British Museum unveils sweeping showcase of Korea's 2,000-year cultural legacy
The British Museum has opened a major exhibition titled “Korea,” tracing two millennia of Korean art, religion and history with dozens of national treasures.
The new “Korea” exhibition at the British Museum offers a chronological tour of the peninsula’s artistic output from 400 BC to the present, featuring twelve national treasures. Early rooms display Iron Age shamanic instruments, Silla gold ornaments and Buddhist artifacts that illustrate the rise of Buddhism around AD 300. Goryeo’s celadon ware and gilded sutras demonstrate technical mastery, while a modern installation by Yeesookung fuses broken ceramics from both Koreas with gold.
Works by Choi Jongtae, Kim Insoong, Park Saengkwang and Lee Jung-Seop confront the trauma of the Korean War and subsequent repression. The finale includes Shin Hak Chul’s chaotic pop-art tableau of post-war Korea and Do Ho Suh’s thread-based self-portrait reflecting on heritage and freedom.
