In the summer of 2025, Netflix's original series Squid Game Season 3 premiered to instant global success, topping streaming charts worldwide. Meanwhile, the animated series K-Pop Demon Hunters captivated a global MZ-generation fanbase, marking an unprecedented box-office success.

In June 2025, ‘The New York Times’ published an article titled "How South Korea Became a Cultural Powerhouse," analyzing how the country rose to global cultural prominence. According to the article, Korean culture—encompassing K-pop, dramas, film, cuisine, and beauty—has entered a new phase: not merely content dissemination, but the globalization of lifestyle itself.
 
This marks a shift in how Hallyu is perceived—not just as creative content but as a systemic model for cultural dissemination, supported by government policy, industry structures, tech infrastructure, and an acute sensitivity to global tastes.
 
Yet, despite these achievements, can Korea truly claim to be a cultural powerhouse? Beyond the consumption and spread of content, what areas can fundamentally question, sensitize, and reflect the depth of a society?
 

 
True Globalization Begins with Value Creation, Not Distribution

Korea's attempts at globalizing contemporary art remain largely fragmented and inconsistent. While individual artists participate in international exhibitions or are invited to major group shows and art fairs, these remain isolated cases rather than evidence of a systemic globalization based on critical discourse and an ecosystem.
 
This is not due to a lack of individual talent, but rather the absence of a critical language, curatorial infrastructure, and institutional support that can sustain and contextualize their work. To ensure the global success of Korean artists, we must establish structural mechanisms that interpret, mediate, and connect their work to other cultural frameworks.
 
Notable milestones such as Do Ho Suh’s solo exhibition at Tate Modern or Ayoung Kim’s receipt of the LG Guggenheim Award are important achievements. However, rather than simply admiring such individual success, the Korean contemporary art scene must learn from them and develop a comprehensive strategic system to elevate the entire field to a global level.

Five Pillars for the Globalization of Korean Contemporary Art

Globalization is not merely about "going abroad"—it’s about how art engages with the world. This depends on whether an artwork possesses a robust internal language and whether it can connect with the multilayered sensitivities of a global audience. The globalization of art, in this sense, concerns the process through which a society’s sensibility is translated into the language of others, thereby becoming a site of value production.
 
 
1. Art as a Tool to Question Time and Existence
For Korean contemporary art to resonate globally, the focus should not solely be on technical refinement or stylistic sophistication. Instead, we must ask whether the themes we address reflect universal concerns or values. Art ultimately serves as a tool to question our era and existence, and the depth and clarity of that inquiry determine the seriousness with which the world responds.

 
2. Restoring Interpretation and Critical Discourse
Artists and their work alone cannot communicate with the world. A collective of critics, curators, theorists, and planners must move in unison to interpret, contextualize, and articulate meaning. Sustainable globalization of Korean contemporary art requires not just artist-centered strategies, but the simultaneous structuring of discourse and institutions.
 

3. Stabilizing the Creative Ecosystem
Globalization is not a short-term export strategy but the outcome of a long-term, continuous creative environment. Artists must be free from existential precarity and supported through systems like residencies, research grants, and ecosystems that link education and criticism. Currently, Korea’s art world is overly focused on project-based, results-driven support. However, art demands time, and meaningful global engagement presupposes that time.

 
4. Public Institutions and Policy Must Lead
Globalization cannot rely solely on individual artists or private efforts. National and public art museums, foundations, and cultural policy institutions must design international strategies from a long-term perspective, make strategic investments, and sometimes take financial risks. Without shifting away from market-centered cultural policies to ones that embrace art’s invisibility and non-market nature, fine art will continue to occupy a marginal position.

 
5. Globalizing New Modes of Artistic Thinking and Language
While earlier phases of globalization centered on popular culture, the next phase must focus on disseminating Korean values and sensibilities. Korean contemporary art needs to develop a new language capable of engaging global audiences with pressing local issues. This language should emerge not from market strategy, but from deep philosophical reflection on Korea’s contemporary consciousness.
 


Contemporary Art: The Key to Completing Korea's Cultural Powerhouse Status

Korea has already become a country with the power to produce. Now, it must acquire the power to question value, to translate value, and to connect value. The globalization of Korean contemporary art as part of becoming a true cultural powerhouse begins precisely here. This is not merely about exporting art, but about reimagining how we share our art with the world—through what language, what questions, and in what context.

That is the defining strategy to move beyond content export toward genuine cultural leadership. As the world enjoys the aesthetics and narratives of Korea, now is the time to ask: How can we translate the roots of these sensations into art? How can we develop a new artistic language and pose fundamental questions to the world?