The facade of the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington / Courtesy of National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution

Hwang Sun-woo, the inaugural Korea Foundation Curator of Korean Art and Culture at the National Museum of Asian Art / Courtesy of National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art has appointed its first curator of Korean art and culture to take the helm of the institution's expanding program and collection dedicated to Korea.

Assuming the title of the inaugural Korea Foundation Curator of Korean Art and Culture, Hwang Sun-woo will reinstall the Korean permanent gallery in the museum's Freer Gallery of Art and diversify its collection of the country's objects, which currently number nearly 800 out of over 46,000 items.

She will also spearhead a major 2025-2026 exhibition featuring a treasure trove of relics donated to Korea's national museums in 2021 by the family of the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

"It is an exciting moment to begin this new position as the museum starts its next 100 years with a clear commitment to Korean art and culture," Hwang said in a statement.

Her endowed position has been made possible by the Smithsonian museum's funds and a matching gift from the Korea Foundation.

Hwang, who holds a master's of arts in humanities from the University of Chicago, is a doctoral candidate at Dongguk University specializing in Buddhist wall paintings. After initially joining the National Museum of Asian Art in 2018 as the Korea Foundation Global Challenger intern, she returned for a five-year curatorial training fellowship through 2023. During that time, she helped organize two of the institution's exhibitions: "Sacred Dedication: A Korean Buddhist Masterpiece" in 2019 and "Once Upon a Roof: Vanished Korean Architecture" in 2022.

"[Hwang's] perspective and contributions will be essential as we build on our ongoing initiative to raise the profile of Korean art and culture in our galleries, programs and public spaces," noted its director Chase F. Robinson.

Her appointment comes at a time when the museum, one of the first in the United States to display Korean art since its founding in 1923, is expanding its focus on the country's art and culture.

It is currently hosting multimedia artist Park Chan-kyong's first solo museum presentation titled "Gathering." In April, the institution installed a commissioned edition of Do Ho Suh's sculpture, "Public Figures" — an empty plinth curiously held aloft by a swarm of tiny anonymous human figures — on the Freer Plaza to celebrate its centennial.

Other recent Korean curatorial appointments in the U.S. include Eleanor Soo-ah Hyun at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York last year.