In June 2025, the international art journal 「The Art Newspaper」 published a special feature titled “Korean Artists Today 2025.”
 
Produced in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS), the project goes beyond national promotion; it aims to present the current landscape of Korean contemporary art and the individual worlds of its artists to a global readership.
 
The feature combines main essays, artist interviews, and commentary from leading curators and museum directors, offering a comprehensive view of how Korean art has entered — and continues to redefine — the center of the global stage.

The Expansion of Korean Art — “A Contemporary Rhythm Shared with the World”

The main feature article, “Korean artists are taking the world by storm — but why does their work resonate so widely?” (Lisa Mobius, June 2 2025), explores why Korean artists are commanding attention across global art centers — from London and New York to Abu Dhabi and Singapore.
 
The article notes:

“Korean artists have been part of the global art scene for decades. But today, they are redefining their place in the world through subtler, more complex modes of engagement.”

In other words, Korean art is no longer framed as a “regional newcomer,” but as an integral axis within global contemporary discourse.
 
Lee Jee-won, curator at the Sharjah Art Foundation, observes that “From K-pop to K-dramas, Korean culture already holds a visible place on the world’s cultural map — and art is now extending naturally within that current.”
 
Clara Kim of the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA LA) adds, “The international art world is now witnessing, in real time, the evolution of Korean art.”

Artists Now — “Where Concept Meets Emotion”

At the heart of the feature lies an exploration of how Korean artists are forging their own languages on the world stage.

Ayoung Kim investigates South Korea’s platform-based “delivery economy” in her single-channel video Delivery Dancer’s Sphere(2022), weaving the relationship between technology, humanity, and movement into rhythmic visual form. She will open a solo exhibition at MoMA PS1 in New York this November.
 
Do Ho Suh presentedRubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home(2013–22) at Tate Modern, offering a new architectural interpretation of space, memory, and personal mobility. His work demonstrates how post-Dansaekhwa visual language has evolved into structures of memory.

Lee Bul’s monumental installationLong Tail Halo, created for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Facade Commission, fuses metal, light, and mythic symbolism to explore modern femininity and the origins of human existence.

Haegue Yang comments that “Korean artists have always excelled, regardless of era,” calling the current international attention “a long-overdue recognition.” Her works are cited as leading examples of blurring the boundaries between material, concept, and language.
 
Mire Lee is highlighted for installations probing the boundary between the body and emotion, marking her as one of the most rapidly rising figures of her generation.
 
Suki Seokyeong Kang is noted for her large-scale solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, combining the rhythmic sensibility of Korean tradition with modern structures to explore balance and tension in form.
 
The feature also introduces Sun Woo, Byungjun Kwon, Che Onejoon, Minae Kim, and Minha Park, each through their distinctive mediums and themes.
 
Sun Woo defines bodily perception as “the body’s landscape,” expanding sensory experience into visual space.

Byungjun Kwon merges sound and performance to induce participatory awareness; Che Onejoon examines the border between personal and collective identities through photography and installation; Minae Kim re-frames familiar situations through irony and humor.

Minha Park remarks, “I want to create a state that cannot be immediately explained,” exploring the tension within emotional ambiguity.

Collectively, the feature refrains from over-interpreting each artist’s language; instead, it reveals the emotional topography of Korean art through their sensibilities and attitudes.
 


“Since the 1990s: Korean Art in Open Circuits”

Yeo Kyung-hwan, curator at the Seoul Museum of Art, explains: “Since the 1990s, Korean art has actively embraced the ideas of contemporaneity and multiplicity amid social and political globalization.”
 
The establishment of the Gwangju Biennale (1995), Busan Biennale (1998), and Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2000) laid the institutional foundations of contemporary Korean art. During this period, public and private museums, galleries, and alternative spaces proliferated.

The entry of global galleries such as White Cube, Perrotin, and Pace, Frieze Seoul in 2022, further integrated Korean art into the international network.
 


Exhibitions Bridging Past and Present — “Remembering Experiment, Creating New Contexts”

The article spotlights《Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea 1960s–1970s》as a crucial turning point.
 
Originating at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA),the exhibition traveled to the Guggenheim Museum New York (2023) and Hammer Museum Los Angeles (2024), linking the radical spirit of Korean avant-garde art to global experimental movements.

Curator Kang Soo-jung remarked, “The passionate and radical aesthetics of that era remain both the roots and the living testimony of Korean art today.”
 
Yeo Kyung-hwan adds that this period, led by Nam June Paik, marked the decisive moment when Korea’s experimental spirit entered international circuits.
 


Beyond Branding — Toward One’s Own Language

In its closing section,「The Art Newspaper」succinctly articulates the current position of Korean art: “The delicacy and complexity of art cannot be neatly packaged under a single brand like ‘K-Art.’”
 
In other words, Korean art should not be consumed merely as an extension of the Korean Wave, but regarded as a distinct artistic language of thought and feeling.
 
Yeo Kyung-hwan notes, “For most Korean artists, ‘Koreanness’ is not an identity to be asserted, but an inner question that must be constantly reinterpreted.”
 
This statement best encapsulates how Korean art today traverses between tradition and the global, between the individual and the collective, forging its own language through that fluid negotiation.
 


Korean Art in the World — and Beyond

“Korean Artists Today 2025” reveals how Korean art communicates with the world from multiple, richly complex points of intersection.
 
It is not a record of a “discovered” art scene but a document of Korean artists who are already embedded within the global artistic language. Underlying the entire project is the conviction that Korean art cannot be defined by a single image.
 
The diversity and plurality unique to Korean art are precisely what captivate the world today. No longer translated or mediated for global audiences, Korean art now speaks in its own voice, engaging the world on equal terms.

References

• The Art Newspaper