Korean Culture Takes The Stage At The Smithsonian With The Late Samsung Chairman's Never-Before-Seen Exhibit

Whether you’re logging hours watching your favorite K-drama or refining your K-beauty routine, there’s no denying that Korean culture shapes the global conversation. Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared traces the origin stories behind so many of the creative works influencing this sensibility, revealing where the visuals, symbols, and motifs you recognize today first leapt to life centuries ago.

On view at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. through February 1, the exhibition features over 200 works spanning 1,500 years of Korean history. Every piece was hand-picked from late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee’s private collection, a massive archive of more than 23,000 works originally created for places like royal palaces, Buddhist temples, and Confucian academies.

“What feels most relevant today is the friction between tradition and modernity,” is what Allison Stransky, Chief Marketing Officer at Samsung Electronics America, told Bustle when asked about the exhibit. And in her words, that ongoing dialogue between the past and the future continues to animate K-Culture today, from pop music, to fashion, to film. “The reason it resonates is because it doesn’t treat tradition as static or nostalgic. It treats it as something alive, adaptable, and endlessly remixable.”

While Korean Treasures was organized by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art and several major museums, the Lee Kun-Hee Collection itself took 70 years and multiple generations to build. Started by Lee Kun-Hee’s father, Samsung founder Lee Byung-Chull, the archive reached its final form under Lee Kun-Hee and Hong Ra-Hee.

Looking to expand your knowledge of how Korean culture and art’s global influencers? Consider Korean Treasures your exclusive prequel to the stories you’re already into, and an opportunity to level up how you see artistic expression along the way.

Engage With Interactive Exhibits

One of the coolest parts of seeing an exhibit like this in person is interacting with the story the artwork tells in real time. If you learn best by clicking, tapping, and zooming in, then this is exactly the kind of experience that makes a museum visit feel worth it. In Chaekgado Reimagined, the Smithsonian brings a traditional chaekgado (Korean screen paintings of bookshelves filled with treasured objects) to life in digital form, featuring real works from the Lee Kun-Hee Collection.

With a simple scroll, select individual compartments to learn what pieces originally meant and why they still resonate today. More than just a fun piece of tech, the experience reflects the original purpose of the custom while meeting a contemporary audience where they are: on the screen.

“Chaekgado paintings were originally designed as immersive, almost illusionistic spaces for close looking and contemplation,” Stransky tells us. “By translating a historic visual language into a modern format, the interactive elements don’t modernize the work so much as extend its original intent, inviting visitors to engage with these objects in the way they always were meant to be experienced: up close, curious, and fully absorbed.”

Uncover The Lore Behind Your Favorite K-Culture Obsessions

Way before you were devouring stories about demon-hunting popstars who protect their fans from evil, did you know Korean artists were telling stories about spiritual guardians of humanity? On view are gilt bronze Buddhist figures — designated Korean National Treasures — once used for personal devotion and spiritual protection. Cranes, a common motif in Korean art symbolizing longevity, appear throughout Joseon-era works in the exhibition. That emphasis on well-being for the long haul might feel familiar to K-beauty stans, whose disciplined routines champion the glowy, blemish-free rewards of consistent care over time, versus overnight results.

Get Some Design Inspo For Your Home Office

Beyond decoding the symbols behind your favorite pop culture moments, this exhibition is brimming with serious home office inspo. Enter the sarangbang, private study rooms used by Korea’s ruling elite, where male scholars contemplated Confucian ideals like social harmony and personal virtue outside their official jobs. (The exhibition notes that women in Joseon-era Korea were largely expected to focus on family and domestic life.)

When asked how the team decided which works to highlight, Wendrychowicz told Bustle they were selected “based on their defining moments in Korea’s cultural history — from the values of the Neo-Confucian elite and the visual language of the royal court, to the spiritual legacy of Buddhist art, and ultimately into modern painting.”

The beautifully crafted desk objects, paintings, and furniture, like bookshelves, bureaus, and end tables are more than just mood board fodder. In the words of Stransky, “These pieces trace how Korean art has continuously evolved, while still remaining anchored in a coherent cultural worldview.” Even today, you can appreciate how that simple, intentional design never goes out of style.

Travel From Ancient Craft To Modern Creativity

In the contemporary art section, you’ll see how twentieth-century Korean artists, like Lee Sangbeom, Byeon Gwansik, and Kim Whan-Ki, evolved traditional forms into bold modern and abstract creative expression. Many traveled to Europe and the United States, experimenting with Western techniques, while staying grounded in ink painting and calligraphy.

Whether you are making art, building a brand, or just figuring out your own style, Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared proves that looking back might just unlock your best chapter yet. And as you dig deeper into the history of Korean art, one takeaway rings true. To borrow the words of Stransky, “Korean art has always been forward-thinking.”

Eager to see the exhibit, but not in the D.C. area? The exhibit will be moving to Chicago and will be on display from March 7 to July 5, 2026 at the Art Institute of Chicago.