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The year 2026 marks the 20th anniversary of the passing of Nam June Paik (1932–2006). Long before the emergence of the World Wide Web, Paik envisioned a globally networked society. In 1974, he began conceptualizing Electronic Superhighway, anticipating the cultural and social transformations that digital networks would bring. As early as 1964, he introduced Robot K-456, bringing the relationship between humans and machines into the realm of artistic experimentation.
2026.01.27
President Lee Jae-myung recently emphasized that “in the international society of the 21st century, culture is at the core of national prestige and national power,” adding that “even an additional supplementary budget should be arranged if necessary to restore and strengthen the foundations of culture and the arts.”
2026.01.20
In recent years, Korean contemporary art has no longer remained on the periphery of the global art world. Korean artists are continuously invited to major biennials and international museums, and in terms of both form and subject matter, Korean contemporary art has increasingly demonstrated the ability to respond to global artistic standards.
2026.01.06
The partnership between Frieze Seoul and Kiaf SEOUL has been extended for an additional five years. Approved with near-unanimous support at an extraordinary general meeting of the Galleries Association of Korea, the decision represents more than a simple contract renewal. It signals how the association—which oversees and operates Kiaf—currently understands and positions the structure of the art fair within Korea’s art ecosystem.
2025.12.23
Bradford’s work is often packaged under the label of “social abstraction.” Yet this term directly contradicts the foundations of abstraction itself and functions more as a sanitized institutional rhetoric that half-erases its ethical and political implications.
2025.12.02
In Korean contemporary art, the dominance of external theories is not simply a matter of imitation or personal preference. It results from a long-accumulated structure shaped by art education, institutional frameworks, and evaluation systems within the art market and public institutions.
2025.11.18
In contemporary art, the market determines the price of artworks. Galleries introduce artists, art fairs concentrate visibility and transactions, and auctions publicly confirm prices in the secondary market. As discussed in Part 7, these mechanisms together constitute the distribution system of today’s art market, revealing how prices are discovered, reiterated, and ultimately fixed.
2026.05.05
In contemporary art, galleries, art fairs, and auctions are no longer merely channels of distribution. They are the structures through which works enter the market, gain visibility, acquire prices, and determine the position of artists. Under the conditions of the post-contemporary, the importance of these structures becomes even more pronounced.
2026.04.21
The museum is the most stable institution in contemporary art and one of its most powerful mechanisms of selection. In contemporary art, the museum has functioned not simply as a space for collecting and exhibiting works, but as a key institution that determines what is recognized as contemporary art, which forms and languages acquire public visibility, and which exhibitions are granted institutional legitimacy.
2026.04.07
The discussion thus far converges on a single question. Where does the future of Korean contemporary art begin? Can that future be explained solely through more exhibitions, faster international expansion, larger market scales, and increasingly elaborate discursive rhetoric?
2026.03.24
When discussing the conditions of the post-contemporary, the first thing to guard against is the misunderstanding that it refers to a new style or a fashionable label. As discussed in the previous essays, the issue at stake is not the declaration of a new
2026.03.10
The current crisis of contemporary art cannot be explained by stagnation in production or exhaustion of imagination. Countless exhibitions and projects continue to be organized, and new formal strategies and critical concerns consistently emerge.
2026.02.24
