Beyond K-pop and cinema: Major Korean exhibition brings centuries of art and belief to London

The exhibition includes 10 national treasures and official Korean designations recognising their cultural importance, with most exhibits drawn from the collection of late Samsung billionaire Lee Kun-Hee.

Long before K-pop filled stadiums and Korean films won global acclaim, the peninsula’s artists were casting temple bells, shaping delicate ceramics and capturing mountains in ink.

That older cultural world takes centre stage in ‘Korea’, the British Museum’s first major exhibition on Korean art and history in more than 40 years.

Spanning from 300 BC to the present, its 100 exhibits explore the beliefs and traditions that shaped Korean art.

The display includes 10 national treasures and 13 other treasures, official Korean designations recognising their cultural and historical importance, according to Samsung , the exhibition’s corporate partner.

Incense burner with the mythical creature, Girin, from AD 1100-1200, on display at new ‘Korea' exhibition at the British Museum.

Among the objects on display are a 900-year-old incense burner crowned with a mythical creature and a huge Buddhist temple bell around 1,000 years old.

The exhibition moves from the luminous blue-green ceramics of the Goryeo dynasty to the restrained porcelain of Joseon, shaped by Confucian ideals, according to the British Museum and Samsung.

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