Korea’s art doesn’t need a Western stamp of approval

Most museum openings are greeted by festive celebration and enthusiastic fanfare, but the inauguration of Centre Pompidou Hanwha in Seoul this month was met with protests. Artists and culture workers from South Korea and France demonstrated against this shiny new institution that opened its doors on 4 June. They accused the institution’s conglomerate backer of art-washing its alleged links with Israeli arms manufacturers, calling for a boycott.

But as I stood before Pablo Picasso’s 1942 towering canvas Mercure Curtain during the preview of the museum’s inaugural exhibition “The Cubist: Inventing Modern Vision”, I was puzzled by another question: does Asia really need another outpost of a Western museum in this day and age?

Centre Pompidou Hanwha has been controversial (Opens in new window) since day one, when the museum’s initiator and backer, Hanwha Foundation of Culture, formed a partnership three years ago with Centre Pompidou to build a new outpost in Seoul. Artists and civic groups opposing (Opens in new window) the project accused the foundation of “art-washing” its backer, defence conglomerate Hanwha Group’s reported links to Israeli arms manufacturers Elbit Systems and Elta Systems through partnerships inked in 2021.

Although the Hanwha Group has repeatedly denied (Opens in new window) involvement in Israel’s military operations, the “Abandon Hanwha (Opens in new window)” campaign to “boycott” the new museum housed in the translucent new annex – covering 11,000 square metres and spanning four floors at the 63 Building in Seoul’s financial district Yeouido – has spread from South Korea to France. More than 150 prominent individuals and organisations from the French art community including Ali Cherri, winner of Silver Lion for a promising artist at the Venice Biennale in 2022, and Lily Reynaud-Dewar, 2021 winner of the Pompidou-affiliated Prix Marcel Duchamp, signed a petition (Opens in new window) ahead of the museum’s opening. It alleged that the South Korean chaebol’s major culture venture was an attempt at “masking profits derived from armed conflicts” and denounced the partnership “a moral compromise of cultural institutions.”

Much of the debate revolves around the source of the money, some artists and culture workers I have spoken with also questioned why the South Korean foundation had to pay a reported (Opens in new window) cost of 17 billion won (US$11 million, but some reports said $21 million) of royalty fees (a sum that Hanwha has never publicly disclosed) to a French institution just to get its logo slapped on a building, instead of supporting local artists. This certainly helps foot the bill of Centre Pompidou’s major five-year renovation project through 2030, which is estimated to cost nearly half a billion euros (Opens in new window), of which half will be covered by the French state.

Of all places across Asia, the last place that would need a Western museum brand is South Korea. The country is today one of the most exciting cultural powerhouses in the world – from the distinctive sound of K-pop and gripping K-dramas to traditional fine art and contemporary works. South Korean cultural output is prominently displayed across all global platforms. Its artists are in the front row – film director Park Chan-wook served as jury president (Opens in new window) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival; works by Lee Bul recently graced the façade (Opens in new window) of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and she is currently the star of a major survey exhibition at M+ in Hong Kong; RM – back from military service to rejoin his BTS bandmates – will present his personal art collection (Opens in new window) at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in October.

The cultural offerings on the ground are among the most vibrant in the region. With its distinctive art history, South Korea is home (Opens in new window) to nearly 1,000 private and public museums mounting quality exhibitions. I adored the recently opened “The Mountain is Within Me (Opens in new window)”, a major retrospective of South Korean modernist Yoo Youngkuk (1916–2002) whose colourful abstract landscapes remain captivating. This exhibition was bigger and better than the presentation I saw during the Venice Biennale two years ago. The nearby Art Songje Centre is currently showing “Spectrosynthesis Seoul (Opens in new window)” co-organised with Hong Kong’s Sunpride Foundation, an ambitious exhibition offering a glimpse into South Korea’s less discussed queer community through the lens of contemporary art.

But it seems having a Western brand is the way to go. Prior to Centre Pompidou Hanwha’s public opening, French President Emmanuel Macron “inaugurated” the site during his state visit (Opens in new window) to South Korea in April. This suggests the political weight of this Seoul outpost, second in Asia following the French institution’s partnership with the West Bund (Opens in new window) Museum Project in Shanghai, also formed under the blessing of Macron. A third estimated to cost $78 million may be in the making in the South Korean coastal city of Busan to open in 2031, but it is facing opposition from the local community, according to (Opens in new window) The Art Newspaper. A branch (Opens in new window) of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is set to open in Seoul.

Centre Pompidou Hanwha’s inaugural show was not entirely Western: it dedicated a section to Modern Korean artists influenced by Cubism and the Western avant-garde. That, however, feeds a part of Asian art history into a Western framework – a dated approach.

Asia should tell its own stories against the backdrop of its own context. The region is culturally powerful and should be positioned as an equal to the rest of the world. Hong Kong’s M+, for example, has engaged a partnership (Opens in new window) with Centre Pompidou focusing on co-curation and collection-sharing rather than brand licensing, allowing the Asian museum to maintain its own identity in this collaborative exchange.

While leadership of Hanwha Foundation of Culture insists that the new museum is not a Seoul branch of the Paris institution, and it will continue to curate programs that will boost the visibility of Korean talents, the question is no longer whether it can curate great shows – but whether the institution can foster a distinct identity that transcends the Western brand on its façade.

While there is nothing wrong with bringing invaluable Western art collections to Asian audiences for cultural exchange and educational purposes, paying a hefty price just to get a label is a sign of a lack of cultural confidence that Asia should’ve overcome by now. Institutions in Asia can certainly do better.