You Hong-june, director of the National Museum of Korea, delivers a speech at a forum hosted by Kwanhun Club in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap

As Korean art continues its ambitious global itinerary this year, the National Museum of Korea (NMK) is repositioning itself to meet that rising demand while rethinking how it presents the nation’s cultural legacy.

A millennia-spanning trove of antiquities from the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee’s collection is traveling to the Art Institute of Chicago in March and the British Museum in September, following a well-received run at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C.

Relics from the ancient Silla Kingdom (57 B.C.-A.D. 935) will be spotlighted at Guimet Museum in Paris and the Shanghai Museum, while the Tokyo National Museum is pairing Buddhist masterpieces from the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392) with the refined court culture of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910).

The surge of interest is tangible. “Since I took office as director of the NMK seven months ago, 10 overseas museum directors and two culture ministers have visited, all expressing a desire to collaborate with us,” NMK director You Hong-june said at a forum hosted by the Kwanhun Club in Seoul on Monday.

Buoyed by that momentum, Korea’s flagship institution is testing new initiatives to reaffirm its role as steward of the historical foundations that underpin today’s K-culture.

In a first, the museum will collaborate with K-pop girl groupBLACKPINKon Feb. 27, placing the group’s global reach in dialogue with Korea’s artistic heritage. It has also signed a memorandum of understanding with entertainment powerhouse HYBE to develop a new line ofMU:DSmerchandise incorporating the intellectual property of the agency’s artists.

Looking ahead, NMK is preparing a blockbuster exhibition, “5,000 Years of Korean Art,” slated for a world tour in 2027. Envisioned as a panoramic survey of the nation’s artistic legacy, the exhibit recalls a landmark touring show mounted from 1979 to 1981 in the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

You stressed that keeping pace with growing international demand requires more than overseas exposure; it demands strengthening the museum from within, deepening its collection and modernizing its infrastructure.

“A museum’s authority and stature ultimately rely on its holdings,” the director said. “We need a substantially larger acquisition budget. Under the current framework, it has been difficult to bring about real change.”

Source: Korea Times News