Talk: The Korean Tiger, from Mountain Lords to “KPop Demon Hunters”

Speaker: Sunglim Kim (Associate Professor of Art History, Dartmouth University)

For centuries, the tiger has occupied a special place in Korean art and culture. Revered as the “Lord of the Mountain,” it was feared as a powerful wild animal and honored as a guardian capable of warding off evil. Tigers also appear alongside mountain spirits in religious paintings and in Korean folk painting, or minhwa, as playful, awkward, and sometimes comical creatures.

This talk explores the changing image of the Korean tiger, from sacred guardian and mountain lord to national symbol, popular mascot, and contemporary character. Over time, the tiger became closely connected to Korean cultural identity and came to be seen as an animal representing Korea and its people. The talk concludes with Derpy, the beloved blue tiger from Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters, whose design reimagines Korean tiger-and-magpie paintings for a global audience. Through these examples, the talk considers why the tiger has remained one of the most familiar and enduring symbols of Korean culture.

About the speaker

Sunglim Kim is an Associate Professor of Art History at Dartmouth University. Her scholarship focuses on pre-modern and early 20th-century Korean art and culture. Her research interests include the rise of consumer culture in late Chosŏn dynasty and the role of the professional nouveau riche, the so-called chungin (middle people) in the production, distribution, collection, and consumption of art in 18th and 19th century Korea; artistic exchanges among China, Korea, and Japan; the shaping of images of Korea and her people during the Japanese colonial period; and the use of visual space as political tool in modern and contemporary Korea.