THINKING ALOUD: CAN ART BE DIVIDED BY GEOGRAPHY?

 

 

During the Covid pandemic, a friend suggested I watch my first Korean drama. I accepted almost out of curiosity, with no idea that one recommendation would open the door to an entirely new cultural world. One series led to another, then to Korean cinema, Korean literature and, eventually, to BTS.

Around the same time, I discovered that Michela Murgia—whose work and public voice I deeply admired—shared the same passion for Korea, K-dramas and BTS. Listening to her speak about K-pop changed something in me. She argued that a genuine passion is never superficial: if it drives us to learn, to understand and to explore, it becomes an act of knowledge. Those words stayed with me. They gave me permission to stop apologising for my curiosity.

Yesterday's news brought them back to mind.

BTS, the South Korean group that has become one of the most influential musical phenomena of the twenty-first century, announced that they will not submit their music for consideration at the 2027 Grammy Awards. Their decision follows the Recording Academy's introduction of a new category, Best Asian Pop Music Performance, a move that has sparked an intense international debate. Many artists and fans see the category not as a celebration of Asian music, but as a form of cultural segregation: a separate space that risks excluding Asian artists from competing on equal terms in the mainstream categories. Shortly afterwards, fans noticed that several of BTS's historic Grammy performance videos had disappeared from the Recording Academy's website, further fuelling the controversy.

Whether these events are connected is something history will clarify.

What interests me, however, is a much broader question.

Can art really be divided by geography?

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this question extends far beyond music.

When we walk into a bookshop, we may find shelves labelled Japanese Literature or Latin American Fiction. These categories help readers discover authors they might otherwise overlook. But literary prizes do not ask writers to compete only within the boundaries of their continent. When Han Kang received the Nobel Prize in Literature, she was recognised not as an Asian writer competing against other Asian writers, but simply as one of the world's greatest living authors.

Shouldn't music aspire to the same principle?

For some years now, I have found myself increasingly drawn towards South Korean culture. It began with BTS, continued with K-dramas, expanded through cinema and eventually led me to the extraordinary novels of Han Kang.

Only afterwards did I come across the expression that helped me understand what I had been experiencing: soft power.

South Korea has become one of the world's most influential cultural voices not through military or political dominance, but through stories, films, television, literature and music. It has invited millions of people to discover a culture that, until recently, many of us knew very little about.

That, to me, is one of the most remarkable cultural achievements of our time.

And yet, despite this extraordinary global influence, Korean popular culture is still often underestimated.

Why?

I suspect at least two old prejudices are still at work.

The first is cultural.

For centuries, Western institutions have tended—often unconsciously—to regard themselves as the natural centre of artistic recognition. Works from elsewhere are welcomed, admired and sometimes celebrated, but they are still too often perceived as belonging to a separate category rather than to the shared landscape of world culture.

The second prejudice is equally persistent.

Anything loved overwhelmingly by women has frequently been considered less serious, less worthy of critical attention and somehow less prestigious than cultural phenomena with predominantly male audiences.

History offers countless examples of this tendency.

Perhaps BTS stand precisely at the intersection of these two prejudices.

They are Asian. And they are loved by millions of women across generations.

Yet reducing BTS to a successful boy band means overlooking what has made them such a remarkable cultural force.

Over the years they have consistently spoken about mental health, self-acceptance, education and social responsibility. They have addressed the United Nations, encouraged young people to believe in themselves and inspired millions of fans to engage in charitable initiatives around the world. Whether one enjoys their music is, ultimately, a matter of personal taste. What is far more difficult to deny is their extraordinary cultural significance.

This is why their decision to refuse submission to the Grammy Awards struck me as more than a gesture of protest.

It was a statement of principle.

In their words, they hope that music can be heard and appreciated "for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language."

I find that difficult to disagree with.

Perhaps the real question is not whether BTS deserve a Grammy.

Millions of listeners around the world have already answered that question for themselves.

Perhaps the real question is whether our cultural institutions are ready to recognise that artistic excellence no longer has a single geographical centre.

As I reflected on these events, I found myself thinking again about Michela Murgia.

She did not teach me to admire BTS.

She taught me something much more important.

She taught me never to apologise for genuine curiosity.

Because curiosity leads us to read books written in distant languages.

To watch films made in cultures different from our own.

To listen to unfamiliar music.

And, sometimes, to question the categories through which we have always looked at the world.

Whether the Recording Academy changes its position or not, one fact remains.

Awards can celebrate greatness. They cannot create it.

If art truly has the power to bring people together across languages, cultures and continents, perhaps our task is not to divide it into ever smaller categories, but to learn to recognise excellence wherever it comes from.

That, after all, is one of the most beautiful things culture can teach us.