This year, Seoul Art Week brings together 135 visual art spaces across the city, while a series of evening programs unfolds on different dates in Euljiro, Hannam, Cheongdam, and Samcheong. Major museum exhibitions, film screenings, and public art projects add to the program, making September in Seoul an opportunity to experience not only the art fairs but also the broader art scene across the city.
 
 
 
Euljiro Night — The Start of Seoul Art Week
 
Seoul Art Week begins in Euljiro on August 31.
 
Starting in the afternoon, the Seoul Metropolitan Government will present workshops and artist talks in collaboration with exhibition spaces across Euljiro. From 7 to 10 p.m., an opening night will take place at N:NEWS (News Museum) Euljiro, accompanied by exhibitions, performances, and networking programs.
 
Euljiro has a distinctly different character from Seoul’s other major art districts. Artist studios, independent art spaces, and new cultural venues have emerged among the neighborhood’s long-established printing shops, tool stores, and industrial facilities, creating an art ecosystem quite different from districts built primarily around commercial galleries.
 
What makes Euljiro Night particularly interesting is this coexistence. Old industrial spaces and new art venues, everyday businesses and exhibition spaces are interwoven throughout the neighborhood. It offers a glimpse not only into Seoul’s younger and more experimental art scene, but also into the cultural transformation of the city itself.

Hannam Night — Seoul’s Emerging Art Hub
 
Hannam Night takes place on September 1.
 
Hannam and the wider Yongsan area have rapidly gained prominence within Seoul’s art landscape. Major museums, Korean and international galleries, and new cultural spaces have established themselves across the area, creating a growing art cluster that brings museums, commercial galleries, and cultural spaces into close proximity.
 
During Hannam Night, galleries across the neighborhood extend their opening hours and present exhibitions and special programs. Spaces that are normally encountered individually become active at the same time, making the broader art landscape of Hannam more visible.
 
The area also reflects the changes taking place in Seoul’s art scene as international galleries have increasingly established permanent spaces in the city in recent years.
Expanding the itinerary to nearby museums adds another dimension. Leeum Museum of Art presents a solo exhibition by Koo Jeong A, while Amorepacific Museum of Art in Yongsan presents 《Sol LeWitt: Open Structure》.

Cheongdam Night — From the Art Fair to the Gallery
 
Cheongdam Night takes place on the evening of September 2, the opening day of Kiaf and Frieze Seoul.
 
Cheongdam is home to a concentration of leading Korean commercial galleries, international galleries, and cultural spaces operated by major brands. Its proximity to COEX also makes it a natural extension of a day spent at the fairs.
 
At an art fair, each gallery presents a concentrated selection of artists and works within a single booth. The experience changes in the gallery itself, where an artist or exhibition can be encountered within an independent space and in a fuller exhibition context.
 
It is also notable that more than 50 galleries participating in Frieze Seoul this year operate permanent spaces in Seoul. A significant number of international galleries participating in the fair have already become part of the city’s everyday art ecosystem.
 
Cheongdam Night therefore offers an opportunity to experience, on the same day, two different ways in which galleries present art: within the compressed format of the fair booth and within their own exhibition spaces.

Samcheong Night — Where Korean Modern and Contemporary Art Has Taken Root
 
Samcheong Night follows on September 3.
 
Even as Seoul’s art landscape has rapidly changed, Samcheong has maintained its position as one of the city’s most important art districts. Around the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Seoul are major galleries and cultural spaces that have played significant roles in the development of Korea’s art scene.
 
This year, MMCA Seoul presents a major solo exhibition by Do Ho Suh, whose practice has consistently explored space, memory, migration, and identity. From the museum, visitors can continue on foot to nearby galleries before moving into the evening programs of Samcheong Night.
 
If Hannam represents one of Seoul’s newly emerging art clusters and Cheongdam reflects the current landscape of international galleries and the art market, Samcheong offers another perspective—one shaped by the longer history of Korea’s modern and contemporary art scene.
 
Its appeal also lies in the opportunity to encounter exhibitions at a pace quite different from the rapid circulation of the art fair.

The Find Seoul — 16,000 Artworks Scattered Across the City
 
This year, a single project will connect the four districts participating in Neighborhood Nights.
 
It is British artist Ryan Gander’s 《The Find Seoul》
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From August 31 through September 10, 16,000 specially produced coin-shaped works will be hidden in public spaces across Euljiro, Hannam, Cheongdam, Samcheong, and COEX. Each carries a different phrase, and those who discover one may either keep it or pass it on to someone else.

If an art fair brings artworks from around the world together in one place, 《The Find Seoul》 reverses that structure. It disperses works throughout the city and sets the audience in motion.
 
While walking through Euljiro, Hannam, Cheongdam, and Samcheong in search of galleries, visitors may unexpectedly come across one of the works. Discovering new spaces and neighborhoods along the way becomes part of the experience itself.
 
Rather than relying on monumental installations or conventional public art, the project uses 16,000 small coin-shaped works to turn Seoul itself into a kind of exhibition space.

Frieze Film × Busan Biennale — Connecting Seoul and Busan
 
This year, Frieze Film collaborates with the 2026 Busan Biennale to present moving-image works by participating Busan Biennale artists at SONGEUN in Seoul.
 
Art fairs and biennales are two major formats for presenting contemporary art, but they operate in distinctly different ways. While art fairs are structured primarily around galleries and the market, biennales are generally organized around curatorial frameworks and institutionally driven exhibitions.
 
This program brings those two spheres together in Seoul. At the same time, it creates a connection between two of Korea’s major art cities: Seoul and Busan.
 
For international art professionals visiting Korea during this period, the timing creates an especially interesting itinerary. After experiencing Kiaf and Frieze Seoul, museums, and galleries in Seoul, they can travel to Busan and encounter another dimension of contemporary art through the biennale.
 
More than a film screening program, the collaboration is notable for connecting different parts of Korea’s art scene that are simultaneously active in September.

Seoul’s Museums — A Different Pace from the Art Fair
 
During Art Week, Seoul’s major museums also present significant exhibitions.
 
For those interested in Korean modern and contemporary art, major exhibitions include Do Ho Suh at MMCA Seoul, Koo Jeong A at Leeum Museum of Art, and Yoo Youngkuk at the Seoul Museum of Art. Hoam Museum of Art presents 《Art Spectrum 2026》, while Art Sonje Center hosts exhibitions by Ham Yang Ah and Kim Mooyoung.
 
Looking more broadly at international modern and contemporary art, visitors can also see 《Sol LeWitt: Open Structure》 at Amorepacific Museum of Art, 《The Cubists: Inventing Modern Vision》 at Centre Pompidou Hanwha, and a solo exhibition by Es Devlin at Futura Seoul.

At an art fair, visitors encounter a large number of artists and works within a relatively short period of time.
 
But what Seoul offers in September extends far beyond the fairgrounds. From Euljiro’s independent art spaces to Korean and international galleries in Hannam and Cheongdam, and from Samcheong’s long-established art district to the city’s major museums, distinctly different parts of the art ecosystem become active at the same time.
 
If Kiaf and Frieze Seoul bring art from around the world to Seoul, the exhibitions and programs unfolding around them provide another stage on which Seoul can present its own art scene to an international audience.
 
Kiaf and Frieze Seoul may be the starting point, but the experience does not end at COEX. Across galleries, museums, independent spaces, and neighborhoods, Seoul reveals a much broader art landscape. To step beyond the fairs and into the city is to experience the many different layers of Seoul’s art scene in September 2026.