Fine art engages with society, the market, and institutions, but its mode of existence cannot be reduced to commodity production or the provision of services. An artist is not someone who produces works in order to satisfy the demands of a specific customer, and an artwork is not a product made to provide functional utility
2026.05.26
On April 30, 2026, all five members of the international jury for《In Minor Keys》, the 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, resigned just nine days before the exhibition’s opening. Led by jury president Solange Oliveira Farkas, the jury members Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi released a brief statement of resignation through e-flux.
2026.05.12
Over the past few years, the landscape of the Asian art market has been rapidly reshaped. Seoul has drawn increasing attention from the international art world through Frieze Seoul, Kiaf Seoul, and Seoul Art Week, while Hong Kong, despite political changes and the impact of China’s economic slowdown, continues to maintain its position as a powerful transactional hub.
2026.04.28
One of the most striking phenomena in the recent Korean art world is the rapid increase in the number of art fairs. Not only in Seoul, but across the country—in Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, Jeju, Cheongju, and elsewhere—art fairs of differing scales and characters are being held throughout the year. In April of this year alone, as many as four or five art fairs took place almost simultaneously.
2026.04.14
Non-profit art spaces in Korean contemporary art began to emerge in the late 1990s. Spaces such as Alternative Space Loop (1999– ), Project Space Sarubia (1999- ), Art Space Pool (1999–Jan 2021), and Insa Art Space (2000–Jun 2025) functioned as platforms for experimental practices and emerging artists that were not accommodated within institutional art, forming a structure that explored new possibilities for artistic production both outside and within institutional frameworks.
2026.03.31
The Damien Hirst exhibition held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art carries a meaning that goes beyond that of a typical exhibition of a famous overseas artist. It is an event that introduces a single artist, but at the same time it serves as an occasion to reconsider how the system of contemporary art operates today and what role a national museum should play within that structure
2026.03.17
“Asian contemporary art” does not refer to a single shared style or aesthetic. Korea, China, Japan, and the countries of Southeast Asia each have distinct histories, political and social conditions, art institutions, and markets.
2026.08.11
The Anachronism series began by examining how Korean art has continued to understand and organize itself under changing conditions through languages, institutions, and models of success inherited from the past. It considered the recurring tendency to reproduce earlier
2026.07.28
A fundamental problem in Korean art history remains insufficiently resolved: the criteria by which its historical periods are distinguished. When did Korea’s modern period in art begin? What does hyeondae misul—the category conventionally called “modern art” or “contemporary art” in Korean—actually signify, and where does it begin? And from what
2026.07.14
The previous two essays examined the anachronism of Korean contemporary art. The first identified the problem of explaining the present through the languages of the past. The second examined the structure through which past models of success continue to be repeated as strategies for the future.
2026.06.30
The anachronism of Korean contemporary art is not simply a matter of outdated institutions or obsolete sensibilities. The more fundamental problem lies in the way methods that once proved effective continue to be repeated today as strategies for the future. A failed past can be criticized relatively easily. A successful past, however, tends to survive for a long time. It becomes inertia within institutions, a standard within policy, an object of imitation within the market, and a source of justification within discourse.
2026.06.16
Anachronism generally refers to a temporal dislocation. It describes a condition in which objects, languages, institutions, or sensibilities from different historical periods appear out of sync within the same moment. Yet under the post-contemporary condition, anachronism does not simply mean something old, outdated, or behind the times.
2026.06.02
