Leeum Museum of Art Reopens in Seoul After a Full Renovation

The Leeum Museum of Art reopened on 8 October 2021 in Hannam-dong, on the southern slope of Namsan in Seoul. The museum had been closed since 25 February 2020 and used the time for its first full renovation since opening in 2004. Its sister institution, the Ho-Am Art Museum in Yongin, reopened on the same day.

The museum

Leeum is the museum of the Samsung Foundation of Culture and holds the collection formed by the company’s founder, Lee Byung-chul, and his family. It is the most important private museum in Korea, and its holdings of traditional Korean art, with several dozen works designated National Treasures, are matched only by the national museums.

It consists of three buildings by three architects. Mario Botta designed the museum of traditional art, an inverted cone and a block clad in terracotta brick, with a spiral descent past celadon, white porcelain, Buddhist painting and metalwork. Jean Nouvel designed the museum of modern and contemporary art, in rusted steel and glass, with galleries that project as boxes. Rem Koolhaas designed the third building, for education and temporary exhibitions, around a black concrete volume suspended in a glass hall.

What changed

The lobby that joins the three buildings was redesigned, with a media wall and a new shop and café, and the museum adopted a new visual identity. The digital guide was replaced and exhibition lighting renewed. The permanent displays were rehung in both the traditional and modern wings, with contemporary works placed in dialogue with the historical collection. Admission to the permanent collection became free, by online reservation.

The reopening exhibition, “Human, 7 Questions”, brought together works by Korean and international artists around the question of what it is to be human, from Alberto Giacometti and George Segal to Lee Bul and Ron Mueck.

The museum had been without a director since 2017. On reopening it was led by a steering committee chaired by Lee Seo-hyun, a granddaughter of the founder.

Visiting

The museum is closed on Mondays. Reservations for the permanent collection open two weeks ahead on the museum’s website and are quickly taken at weekends; temporary exhibitions carry a charge. The traditional wing alone justifies the visit and takes an hour. Allow half a day for the whole.

Hannam-dong, the district around it, has become the centre of Seoul’s gallery scene, with the Korean spaces of Pace, Lehmann Maupin and Thaddaeus Ropac within walking distance, along with shops and restaurants. The area is at its busiest during the September art week of Frieze Seoul. The Shilla Seoul, on the far side of Namsan, belongs to the same family of companies and is ten minutes away by car.