Dr. Lee So-young, the first Korean American director of a major U.S. art museum, discussed the rising global prominence of contemporary Korean art during an interview in Seoul. She was visiting with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie to celebrate the cities' 50th anniversary of sister-city ties and to promote an upcoming retrospective on Korean abstract artist Ha Chong-hyun at the Asian Art Museum in September. Lee, who previously curated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Harvard Art Museums, noted that Korean art has shifted from traditional focus to contemporary work, with museums and collectors increasingly engaging with dynamic artists from Korea.
This matters because Lee is actively reshaping how Korean art is presented in Western institutions, moving away from the old paradigm that positioned it as a middle ground between China and Japan. She advocates for deeper, more specific storytelling that connects younger audiences through universal themes, leveraging the popularity of K-culture as a gateway to museum engagement. Her approach reflects a broader institutional shift toward recognizing Korean contemporary art on its own terms, with significant implications for global art market trends and cross-cultural curation.