The British Museum’s Korean gallery: a space embodying South Korean cultural diplomacy in the 1990s

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 2000, the permanent Korean gallery space, named the Korea Foundation Gallery, officially opened in the British Museum. The establishment of the Korean gallery helped advance the universality of the British Museum and fulfilled an institutional goal of South Korean cultural diplomatic institutions. This article aims to draw out the ways in which this Korean gallery demonstrates and characterises South Korean cultural diplomacy in the 1990s. It articulates the cultural diplomatic policy and the processes of the foundation of the Korean gallery by investigating the cooperation between South Korean cultural diplomatic institutions (the Korea Foundation and the National Museum of Korea) and the British Museum. Conclusively, I argue that the purpose, procedure, and outcome of the formation of the Korea Foundation Gallery in the “universal” British Museum exemplarily evidences the characteristics of South Korean cultural diplomacy in the 1990s through museum space.