The landscape of influence in contemporary Korean art is shifting

The Power 20 list released in《Korea Art Market 2025》offers one of the clearest snapshots of how influence in the Korean art market is formed—and where it is moving. The key shift indicated by this year’s list is straightforward: influence is no longer generated from a single center.

While a small number of major collectors and institutions that once dominated the market still occupy important positions, their influence now exists alongside that of new actors, forming a reconfigured and plural structure.

Artists active on the global stage, corporate cultural strategists, art-platform operators, and figures with mass cultural reach have all begun to occupy distinct positions within the broader structure of influence. This shift signals an era in which the art market can no longer be explained solely through internal dynamics. Influence now emerges at the intersections of art, popular culture, corporate strategy, and urban policy, becoming increasingly complex and multilayered.
 


Traditional authority remains, but centrality is dispersing

Power 20 continues to include long-standing collectors and institutional actors who have supported the Korean art world for decades. Yet their influence is no longer absolute. Rather than being displaced from the center, they now operate within a structure where multiple centers coexist, each negotiating its relative position.
 
The art market no longer functions as a single capital-driven hierarchy. Where purchasing power once dictated market direction, influence is now shaped through a combination of platform visibility, global institutional networks, fandom-based cultural circulation, and corporate cultural strategies. Traditional authority still matters, but it no longer dictates the market on its own. The mode through which influence is produced has fundamentally changed.

Market shifts in 2024–2025 and the restructuring of influence

Over the past one to two years, the Korean art market has undergone structural transformation. Many galleries have shifted their strategies away from short-term sales toward long-term trust-building and international collaboration. This extended temporal approach—centered on artist development and institutional networks—aims to reinforce both market stability and global connectivity.

Art fairs have evolved beyond transactional events to become central components of urban cultural infrastructure. The movement of audiences they generate and the cultural vitality they bring to cities extend their impact beyond the market, giving fairs an increasingly pronounced role as “urban platforms.”

Changes in the auction market are also notable. As speculation-driven price volatility subsides, transactions increasingly reflect artists’ long-term trajectories and value narratives. Auctions are expanding their role as record-keepers of the market and as guides for medium- to long-term value assessment.
 
Corporate cultural strategy has likewise become a central driver of market transformation. Through exhibitions, spatial programming, and brand collaborations, corporations are reshaping the art ecosystem from outside its traditional boundaries. At the same time, the growing number of artists connected directly to global institutions has significantly strengthened artist-centered influence—one of the clearest indicators of structural change in the market.

An era of shifting criteria for influence

In 2025, influence in the Korean art market can no longer be understood through simplified, traditional benchmarks. Influence is not generated by a single resource but emerges as a structural outcome of intersecting and combining forces.

Capital power and institutional authority remain relevant, but they are no longer sufficient to explain influence. International trust gained through global institutions, visibility amplified by platforms and media, and the social ripple effects of fandom culture have all become central components of contemporary artistic influence.

Digital platforms, in particular, can expand an artist’s visibility to a global scale almost instantly, generating influence through mechanisms distinct from traditional institutional systems.

Corporate cultural strategies and urban infrastructure policies now intervene directly in the formation of artistic influence. As exhibitions and projects increasingly align with brand strategies, their social impact expands, while city-level cultural policies actively reshape the influence structures of artists and institutions. Influence is thus evolving into a multilayered force formed not only within the art world, but across broader cultural systems.

Ultimately, influence is determined by the ability to access diverse resources and connect them—to organize and activate networks. This signals Korea’s transition from a centrally dominated system to a network-based ecology of influence.


 
Looking ahead: the next 3–5 years

Power 20 functions not merely as a list of influential figures, but as an indicator of where influence in Korean art is heading. Over the next three to five years, influence is expected to become even more distributed and diversified. Traditional figures will not disappear, but their influence will operate within broader, more complex networks.

Platform operators, globally active artists, and corporate cultural strategists are likely to solidify their positions as key nodes in this evolving structure.

The criteria for influence will continue to shift from capital-centered authority to relationship- and connectivity-based dynamics, as the Korean art market expands further into a multifaceted cultural ecosystem.


 
Power 20: not a list, but a map of change

Power 20 is not simply a ranking of twenty influential figures. It functions more accurately as a map of transformation—revealing how influence is generated, how it circulates, and where it is expanding.

Influence no longer emanates from a single center. Multiple centers coexist, and the ways they connect—through trust, partnerships, global access, and public visibility—shape the overall landscape.

Power 20 offers the clearest evidence that Korean contemporary art has already entered a complex, multilayered, network-based system of influence.