Currently Available Exhibitions

Gods, Demon and Generals: Icons of Korean Shamanism
This exhibition features twelve paintings and five photographs that represent and explore the Korean shamanic tradition, which is a force that exists at the nexus of culture and religion. It is an expanded version of the exhibition mounted in The Korea Society Gallery during 2006.

Korean Comics: A Society Through Small Frames
This exhibition examines the changing social realities of Korean society from the 1950s to the 1990s through a selected reading of Korea's most popular manhwa. Featuring the works of 21 of the best-known artists, it encapsulates through small frames an engaged and vigorous civil society in Korea, continuously challenging and energizing the status quo in whimsical and provocative ways.

Toy Stories: Souvenirs from Korean Childhood
A veritable toy box of flamboyantly colored puppets, miniature tanks and models, this exhibition includes 74 objects that capture the soaring fantasies and rising expectations of an entire generation. Presented together with children's magazines and a photograph of Korean stationery store from the period, the toys in this exhibition are drawn from the Hyeon Tae-Joon’s collection.

Korean Funerary Figures: Companions for the Journey to the Other World
This exhibition features a collection of 74 wooden figurines on loan from the Seoul-based Ockrang Cultural Foundation. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Korean artisans carved joyful wooden figurines depicting acrobats, clowns and mystical animals-known as kkoktu—which were used to decorate the funeral biers of the departed. A catalogue has been developed for this exhibition. (Available for loan only from the fall of 2009 through 2010.)

Living Through the Forgotten War: Portrait of Korea
This exhibition features 39 photographs from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and five photographs by AP photographers. It was developed in cooperation with the Mansfield Freeman Center at Wesleyan University. A catalogue has been developed for this exhibition.

Advertising a Dream: Movie Posters from Post-War Korea
This is an exhibition of 23 movie posters from 1950s and 1960s South Korea, a period when Koreans were just waking up from the nightmare of the Korean War yet only beginning to envision a prosperous future.

Inside North Korea with the New York Philharmonic
This is an exhibition of photographs by award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris that document the concert by the New York Philharmonic orchestra in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on February 26, 2008. In his always fascinating and often stunning photographs, Harris offers a truthful and objective perspective on this unprecedented historic event. Encompassing both the concert itself and all the other major activities of the nearly 300-member delegation—consisting of the orchestra’s 106 artists, staff, accompanying patrons, VIP guests and press corps—the exhibition captures all aspects of the New York Philharmonic orchestra’s two-day visit to Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korean Images at Utopia's Edge
The exhibition features 18 woodcuts/linocuts prints from the Nick Bonner Collection. It includes a representative range of styles and subject matter including family life, children, people in their workplaces, industrial and construction sites and landscapes. The images are depicted in very artistic ways, rather than merely as a tool of political propaganda. The exhibition will introduce a distinctive aspect of modern North Korean fine art for the first time in the U.S.

Upcoming Exhibitions

American Missionary Photography in Korea: Perspectives on Early Western Contact
This exhibition—the largest ever of Korean missionary photographs in U.S.—will feature 50 images taken by missionaries in Korea between 1890 and 1950. The photographs demonstrate that Korea's history with the West didn't begin when the Korean War broke out. From the late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century, Western Christian missionaries were an influential presence in the country, establishing new social norms and religious identities and stoking early culture clashes. (Available for loan from fall 2009.)

Korean Ancient Locks and Charms [working title]
This exhibition features 200 locks, keys and key holders that were in daily use during the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910 C.E.). On loan from the Lock Museum in Seoul, Korea, the objects in this collection shed light on the symbolic significance of various designs and their unique uses in traditional Korea. (Available for loan from spring 2010.)