Image Credit: The Cleveland Museum of Art
Organized in partnership with the National Museum of Korea, the Cleveland Museum of Art presents Ten Kings of Hell: The Afterlife in Medieval Korea, an exhibition that explores the artistic legacy of the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), posing daring questions: How did medieval Koreans envision the world beyond death and how did works of art and materiality shape and reflect that imagined realm?
Presenting an exceptional array of important artworks, including the CMA’s recent acquisitions—the Fourth King of Hell from the late 1300s, the Knife Sheath from the 1100s (Apollo’s Acquisition of the Year Award 2022), and the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva from the 1300s—the exhibition unfolds across three interlocking sections, each illuminating the soul’s passage from death through purgatory to the Buddhist paradise. At its dramatic center is the historic reunification of a dispersed set of 10 hanging scrolls from the 1300s depicting the 10 Kings of Hell. Brought together for the first time since the 1960s, the scrolls offer a rare opportunity to experience the set’s panoramic sequence of judgment, atonement, and salvation.
Among its most compelling narratives, the exhibition examines how sociopolitical upheavals and environmental pressures shaped medieval Korea’s deep preoccupation with purgatorial afterlife—not only as a moral and devotional terrain but also as a response to broader natural forces, from climatic volatility during the Little Ice Age to the devastating reach of the Black Death. A select group of contemporary artworks is also included to underscore the enduring resonance of humanity’s existential concerns.
Featuring more than one hundred works drawn from leading public and private collections in Korea, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Ten Kings of Hell: The Afterlife in Medieval Korea is accompanied by a substantial, richly illustrated catalogue, anchored in the contributing scholars’ shared commitment to transregional and interdisciplinary investigation.
In a conversation with The Korea Society, Sooa Im McCormick, Korea Foundation Curator of Korean Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, explores the art from the Goryeo dynasty and this landmark exhibition.
About the Speaker
Speaker
Sooa Im McCormick
Sooa Im McCormick joined the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2015 and is primarily responsible for the Korean art collection. McCormick holds a PhD from the University of Kansas, and an MA in art history from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She also completed graduate coursework in art history at Hongik University, Seoul, where she focused on Chinese and Korean art.
At the CMA, she has curated the exhibitions Chaekgeori: Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens and Gold Needles: Embroidery Arts from Korea (Arlene M. and Arthur S. Holden Textile Gallery and Korea Foundation Gallery, March 8−July 26, 2020). As a cutting-edge scholar, she has published a number of articles that deal with the intersections between art and ecology and the issues of gender and diversity.
