effectively past the gallery partitions. The establishment designs packages that appeal to guests who might not be in search of Korean artwork particularly, however come for a style of Korean tradition — and in doing so, naturally discover themselves drifting into the galleries and discovering the artworks firsthand.

Korean artist Do Ho Suh’s “Public Figures” (1998-2023) is put in on Freer Plaza of the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum of Asian Artwork in Washington, D.C. / Korea Instances photograph by Park Han-sol

These initiatives embody the long-standing Korean Movie Pageant DC in addition to the annual Chuseok household pageant, launched in 2023 as a part of the museum’s centennial.

“We have now 6,000 to eight,000 guests for that one-day pageant alone,” famous Nicole Dowd, NMAA’s head of public packages. “Somebody would possibly include an appreciation for Korean tradition by way of Ok-dramas, motion pictures and meals, however they find yourself studying about a few of the origins of that imagery, of these scenes by way of our exhibitions. I believe that’s a big a part of our philosophy: constructing a connection between the objects on view, the general public packages and academic experiences.”

The same purpose guides Soyoung Lee, director and CEO of the Asian Artwork Museum of San Francisco, who goals to attract individuals into the museum by way of music, dance and meals, and as soon as they’re inside, gently “profitable them over with the artwork.”

Lee underscored the significance of forging a residing reference to San Francisco itself — a metropolis whose geography and historical past uniquely situate it throughout the cultural currents of Asia.

“San Francisco is the West Coast of the U.S., nevertheless it’s additionally [effectively] the East Coast of Asia. Aside from Hawaii, it’s the closest level to Asia. That’s actually necessary to know, each geographically and culturally,” she stated. Artistically, town has lengthy functioned as a bridge to the American continent, formed partially by the histories of immigration, when the primary Chinese language, Japanese and Korean communities arrived on these shores.

That actuality is what ought to — and does — inform the museum’s mission of “bridging a vigorous dialogue with what’s occurring right here, notably with the residing artists and curators who proceed to increase their apply,” she famous.

The world over, museum audiences are ageing — a development felt much more acutely in Asian artwork. Towards that backdrop, the rising inflow of youthful guests captivated by Korean popular culture is, as DAM’s Kim Han places it, “an amazing boon.”

“Exactly for that cause, we have to seize this cultural momentum with long-term commitments and funding, in order that its vitality will be sustained.”