On the occasion of 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Korea, Guimet museum dedicates an exceptional program to Korean culture. Titled « Guimet 2026 – K-arrément Corée ! »This major event transforms the Parisian museum into a vast territory for cultural, aesthetic and spiritual exploration, revealing Korea in all its historical depth and creative modernity.
Situated Place d'Iéna, in the 16th arrondissement of ParisThe Guimet Museum has thus established itself as one of the major European centers of K-Culture, offering the public an unprecedented immersion in a civilization in perpetual dialogue between age-old traditions and contemporary innovations.
Guimet 2026: an invitation to a cultural journey
Founded in 1889, the Guimet museum The Guimet Museum stands out as the most important European institution dedicated to Asian art. This national museum houses exceptionally rich collections, spanning more than five millennia of creation, from Central Asia to the Far East. A true bridge between cultures, the Guimet Museum combines scientific research, landmark exhibitions, and ambitious contemporary programming. It will host the event in 2026. "K-rally Korean!"The institution reaffirms its mission: to offer an enlightened and sensitive perspective on the great Asian civilizations, while situating their artistic expressions within the cultural challenges of the contemporary world.
A Korean year in the heart of Paris
Conceived as a comprehensive journey, the programming Guimet 2026 – K-arrément Corée! revolves around three major exhibitions, An monumental installation on the facade and a artistic and cultural programming deployed throughout the year. From the origins of Korean civilization to contemporary global cultural phenomena, the museum offers a cross-cutting, accessible and demanding reading of a culture whose influence continues to grow internationally.
K-Beauty: Korean beauty, the story of a global phenomenon
Presented from March 18 to July 6, 2026, the exhibition "K-Beauty. Korean beauty, the story of a phenomenon" deciphers the aesthetic, philosophical, and cultural foundations of Korean beauty. Far beyond cosmetics, K-Beauty emerges here as a holistic visionrooted in the balance of body and mind, inherited from neo-Confucianism and nourished by traditional pharmacopoeia.
From 18th-century paintings to contemporary photographs, advertisements, dresses, and accessories, the exhibition highlights the evolution of an aesthetic that has become a powerful cultural soft powerinfluencing fashion, cinema, K-Pop, and global beauty standards. A rare exploration that places K-Beauty within a deep historical continuity, far removed from fleeting trends.
Silla: Gold and the sacred, royal treasures of Korea
Du May 20 to August 31, 2026, the Guimet museum dedicates to the first time in Europe an exhibition at kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD), one of the founding civilizations of Korea. Entitled "Silla: Gold and the Sacred. Royal Treasures of Korea"This exceptional exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Gyeongju National Museum and important South Korean institutions.
Gold crowns, jade ornaments, exquisite jewelry, ritual objects, and archaeological treasures reveal a civilization where art, power and spirituality They merge. The journey traces nearly a millennium of history and highlights the openness of the Kingdom of Silla to cultural exchanges linking China, Japan, Central Asia and even the Mediterranean world.
The Cabinet of Illusions: Knowledge in the guise of illusion in Korea
Presented from September 16, 2026 to January 4, 2027, the exhibition "The Cabinet of Illusions: Knowledge in Trompe-l'œil, Korea (18th-20th centuries)" reveals a little-known aspect of Korean art: the trompe-l'œil painted libraries, or chaekgeoriBorn at the court of King Jeongjo at the end of the 18th century, these works blend Chinese erudition, Jesuit art of perspective and Korean imagination.
Books, porcelain, scholarly objects, and shattered perspectives compose a universe that is both intellectual and dreamlike, far removed from Western vanities. This exhibition demonstrates just how much Joseon Korea was a territory open, curious and connected to the world, far from the myth of the "hermit kingdom".
Seulgi Lee: a monumental installation as a link
At the invitation of the Guimet Museum, the artist Seulgi Lee sign a monumental installation entitled "Dal Dari, The Moon and the Legs", visible from April 2026 to February 2027. Displayed on the museum's facade and extended by an interior fresco created using traditional techniques DancheongThis work links contemporary architecture, Korean symbolism and ancestral know-how inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage.
A South Korean artist born in Seoul and living in Paris since the 1990s, Seulgi Lee Seulgi Lee develops a unique body of work at the crossroads of contemporary art, anthropology, and traditional craftsmanship. Her practice is based on deliberately minimalist forms, geometric volumes, flat planes of color, and elementary motifs, which she enriches with intense symbolism. For over a decade, Seulgi Lee has collaborated closely with artisans in Korea, France, Japan, and Morocco, reviving vernacular techniques and transposing them into a resolutely contemporary language. Winner of the Korea Artist Prize and exhibited in numerous biennials and international institutions, she explores notions of ritual, collective memory, and transmission through her work. Her monumental installation at the Guimet Museum is fully in line with this approach, creating a dialogue between architecture, color, and Korean cosmology in a work conceived as both a sensory and spiritual experience.
A vibrant and immersive cultural program
Throughout 2026, the Guimet Museum also offers shows, concerts, cinema, literature, pansori, Buddhist and shamanistic traditions, not forgetting key moments dedicated to the K pop or the family K-HorrorA cross-disciplinary program that makes the museum a true place of life, vibrating to the rhythm of Korea.
With this event dedicated to Korea, the Guimet Museum affirms its role as a bridge between cultures and establishes Paris as one of the major European centers for discovering Korean culture. An exceptional year, both scholarly and sensory, which invites the visitor to understand, feel and celebrate a plural civilization, deeply rooted in its history and resolutely turned towards the future.
Ema Lynnx
Photos: Guimet 2026 – K-arrément Corée!
