A special exhibition featuring fashion art pioneer Keum Ki-sook has surpassed 500,000 cumulative visitors at the Seoul Museum of Craft Art, setting a record-breaking attendance for the museum.
The museum announced Thursday that "Dancing, Dreaming, Enlightening," a special exhibition of works donated by Keum that opened December 23 last year, recorded 501,781 cumulative visitors as of February 18. The figure represents an exceptional achievement, reaching 500,000 visitors in approximately 50 days excluding Monday closures. By comparison, the Ron Mueck solo exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul—last year's most talked-about show—took 90 days to reach the same milestone. Daily attendance averaged over 8,000 visitors, with a weekend peak of 18,730.
Keum established the concept of Korean "fashion art" and pioneered the expansion of clothing into fine art in the early 1990s. She built a distinctive artistic vision by incorporating unconventional and discarded materials—including wire, beads, organdy silk, sequins, and waste materials—while addressing environmental concerns and recycling in her work.
The designer gained widespread public recognition through her "placard bearer costumes" at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics opening ceremony, which earned the nickname "Snow Fairies." The garments reinterpreted traditional hanbok lines and structures in a modern context using her signature wire technique, establishing Korean fashion art as a national cultural icon.
Keum donated 56 pieces across 55 works valued at approximately 1.31 billion won ($910,000) to the Seoul Museum of Craft Art. The collection includes early fashion art experiments, her iconic wire dresses and hanbok sculptures, recent upcycling works, and archival materials. The current exhibition was curated based on these donated works.
At the exhibition's entrance, a white dress titled "White Plum Blossom" floats in a pitch-black space. The garment, crafted from wire adorned with transparent beads, creates a fantastical atmosphere that has made it a popular photo spot, generating rapid word-of-mouth interest immediately after opening. Interest in the "Snow Fairy" costumes from the PyeongChang Olympics has intensified as the exhibition coincides with the 25th Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Various dresses and jackets on display draw attention for incorporating their own shadows as part of the artwork. The hanbok pieces have received particular praise for embodying Korean aesthetics through Keum's distinctive materials combined with graceful movement and the beauty of empty space.
In response to daily crowds lining up before opening, the museum extended the exhibition from its original closing date of March 15 to March 22. "This special exhibition of Keum Ki-sook's donated works has resonated with a broad public audience despite featuring fashion art, a subject that may be unfamiliar even within the craft field," said Kim Su-jung, director of the Seoul Museum of Craft Art. "Many visitors who hadn't seen the exhibition came during the weekend and holidays."
The exhibition is free and requires no reservation. Extended hours until 9 p.m. are available every Friday.