Global "Top-Tier" Museums Fall for Korean Mom Who Drew Herself with a Mouse... What K-Art Offers the World

Hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Arts Management Support Center: "2026 Dive Into Korean Art"

Fifteen international experts from institutions such as Tate and M+ meet nine Korean artists

Discovering a new contemporary

Interest from the global art community in K-art is expanding beyond 'transactions' at art fairs to include research, exhibitions, and collections at museums. International curators and editors from major art publications have even visited the studios of Korean artists to explore the backgrounds and production processes behind their works. This reflects a movement to discover Korean artists whose works will have a lasting impact on the global art scene, not just those whose pieces sell well in the market.

Overseas art experts participating in '2026 Dive into Korean Art' are examining large-scale drawing works by artist An Minjeong. An has expressed personal experiences such as the body, memory, childbirth, and parenting through formulas and symbols. Arts Management Support Center

At the studio of artist Muyeong Kim (31) near Seoul Station, folding chairs were closely packed together. A monitor on the wall played a video of his artworks, and well-used tools and materials were left on the table as they were during the creative process. Overseas art experts shifted their attention between the screen and the actual works, continuing with their questions. Unlike the neatly displayed booths at art fairs, this was a glimpse into the space and time where art is made.

From August 30 to September 6, these experts visited the studios of nine Korean artists—including Muyeong Kim and Minjung Ahn—as well as major art institutions in Korea and the Gwangju and Busan Biennales. This was part of the "2026 Dive into Korean Art" program organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Arts Management Support Center. In its seventh year, this event brought together 15 curators and editors from institutions and media such as Tate Modern in the UK, M+ in Hong Kong, Art Dubai, the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien in Vienna, and the art journal Art in America. The aim is to establish long-term relationships through international exhibitions, collections, publications, and collaborations.

The visit to Muyeong Kim's studio vividly demonstrated the significance of such encounters. Kim, who recently set up a studio in Seoul, is working on new pieces that combine the traditional technique of coloring photographs by hand with materials such as leather and lacquer. He spent two years mastering the skill of manually adding color to black-and-white photographs. At the Seodaemun Prison History Museum, he used a pinhole camera made from an aluminum can; he also took photos on Sorokdo Island. By reviving techniques that appear outdated and inefficient, Kim questions the way we perceive history and images today.

Muyeong Kim's 2024 work, "A Wedding Palanquin for the House Above the Glabella." Created using ostrich leather, iron, wood, pigments, shellac, hemp cloth, ramie, silk satin, and paper, the piece was presented as a 2024 commission by the Leeum Museum of Art. ⓒJinhyuk Oh. Art Sonje Center

The technique of coloring photographs originated from a desire to depict real color in an era when technology could not do so, but it also intersects with how the West viewed and consumed Asia during the colonial period. Kim does more than merely restore old techniques. He draws the historical conditions of their creation into his art. Another irony he notes is that photography from more than a century ago bears similarities to today’s digital image editing.

His first solo museum exhibition, "Muyeong Kim: Pig," at the Art Sonje Center, expands these questions into the theater. The "pig" is a counterweight that supports stage devices out of the audience’s sight. The artist exposes the gaze of the stage and the audience, as well as the backstage structure, probing the conditions under which a single scene is created. The exhibition runs through October 4. At Frieze Seoul, he presented hand-colored photographs and leather sculptures via Gallery N/A, with works selling for over $24,000.

Minjung Ahn (45) delves into the underside of everyday life in a completely different way. Her paintings are densely filled with anatomical diagrams, formulas, numbers, and symbols. From afar, they may look like medical textbooks or engineering blueprints, but up close, they reveal stories of love, memory, childbirth, parenting, and family conflict. For example, her “Detailed Map of the Postnatal Care Center” records even the number of bowls of seaweed soup she ate after childbirth. Ahn commented with a smile, “If you look closely, eating 30 bowls of seaweed soup isn’t really telling a serious story.”

Overseas art experts participating in the '2026 Dive into Korean Art' are listening to explanations of the works at artist Muyeong Kim's studio. The program involved 15 overseas curators and art media professionals visiting the studios of nine Korean artists and major art institutions. Arts Management Support Center

Since 2007, she has been depicting her body and memories in ways that resemble scientific schematics. After childbirth, the theme of “love” was added to her work. The previously parent-focused narrative shifted to her husband and child. “Art is not just the final work displayed in the gallery but also includes the process of its creation,” she said.

Her 2024 work "Self-Portrait_Rachaph" was acquired last year for the Architecture and Design collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. The piece meticulously depicts scars, traces of dental treatments, vaccinations, and the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth using computer vector graphics. MoMA interpreted it not as a traditional portrait but as a schematic that documents how life experiences leave marks on the body. The work is currently on display on the museum’s fourth floor in the "Body Constructs" exhibition.

Ahn shared that she wanted to present the trivialities of daily life in the authoritative language of mathematics and science. She even trained an AI model with her own works to produce similar images, but was dissatisfied with the results, noting that since the AI had not lived her experiences, it failed to capture the subtle emotions and memories. As a result, she still draws each line with a mouse by hand. For her, what matters more than exact numbers are the personal narratives embedded within each piece.

Minjung Ahn's 2024 work Self-Portrait_Lahaf. It is a digital print artwork expressing her body, memories, and experiences of childbirth and parenting through anatomical diagrams, formulas, and symbols. 106×200cm. Minjung Ahn

During graduate school, Ahn worked using shared computers and took a job at a web design company to pay back her student loans. Even while juggling work and parenting, she continued to submit her works to international exhibitions. Her career trajectory has taken her from a 2023 solo show at Marlborough Gallery in New York to the 2024 Shanghai Biennale, eventually connecting with Gallery P21 in Korea, with her newest piece “Lahaf” joining the MoMA collection. It is precisely her practice, rooted deeply in her own daily life despite not having studied or lived abroad for a long period, that drew the art world’s international attention.

Acquisitions by major international museums are not determined solely by an artist’s renown. Curators must first discover artists, study their works, and then situate the pieces within their institution’s acquisition strategy and exhibition narrative—a lengthy process. At "Conversations" held at COEX in Seoul on September 2, international experts discussed artist selection, collaboration, the international interpretation of Korean art, criticism, and publication. The studio visits are an attempt to connect with how the global art world truly functions.

Artist Minjung Ahn is explaining her creative world to experts in the international art community. The screen features her 2007 work, 'Self-Portrait.' Arts Management Support Center

This year’s Frieze Seoul attracted visitors from 54 countries and regions, along with representatives from 178 museums and institutions across 25 countries—the highest level of institutional participation to date. This indicates a broadening foundation, with interest in Korean art expanding from the art market to encompass research, collecting, and exhibition planning.

What overseas experts saw at Kim Muyeong’s studio was not just finished works awaiting sale, but also the time invested in mastering old photographic techniques, the choice of historically significant locations, and the process by which leather and stage devices become works of art. Likewise, the diagrams by Minjung Ahn go beyond introducing Korean parenting culture to show how ordinary life is transformed into the language of art. The next competitive strength of K-art lies not in establishing a single 'Korean style,' but in its ability to transform diverse artists’ experiences and questions into a universal language understandable by the global art community.

This article was produced with support from the Arts Management Support Center.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.