Whether it’s K-pop, K-drama, or Korean food, Korean culture is having a moment. It has exploded into the mainstream in recent years. How mainstream? Enough for the hit Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters to have its own floats in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Clearly, there is no shortage of interest in Korean culture. But where can you find reliable and engaging resources to learn? The free Smithsonian exhibit, Korean Treasures: Collecting, Cherishing, and Sharing, represents the largest collaboration with the National Museum of Korea in forty years, and it offers an excellent starting point.
Several stars had to align for this to happen. One was the infusion of Korean culture into the mainstream. Another, perhaps more unexpectedly, was someone’s passing. That someone was Lee Kun-Hee, longtime chairman of the Samsung company. Like his father, who served as the former head of the Samsung company along with his wife, Lee was an avid art collector.
When he died of natural causes in 2021, he left behind a record-setting eight-billion-dollar inheritance tax. To help pay this tax, his family gifted 23,000 items from the family collection to the government. The Korean government has plans to build an entire museum dedicated to this collection alone.
Over two hundred of the items now fill eight rooms of the Sackler gallery in Washington, DC. The artifacts range from new to ancient, from home luxuries to religious artifacts, from photo-esque portraits to abstract modern art. And evne those descriptions barely scratch the surface.
Why me? Why now?
Hot take: Personalized ads are actually awesome. A banner ad on YouTube led me to the exhibit’s website. It was around Christmastime, and I was hastily trying to cobble together a gift for my mom. I figured, why not take her there? Am I a K-pop fan? No. But I had recently watched KPop Demon Hunters and become invested in Korean culture.
And I had an even better reason to go with my mom: We used to live in Korea. I still harbor fond, though hazy, memories of my two years there, as well as dreams of returning with eyes more equipped to appreciate what I see. The exhibit served to appease that dream on a small scale, and I figured it would likewise allow my mom to relive her memories of our time in Seoul.
An overview in four pieces
Now for an unpopular opinion: I think it’s important to read everything at an exhibit. Yes, it may be tedious; yes, it may be hard on your feet; but there are benches, and you’re there to learn. Normally, when I go to a museum, this method is an exercise in futility, but the Korean exhibit is fairly small, and if you get there early enough to beat the 5:30 closing time, you should be able to manage it. Plus, you can treat yourself to the excellent cafe upstairs afterwards. An alternative is to go on one of the tours, which take place daily at 2:00.
This isn’t about memorizing all the information, which would be impossible. Instead, try and expose yourself to as much information as possible so you’re more liable to be struck by unexpected things, which is the difference between visiting a museum and searching for things online. Sometimes, our unconscious mind fixates on elements that our conscious mind might dismiss. You won’t come out with everything, but so long as you come out with more than what you came in with, then you’re doing it right.
1) Scholar’s accoutrements in a bookcase, 19th century
If you enter the exhibit from the main entrance, this will be the first thing you see. It is a set of six silk panels painted in the likeness of a shelf. On the shelves are a variety of items that a cultured scholar of the time might have owned.
These screens were inspired by 17th-century European paintings of Cabinets of Curiosity, which are collections of rare and strange items. The trend almost certainly arose out of European colonialism, which was in full swing when this particular screen was made. The items here are mundane; there are glasses, plants, and books. However, the structure itself was designed to be owned by wealthy men. As such, it reflects high-class values, particularly learning (both for its own sake and as a demonstration of status). You could study because you didn’t have to work; instead, other people worked for you.
The glasses encapsulate the difference between Korean and Western values. Until recently, glasses were a sign of stupidity in Europe. In Korea, however, they demonstrate dedication and scholarship. You only need glasses if you strain your eyes reading for hours on end every day. Thus, glasses symbolize the values of the Korean court.
The painting showcases several themes running throughout the exhibit. One is how Korean artists, in the wake of Western contact, negotiated Western artistic styles and ideas in their own terms. Moreover, the exhibit comes from a wealthy family’s art collection, which was intended to convey how cultured they were.
2) Royal banquet in the Imjin year, 1892
This piece is another screen, but it carries different connotations. This painting served as a form of documentation, analogous to modern-day photographs. The western tradition had comparable paintings; think of Rembrandt’s famous Night Watch. It depicts the multiday celebrations at Gyeongbokgung for the thirtieth anniversary of a particular king’s enthronement.
The painting is first and foremost a commemorative document. Typically, paintings like this would be copied several times and handed out like party favors. You can see this in the leftmost screen, which lists the attendees of the celebrations, and in the generally similar compositions of each screen. It is not without merit; Seoul has mountains, and there are some near the palace. But the perspective is not fully accurate, since it was largely drawn from the artist’s knowledge of the palace layout and design, as well as his memory of the event.
Like any photograph, this image functions as a practical repository of memory. And, like any photograph, it can seem relatively neutral. But it takes on a new meaning for those who have connections to it. During my first time at the exhibit, my mother voiced fond memories of visiting that very palace, now enveloped in the urban sprawl of Seoul, with my father. On my second run-through of the exhibit, I heard an older man discussing the image with his grandchildren, perhaps recounting his own experience there. Such cases illustrate the painting’s intended purpose: bringing people back to past events.
3) Drum Stand, 19th century
I have a confession: On my first time through the exhibit with my mother, I completely missed an entire floor filled with pottery, modern art, and, most interesting to me, religious artifacts. I’m glad I went back; otherwise, I wouldn’t have seen this gorgeous piece of religious sculpture.
The drum held by the stand would have been used in Buddhist ceremonies. The stand is carved out of multiple pieces of wood into the shape of a lion. The main color of the paint is sky blue, though there are hints of turquoise and red. The drum itself would have rested atop the lion in the crescent of a lotus leaf.
The lion represents the Buddha’s teaching, while the lotus represents enlightenment. The colors are symbolic, but it is difficult to parse their precise meaning, since Buddhist color symbolism varies depending on location, and Korea has a parallel tradition of abstract color painting. According to Tibetan Buddhism, the blue could symbolize majesty and the red could symbolize power. Alternatively, according to Korean tradition, the blue could symbolize the east, spring, and wood, and the red could symbolize the south, summer, and fire.
When I use the term “lion,” remember that I am referring to the Korean interpretation of the animal, which barely resembles the lion as we know it. They are reminiscent of large dogs, with beards and oversized teeth. When I lived in Korea, the structures were everywhere, so the sight warmed me with nostalgia.
4) Yarn and stainless steel on canvas, 1971
Constants exist only in math; in reality, the only immutable is change. I used to hate modern art. Who cares about your banana taped to a wall, Mr. Artist? And you, Jackson Pollock, what are you even doing? A kindergartener could do that!
However, I’ve come to appreciate to Modern art, and thankfully, there are modern pieces in the exhibit, too. The one I’ve chosen here is especially interesting. Is it a painting? Maybe, but can we truly classify cloth and metal fixed to a canvas as a painting?
Originally a portrait artist, Park Rehyun abandoned conventional forms in search of something different. She sought a universal form of art and more innovative textures. Here, she abstracts forms and colors to the interplay of straight, dark lines of fabric and shiny rounds of stainless steel.
Images like this stare silently back at you. They force you to give them meaning. The greatest gift (and frustration) of this art form is that it can mean a dozen different things to a dozen different people. I read it as a commentary on conformity and resistance. The dark, straight lines are rigid and confining, but their strings are far weaker than the steel circles.
Alternatively, the two colors of fabric may epitomize the two Koreas, with the circles crossing over the line between black and khaki reflecting the artist’s hope for a reunified Korea. Or it could be Rehyun, who died five years after creating the work, meditating on the nature of mortality. More circles have been placed in the black than in the khaki. Perhaps they represent the dead, the living, and the ones yet to be born? Ambiguity risks diluting the power of a work, but this one remains striking.
The other stuff
I haven’t even mentioned all the other cool stuff. There’s a leaf made of wire, projected as a shadow on the wall of the stairwell leading to the lower level of the exhibit. On the upper level, there’s a book made of jade. And on the lower level, among all the modern art, there is a seven-hundred-year-old incense burner, which is probably one of the the oldest items there.
I tried my best to convey the breadth of the exhibit through my examples, but even this small sample of the Lee collection is dense with information. If you want to see the rest, you’ll just have to go visit yourself. I can only describe things with so much verisimilitude. I will inevitably miss something, and anyway, you will still miss the impact of seeing the pieces yourself, in person, which even photographs can’t replicate.
Final thoughts
Two things stand out to me regarding the exhibit. First, I am seriously interested in visiting a third time. There is still knowledge to be gained, as well as objects that I want to investigate more thoroughly. Moreover, the exhibit has the power to at least partially reconstruct a cultural milieu and to prompt reminiscence and reflection from those who were once part of it.
But if an exhibit could only enrich the lives of individuals who were already well-versed with its content, what use would it be? It succeeds where any good exhibit should: education. Rarely is an item without a plaque, and rarely is that plaque without context. This context balances well between historical and personal insights. I’ve long wanted to return to Korea, and the exhibit only crystallized that desire. I can’t guarantee it’ll make you want to take a trip across the world, but it’ll at least make you want to pick up a book or watch a video on the topic! And for that reason alone, I’d call it a success.
