This series is based on the report 《Korea Art Market 2025》, jointly published by the Seoul National University Institute of Management Research and the Paradise Cultural Foundation, and examines the current landscape and future direction of the Korean contemporary art market across five installments.
 
The first article, “Recession or Transition?”, diagnoses the overall trends and structural changes in the market; the second explores “The Survival Strategies Chosen by Galleries”; the third focuses on “The Transformation and Role of Art Fairs”; the fourth analyzes “The Restructuring of the Auction Market”; and the final installment, 〈Power 20: The Map of Influence in Korean Art〉, investigates the emerging order and dynamics shaping Korea’s art market today.

If one phrase were to express the 2025 Korean art market it would be ‘a cold wave.’ Auction success rates, gallery sales, art fair transaction volumes—all indicators are on the decline; this year the market has literally frozen.
 
Yet the 《Korea Art Market 2025》 report diagnoses that beneath the surface of this downturn “a transformation of infrastructure is underway.” It is not a mere short-term recession but a process of reconfiguration into a new ecosystem.
 
Kim Min-seok, research fellow at the SNU Business Research Institute and general editor of the report, states, “2025 is not the retreat of the market but a turning point in its language,” analysing that “the investment-centred art market is shifting into a taste-centred market; the aesthetics of ownership are moving into the aesthetics of relationship.”


 
Surface of the cold wave, depth of the transition

Among 26 major domestic galleries, 57.7 % reported decreased sales compared to the previous year. Although many reduced exhibition numbers and art-fair participation, few said they had reduced the number of exclusive artists. Rather, 76.9 % of galleries maintained or increased their number of exclusive artists.

In light of this result, curator Jeong Yu-jin of the Paradise Cultural Foundation explains, “Galleries chose survival criteria focused on maintaining relationships with their artists rather than simply cutting costs.”
 
This shift is altering the central question of the market. Whereas in the past the core was ‘who buys the artworks?’, now it is ‘with whom do we build relationships?’
 
Professor Lee Hyun-woo of the SNU Culture Industry Policy Center adds, “Value is now formed not through sales mediated by exhibitions but through the artist’s narrative, their social-media activity, and the audience’s experience.”
 


Floor of the auction market, return of middle price range

This year the report shows through auction data the underlying change in the market’s strata.
 
In H2 2024 South Korean auction total value was KRW 46.1 billion (≈ USD 33.3 million) hitting a post-pandemic low; in H1 2025 it rebounded to KRW 56.4 billion (≈ USD 40.7 million) up 22 %. The success rate also recovered to 50.4 %.
 
Research fellow Park Ji-hoon describes this as “not a temporary spike but a sign that a re-adjustment of transaction structure is occurring.”

What merits careful attention is that high-end transactions over KRW 1 billion (≈ USD 720,000) have contracted sharply, while works in the KRW 100 million to 500 million range (≈ USD 72,000 – 360,000) have increased in share, showing a re-centering of the market.
 
Data-analysis team researcher Lee Su-bin interprets this as “as speculative demand that drove the market’s upper tier disappears, a collector base oriented toward medium-/long-term holding is returning.”
 
Also, according to the report, the participation rate of MZ-generation collectors rose from 18.4 % in 2023 to 24.1 % in 2025; these collectors prioritize “empathy” over profit and “participation” over ownership.
 
Curator Jeong Yu-jin states, “This generation is both fan and co-planner of the artist,” and “from the point where the boundary between audience and artist dissolves, new demand is emerging.”

Fair’s comeback, expansion of the city

Another change in the Korean art market is visible in art fairs.
 
In 2025 the Galleries Art Fair recorded 6,100 VIP day visitors, a 30 % increase year-on-year, and the sales share of emerging-artist booths exceeded 40 %.
 
Researcher Hong Ye-rin diagnoses, “Rather than only purchase-centred viewing, participatory audiences consuming exhibitions as cultural experiences are increasing.” This trend extends into Kiaf-Frieze Seoul and changes the urban spatial structure.
 
As one example, in September 2025 the Frieze House Seoul modelled on London’s ‘No.9 Cork Street’, opened in Yaksu-dong.

Researcher Jeong Seong-hun adds, “Seoul is expanding from a short-term sales-event city into a network hub where art and industry coexist, and this change alters the art-market performance indicators.”
 
In the past the benchmark was “sales,” now “participation rate, dwell time, revisit rate” are emerging as the new KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Research fellow Kim Min-seok forecasts, “The density of relationships is becoming more important than market efficiency, and that point will determine the sustainability of the Korean art market.”
 

 
From the language of downturn to the language of transition

The conclusion of 《Korea Art Market 2025》 analyses that the 2025 Korean art market is not simply a slump but a period of linguistic re-construction.
 
Galleries kept their artists, collectors chose taste, cities transformed from places of sale into places of relationship. In the final sentence of the report Kim Min-seok writes: “The cold wave of 2025 is not the end of the market but the moment the door to the next order opens.”
 
“Preference over money, relationship over ownership, co-existence over generation” — this new order is rewriting the future of the Korean art market.



Source (Download): Korea Art Market 2025 (Seoul National University Business Research Institute & Paradise Cultural Foundation, 2025).