South Korea's cultural exports are benefitting its museums back home
South Korea's success exporting pop culture is benefiting its museums. The National Museum has now become the world's third most-visited museum behind the Louvre and Vatican museums.
Here in the U.S., many museums are struggling with government funding cuts, welcoming fewer international visitors and dealing with aging infrastructure. Across the globe in Asia, doors are bursting as museums face surging popularity and waves of visitors. At the top of the list is South Korea, where museums are reaping the rewards of the country's pop culture exports. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Seoul.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Music evoking deep outer or inner space greets visitors to the Room of Quiet Contemplation. It's at the National Museum of Korea, which holds some of the country's most treasured artifacts, including two Buddha statues from the 6th and 7th centuries A.D.
These statues of Buddhas of the future are made of gilt bronze. They're both seated in half-cross-legged positions and two fingers placed on the right cheek. Their eyes are half shut, and they've both got faint smiles on their faces.
Scan a code with your phone, and you can hear this explanation.
JISOO: (Through interpreter) This Buddhist statue captures the aspirations of people who sought salvation through quiet reflection and enlightenment during a turbulent era filled with change and anxiety. That is why, even to this day, it holds the power to naturally soothe and calm the minds of those who look upon it.
KUHN: That Korean voice belongs to Black pink singer Jisoo. A collaboration this spring between the museum and the K-pop girl group bathed the building in pink lights while its hall pulsed with the beat of the group's latest album.
BLACKPINK: (Singing) Are you not entertained? I ain't got to explain. I'm with all of my sisters, got them going insane. Yeah.
KUHN: Integrating with modern Korean popular culture helped the National Museum of Korea jump to the third-most visited museum in the world last year, behind only the Louvre in Paris and the Vatican museums. That's according to the British magazine, the Art Newspaper. Shin Eunhyang is deputy director of the museum's Education and Cultural Cooperation Bureau. Over the past 2 1/2 decades, she's watched the museum rise with the global popularity of Korean culture, known in Korean as hallyu, or the Korean Wave. Shin says the Wave's makers felt they could never afford to be complacent.
SHIN EUNHYANG: (Through interpreter) There was always the concern that the Korean Wave could die out at any time, burst like a bubble, and that we must work hard and innovate to make it sustainable. And I believe that's how the Korean Wave has been able to last for nearly 30 years now.
KUHN: The museum is on the cutting edge of high tech. An ancient Korean city comes to life in one interactive digitized classical painting. Visitors manipulate high resolution images to see national treasures of pottery and sculpture from every angle. Queensland, Australia, resident Sue Young and her husband took a virtual reality tour through an ancient tomb with vividly painted murals of life in the kingdom of Goguryeo 1,400 to 1,700 years ago.
SUE YOUNG: Very impressed with the interactive exhibit on the tomb. Obviously, we can't go into a tomb, so it was great to be able to get some sort of concept as to the scale of it.
KUHN: More than 80% of the museum's visitors are Korean. Cho Yoon, who works in the finance industry, is one of them. She says she's proud of the museum's success and inspired by the Buddha statues.
CHO YOON: (Through interpreter) I saw the statues' faces, which had slight smiles on them. And that made me think that I shouldn't live life in a rush. I should take it easy and smile like them.
KUHN: Shin Eunhyang says the museum is also working to promote and extend the reach of its artworks overseas.
SHIN: (Through interpreter) While Korean culture holds our Korean identity, we are working to allow it to be reinterpreted through various collaborations with foreign cultures and moving forward together.
KUHN: And while the museum halls boom with K-pop tunes, BTS and other bands blend hip-hop with Korean traditional instruments and clothes.
AGUST D: (Rapping in non-English language).
Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.