The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will fund Korean art exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 2016 to 2018, the museum has announced.

The ministry and the Met signed a memorandum of understanding last Thursday for a three-year partnership to support exhibitions and programs related to Korean art and culture at the museum. 

The ministry pledged to provide approximately $1 million to support a major Korean art exhibition in 2018, renovation of the museum’s Arts of Korea Gallery and collaborative academic programs.

“This landmark agreement with the ministry is particularly meaningful now, as we look ahead to 2018 -- when the Met will celebrate the 20th anniversary of our Arts of Korea Gallery and South Korea will host the Olympic Winter Games. The new initiative made possible by their generous gift of funding will enable us to expand our programming of exhibitions, gallery installations and publications, and to undertake important new research,” said Thomas Campbell, director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the press release.

The museum’s Arts of Korea Gallery opened in 1998 with support from the Samsung Foundation of Culture and the Korea Foundation. Its Korean art collection encompasses a wide range of Korean works of art -- celadon ceramics, paintings, porcelain works, metalwork, lacquerware -- mainly from the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392) and Joseon era (1392-1910).

It is currently holding an exhibition titled “Korea: 100 Years of Collecting at the Met” showcasing more than 70 works of Korean art the museum has collected over the last century.

Korea’s Culture Ministry has provided support to foreign museums since 1992 to open exhibition spaces that showcase Korean art as part of its long-term goal to promote it overseas and facilitate exchanges between foreign and Korean art institutions.

Following the opening of the Korean gallery at the Met, the British Museum and Guimet Museum opened Korean art galleries in 2000 and 2001, respectively. There are more than 60 Korean art galleries at foreign museums around the world.

“Our ultimate goal is to increase awareness of Korean culture globally,” said Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Kim Jong-deok in a press release.

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)