Korean art exhibitions worldwide are undergoing a dramatic transformation, embracing pop culture, digital innovation, and interactive experiences to attract broader audiences as global interest in Korean culture continues to surge. The shift represents a fundamental change in how museums present Korea to international visitors, moving beyond traditional historical artifacts to include contemporary cultural phenomena.

A prime example of this evolution is the "Hallyu! The Korean Wave" exhibition at Museum Rietberg in Zurich, Switzerland, which ran from April to August this year. The traveling show drew an unusually diverse crowd, from elderly museum subscribers studying catalogues to teenagers in K-pop merchandise taking selfies in front of colorful light sticks and idol costumes. "We saw this exhibition on Instagram," said Stray Kids fans Lena, 17, and Winona, 16, as they explored the galleries. "We came for the idols, but we learned a lot more about Korea."

This meeting of pop culture and tradition exemplifies what "Hallyu!" set out to achieve. Originally launched at London's Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in 2022, the exhibition has since traveled to Boston, San Francisco, Zurich, and will soon reach Canberra, Australia. The show illustrates how Korean art exhibitions are broadening their reach by incorporating elements that resonate with contemporary global audiences.

The transformation began during the 1990s and 2000s when the government-run Korea Foundation supported the opening of permanent Korean galleries across museums in the United States and Europe. Among these was the Arts of Korea Gallery at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, inaugurated in 1998, where Soyoung Lee began her career as the museum's first curator of Korean art.

"During that period, a lot of the focus and activities revolved around Korean collections that U.S. museums had already built, which were mostly pre-20th century," recalled Lee, who now leads the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. The Korea Foundation and the National Museum of Korea helped drive emphasis on traditional art by supporting loans, exhibitions, research, and curatorial residencies.

However, this approach soon reached its natural limits. The available body of pre-20th century Korean works was finite, even within Korea itself, and growing ethical concerns emerged about what should or should not leave the country. "It became clear quite quickly for U.S. museums that to expand their collections and programming, they couldn't keep acquiring traditional Korean art. There simply wasn't enough," Lee explained.

Many institutions gradually turned toward modern and contemporary artists whose work reflected a living Korea. This shift, born of necessity, soon coincided with a broader cultural phenomenon: the global rise of Korean popular culture, from K-pop to K-food, which drew new attention to the country's creative landscape. "International awareness of Korean contemporary art has been heightened by the explosion of pop culture over the last five to 10 years," Lee observed. "And the launch of Frieze Seoul in 2022 has brought an influx of people from the U.S., Europe and across Asia who've taken notice of the range of activities taking place in Korea."

This new momentum is evident in recent Korean art exhibitions, not only in their number but in their expanded curatorial focus. Notable shows include the Philadelphia Museum of Art's "The Shape of Time: Korean Art After 1989," "Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s-1970s" at New York's Guggenheim, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's "The Space Between: The Modern in Korean Art," and "Korea in Color: A Legacy of Auspicious Images" at the San Diego Museum of Art.

The definitive transformation came with the V&A's "Hallyu! The Korean Wave," which embraced pop culture through multimedia and interactive installations. For Rosalie Kim, lead curator behind the exhibition, it was an opportunity to reimagine how Korea could be presented in Western museums. "So far, exhibitions about Korea overseas are all about the glorious past – Goryeo, Joseon," Kim said. "But this is something very difficult. It is quite niche and something difficult that the audience finds relatable."

On the opposite end, she explained, contemporary Korean art is often completely globalized and fails to offer deeper insight into Korean society. "Hallyu!" was designed to bridge that gap through K-pop, K-dramas, beauty trends, digital fandom, and everyday design. "I think the point of the exhibition was really to make Korea accessible and relatable," Kim said.

The exhibition maps Korea's pop culture phenomenon beginning with the country's rapid postwar transformation, using archival photographs, posters, and Nam June Paik's video sculptures. It moves through the explosive rise of K-dramas and K-films, featuring costumes from "Squid Game" and a recreated set from "Parasite." K-pop and fandom culture take center stage with stage outfits worn by aespa and ATEEZ and an interactive dance challenge, while the final section spotlights Korea's beauty and fashion industries, presenting more than 20 looks by contemporary designers from Korea and its diaspora.

At Museum Rietberg in Zurich, "Hallyu!" marked only the second Korea-focused show in the institution's history. "The first one was 25 years ago and it was also a traveling exhibition on only traditional Korean art," said Khanh Trinh, curator for Japanese and Korean Art at Rietberg. To localize the presentation, Trinh incorporated Swiss elements, including videos from K-pop cover dance teams in Switzerland and stills from "Crash Landing on You," which featured iconic Swiss locations.

The exhibition also spurred deeper institutional engagement with Korean art at Rietberg, where Korea has historically been underrepresented in the museum's 32,600-object collection. "This is the first big acquisition of the museum for Korean art," Trinh said proudly, referring to an 18th-century moon jar purchased specifically for the exhibition.

The touring exhibition will conclude at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra this December. "We can't wait to welcome 'Hallyu! The Korean Wave' in December, in what will be an Australian exclusive for Canberra and a first for the southern hemisphere," said NMA director Katherine McMahon.

The momentum continues in the United States, supported by the Korean government in what Hyonjeong Kim Han, senior curator of Asian art at the Denver Art Museum, describes as "even more active than what the Japan Foundation did in the 1980s and 90s for Japanese arts and cultural exchange." At Denver Art Museum, the focus has turned to placing Joseon-era ceramics in conversation with modern and contemporary art and Korean diasporic identity.

"Perfectly Imperfect: Korean Buncheong Ceramics" centers on buncheong stoneware from the late 14th to 16th centuries, celebrating a beauty that breaks from convention. The exhibition places more than 40 buncheong masterpieces alongside contemporary reinterpretations by artists such as Kim Whanki, Yun Hyong-keun, and Lee Kang-hyo.

The museum also staged "Lunar Phases: Korean Moon Jars" this summer, the first institutional exhibition worldwide devoted exclusively to these vessels since 2005. The show assembled six 18th-century jars with six contemporary interpretations, prominently featuring Korean American ceramicists exploring the vessel as both a symbol of heritage and a meditation on identity.

Meanwhile, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, celebrated the reopening of its Korean gallery in May after a 13-year absence. The Yu Kil-Chun Gallery of Korean Art and Culture reflects a unique history tied to Yu Kil-chun, a reformist scholar who came to the U.S. in 1883 as part of Korea's first diplomatic mission and later donated his personal belongings to the museum. The gallery displays more than 100 objects capturing the final phase of Joseon art, shaped by both native aesthetics and early Western influence.