Korea Art Market Forum 2026 took place on September 30 at Art Korea Lab in Gwanghwamun, jointly organized by the Paradise Cultural Foundation and the Business Research Institute at Seoul National University. Marking five years of collaboration between Kiaf and Frieze, the forum addressed Korea’s gallery landscape, art fairs and cities, and young artists. Sang-Hoon Kim, a professor at Seoul National University Business School, delivered the opening remarks.
2026.10.06
An archive is not a warehouse in which materials are simply accumulated. It is a structure that preserves and reconnects the relationships between them. Consider a single work of art. Its title and artist’s name are not enough to fully understand it. When was it made? What materials does it comprise?
2026.09.22
The 16th Gwangju Biennale opened on September 5, 2026. Titled 《You Must Change Your Life》, the biennale presents its main exhibition and pavilion projects through November 15.
2026.09.08
On July 1, the Ministry of Personnel Management opened a public recruitment process for a new director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA). The term of current director Kim Sung-hee expires this September. As the search began, the names of several potential candidates quickly started circulating within the Korean art world.
2026.08.18
On July 26, 2026, the Art Services Business Registration System came into effect under the Art Promotion Act. Businesses operating in six categories—galleries, art auctions, art advisory services, art rental and sales, art appraisal, and art exhibitions—are now required to register with the relevant local authority.
2026.08.04
Art spaces are more than venues for exhibiting works of art. They serve as vital intermediaries that discover new artists, generate critical discourse, and connect audiences, markets, and institutions. Changes in these spaces, therefore, are not simply matters of individual organizations adopting different modes of operation. They are important indicators of how the contemporary art ecosystem has evolved and the direction in which it is moving.
2026.07.21
This text is not written to introduce or defend Korean contemporary art. Nor is it intended to declare a new movement or to predict future artistic forms. The point of departure for this series is a more fundamental question: Under what conditions has contemporary art operated, and are those conditions still valid today?
2026.01.13
If modernism grounded art in formal innovation and historical progress, and postmodernism dismantled that narrative by foregrounding difference and the relativization of meaning, contemporary art today no longer functions as a framework capable of articulating new aesthetic principles or a coherent historical direction.
2025.12.30
Today’s art market operates on a vast speculative structure camouflaged by the language of “investment.” Artworks are no longer read as products of emotion or thought; instead, they are interpreted as indicators of price volatility.
2025.12.09
Today’s contemporary art scene has been rewritten in the language of capital. Artworks have become units of transaction rather than outcomes of thought, and the artist’s creative act is adjusted somewhere between private desire and market demand. The spiritual value of art—the inner form where human perception meets reflection—is gradually losing its ground.
2025.11.11
In the previous essay, “The Age of Role Reversal,” we examined how essence is obscured by the non-essential. This chapter turns to the loss of value—a deeper layer of that same inversion. Here, “value” does not refer to market price. It signifies the belief in authenticity, autonomy, and inner necessity that once made art possible as art—a shared yet invisible agreement that sustained the meaning of artistic creation.
2025.10.21
Today, contemporary art appears more dazzling than ever. Art fairs around the world draw hundreds of thousands of visitors, and record-breaking prices are set at auctions. In Korea as well, Frieze Seoul has become a focal point for the Asian art market, while regional fairs such as Art Busan and Art Gwangju continue to expand. Social media feeds are flooded with exhibition snapshots, and blockbuster shows draw long lines of eager visitors.
2025.09.23
