A tiger and a magpie painted by an unknown artist in the 19th century may look familiar to people who have never visited an exhibition of Korean art. The pictorial tradition they belong to inspired Derpy and Sussie, two animals in the animated film KPop Demon Hunters. The painting, Tiger and Magpie, will be on display in Korea: 2,000 Years of Creativity at the British Museum from 1 October 2026 to 31 January 2027.
The exhibition’s curator, Sang-ah Kim, observes that many young people in Britain know Korea through popular culture but are less familiar with its artistic history. Another connection to the film is Sun, Moon and Five Peaks, a painted screen whose digital interpretation appears behind a performance by the fictional group HUNTR/X. At the museum, these images sit among works made for different purposes and across many centuries.
The exhibition reaches from the early Iron Age to the present. Buddhist sculptures and sutras, texts of the religious tradition, appear alongside ceramics from the Goryeo dynasty and paintings from the Joseon period. Together, the works place images encountered through film within a wider history of religious practice, study and daily life.
Modern and contemporary works include pieces by Lee Jung-seop. Separated from his family during the Korean War and unable to afford paint or canvas, he engraved images on the foil liners of cigarette packets. In Translated Vase, Yeesookyung takes a different approach to materials, assembling ceramic fragments discarded by potters.
The exhibition brings together loans from the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, with works from the British Museum. London is the third and final stop on a tour based on a 2022 exhibition devoted to Lee Kun-hee’s collection, which was donated to the nation in 2021.
KPop Demon Hunters shows one way these images continue to circulate. Seeing the 19th-century painting and the screen in the exhibition offers something different: a chance to encounter each as a work with its own history, materials and context.
