CLEVELAND, OH.- Ten Kings of Hell: The Afterlife in Medieval Korea, a landmark international exhibition, explores the artistic legacy of the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) in relation to their beliefs about death and the afterlife in Korea. Organized in partnership with the National Museum of Korea, the exhibition presents an exceptional array of important artworks, including Korea’s national treasure and the CMA’s recent acquisitions—the Fourth King of Hell from the late 1300s, the Knife Sheath from the 1100s (Apollo’s Acquisition of the Year Award 2022), and the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva from the 1300s, as well as a newly rediscovered Goryeo-period Water Moon Avalokiteśvara. Developed and curated by Dr. Sooa Im McCormick, Korea Foundation Curator of Korean Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to experience the visual culture of the afterlife as it was imagined and understood in medieval Korea.

The exhibition unfolds across three interlocking sections, each illuminating the soul’s passage from death through purgatory to the Buddhist paradise. At its dramatic center is the historic reunification of all 10 scrolls. This set of 10 awe-inspiring Ten Kings of Hell hanging scrolls, which are currently housed in six different museums around the world, is reunited in the exhibition for the first time since the 1960s. Of particular significance is the Third King, whose whereabouts remained unknown for more than 50 years. Its recent rediscovery in the Museum of Modern Art in Gunma, Japan, transformed this exhibition into a celebratory venue, prompting new scholarly understanding of the 10 Kings imagery tradition in Korea.

Equally important was the discovery of a note concerning the set’s provenance alongside the Third King scroll. Containing a statement by the highly respected Japanese art historian Wakimoto Rakushiken (1883–1963), who served on various national committees of important cultural properties, this note reveals that the set had been preserved in a Buddhist temple in Nagoya, but was sold in the late 1800s when the temple faced financial hardship in the aftermath of the Meiji government’s anti-Buddhist policies.





On view from Sunday, October 11, 2026, through Sunday, January 3, 2027, in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall, this ticketed exhibition features more than one hundred works drawn from leading public and private collections in Korea, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, including works from the CMA’s renowned Korean collection. The exhibition is closed on Tuesday, December 1, 2026, for a rotation of works. The Third King of Hell from Gumma is replaced by Gala Porras-Kim’s The Third King of Hell Afterimage (2025), and a set of Chinese Southern Song-period Ten Kings of Hell, on loan from the Nara National Museum, is installed.

The exhibition delves into global and transregional aspects of artworks, ranging from ceramics and paintings to textiles that produced and consumed in Buddhist death rituals. Additional notable artworks include:

• Anicka Yi’s Bending Willow Branches (2025)

• Park Chan-kyong’s Belated Bosal (2019)

• Do Ho Suh, Karma Juggler (2007)

• The Third King of Hell Afterimage (2025) by 2025 MacArthur Fellow Gala Porras-Kim, created specifically for the exhibition

Among its most compelling narratives, the exhibition examines how sociopolitical upheavals and environmental pressures shaped medieval Korea’s deep preoccupation with purgatorial afterlife—not only as a moral and devotional terrain but also as a response to broader natural forces, from climatic volatility during the Little Ice Age to the devastating reach of the Black Death. A select group of contemporary artworks is also included to underscore the enduring resonance of humanity’s existential concerns.

“Beliefs in the afterlife are common across diverse cultural and spiritual traditions; many hold that death is not the end, but rather a continuation of existence in another form,” says Dr. Sooa Im McCormick, Korea Foundation Curator of Korean Art. “While the exhibition offers an immersive journey into the Korean afterlife, it also invites visitors to consider humanity’s universal curiosity about what lies beyond death. By exploring death and the afterlife, I hope that this exhibition offers a compelling lens through which to consider enduring existential questions that connect medieval Korea with contemporary audiences in the US.”

Additionally, the exhibition incorporates innovative digital experiences that deepen engagement with the artworks and themes. Visitors can interact with a Sutra Container in 3-D and to look closer into the artwork by exploring intricate details of select paintings on a large-scale “Zoom Wall.” These visual experiences are carefully designed to create a multisensory experience, from the meditative resonance of a Buddhist temple bell to the evocative projection of contemporary works.

Catalogue

Ten Kings of Hell: The Afterlife in Medieval Korea (coedited by Sooa Im McCormick, Korea Foundation Curator of Korea Art and Yukio Lippit, Jeffrey T. Chambers and Andrea Okamura Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Japanese Art, Harvard University) is a substantial, richly illustrated catalogue, anchored in the contributing scholars’ shared commitment to transregional and interdisciplinary investigation.