Korea Art Market Forum 2026 took place on September 30 at Art Korea Lab in Gwanghwamun, jointly organized by the Paradise Cultural Foundation and the Business Research Institute at Seoul National University. Marking five years of collaboration between Kiaf and Frieze, the forum addressed Korea’s gallery landscape, art fairs and cities, and young artists. Sang-Hoon Kim, a professor at Seoul National University Business School, delivered the opening remarks.
 
What standards and methods should underpin a forum that discusses the present and future of the Korean art market under the name “Korea Art Market”? This review examines what the three sessions revealed and overlooked against those standards. Its scope is the presentations and discussion delivered at the event; an assessment of the annual reports as a whole is a separate matter.
 
 
 
Why Was Korea Art Market Established?
 
The project began with a clear purpose that remains relevant. The Paradise Cultural Foundation and Seoul National University’s Business Research Institute first published 《Korea Art Market 2022》 in 2022.
 
The official introduction identified a gap: despite the rapid growth of the Korean art market and increasing international interest, there was no English-language market report systematically explaining Korean galleries, art fairs, auctions, collectors, artists, and exhibition trends to readers abroad.
 
The first report was published by the Business Research Institute, supported by the Paradise Cultural Foundation, with translation support from the Korea Arts Management Service.
 
In a 2023 interview, Professor Kim likewise explained that the report had been launched to introduce Korean art to the world, drawing on examples such as the reports produced by Artnet and Art Basel. In a 2025 interview, he emphasized that the visual and performing arts required greater efforts toward industry development and internationalization than K-pop and Korean television drama. Korea Art Market can therefore be understood as a project seeking to build a knowledge infrastructure through which the international art world can understand the Korean art market.
 
Annual editions followed in 2023, 2024, and 2025. The Paradise Cultural Foundation’s official materials continued to describe the series, including its 2025 edition, as an English-language report for global readers. Korean-language content, summaries, and commentary in the reports and related domestic publications also broadened access for readers in Korea.
 
However, the appearance of Korean-language content should be distinguished from the publication of a separate Korean edition. The claim that a Korean edition began in 2025 requires further confirmation against publication records.
 
A project established to explain the Korean art market accurately to readers abroad should apply rigorous standards to its definitions, data, and methodology.
 
 
 
What Underpins the Projection of a KRW 2.5 Trillion Market?
 
Among the statements I heard in Professor Kim’s opening remarks was the possibility of the Korean art market reaching KRW 2.5 trillion. In a 2025 interview, he had also argued that Korea’s relatively low ratio of art sales to GDP suggested the potential for the market to more than double.
 
There is a case for discussing the Korean art market’s growth potential. A figure as specific as KRW 2.5 trillion, however, requires an explanation of what it includes, the current market size, the timeframe, and the growth rates and drivers that would produce it. In the opening remarks I heard, the market boundaries, base year, target year, and calculation method for this figure were not specified.
 
Market size varies according to how primary-market gallery sales and secondary-market auction sales are counted, how double counting of art-fair transactions is addressed, and whether overseas sales of works by Korean artists and related services are included.
 
Moving from the possibility of doubling to a projection of KRW 2.5 trillion requires disclosure of the baseline market size, comparison countries, sales-to-GDP ratios, growth period, and assumptions. These details allow readers to determine whether the figure is an analytical forecast or an aspirational target.
 
 
 
Standards for Market Analysis Must Come First
 
A discussion that sets out to analyze the Korean art market requires at least five standards.
 
First, definitions and classifications: it should explain what constitutes the market and the common criteria used to classify galleries, art fairs, and artists.
 
Second, data and research methods: it should identify samples, sources, research methods, base years, and comparable time-series data.
 
Third, structure and movement: it should track market entry, growth, establishment, and exit, alongside changes in revenue, costs, market share, and price segments.
 
Fourth, causes and consequences: it should explain why observed changes occurred and how they affected transactions, profitability, and artists’ working conditions.
 
Fifth, the measurement of internationalization: it should distinguish participation in overseas events, entry into foreign markets, sustained sales, and the development of local clients and distribution networks.
 
The project has accumulated annual reports since 2022. For the 2024 report, Yeon-Hwa Joo surveyed 17 leading Korean and international galleries operating in Korea. In 2025, responses from 26 leading galleries informed an examination of indicators including revenue, cost reductions, art-fair participation, and represented artists. A presentation reviewing the past five years in 2026 should therefore have prioritized organizing the accumulated data into comparable indicators that could reveal the trajectory of change.
 
If respondents and questions differed from year to year, the presentation could identify which findings were comparable and explain the limits of comparison. Reviewing five years requires a consistent basis for measuring change over time.
 
 
 
1. Yeon-Hwa Joo — “Changes in Korea’s Gallery Landscape: Looking Back on Five Years of Kiaf–Frieze Collaboration”
 
Visible Examples, but Little Insight into the Structure of the Gallery Sector

Yeon-Hwa Joo, a professor at Hongik University’s Graduate School of Culture and Arts Management, described recent changes through major, young, and mid-tier galleries; Korean galleries’ participation in overseas art fairs; international galleries’ entry into Seoul; and increasing visits by international art professionals. Each is worth examining. An analysis of the gallery sector also needs to explain how these developments relate to one another and how they have changed the market’s structure.
 
The project already has a body of research to draw on. Joo’s 2024 gallery report surveyed 17 galleries: five leading galleries, two international galleries with operations in Korea, seven medium-sized galleries, and three galleries established less than ten years earlier.
 
In 2025, questionnaires were sent to 35 galleries, and 26 responses informed an analysis of revenue, prices, transaction volumes, art-fair participation, cost reductions, represented artists, and changes in buyer profiles. These accumulated findings offered an opportunity to show movement within the market.
 
The classification itself uses different criteria. “Young” primarily refers to years in operation; “major” concerns scale and influence; and “mid-tier” combines age, size, and recognition. Categories based on different variables make it difficult to compare growth and decline across the three groups. Market analysis requires common variables such as years in operation, revenue, staffing, numbers of represented artists, average price levels, domestic and overseas revenue shares, and dependence on art fairs.
 
 
 
The Role of Mid-Tier Galleries and the Missing “Growth Ladder”
 
More consequentially, the presentation did not sufficiently examine the functions of the three categories or movement between them. If recently established galleries such as Foundry Seoul and Whistle were presented as gaining visibility through new programs and international networks, the conditions facing mid-tier galleries and the factors producing these differences also deserved attention.
 
While emerging galleries can discover artists and develop experimental programs, mid-tier galleries can provide continuity, support artists and programs over time, and connect them with institutions, collectors, and overseas markets. If this middle layer weakens and the sector polarizes between a few large galleries and a continual influx of new ones, the infrastructure linking artists’ development to distribution also comes under strain.
 
Does the Korean market offer pathways for new galleries to expand their scale and activities, or to sustain a distinctive specialization? Where these pathways are blocked, what conditions create the obstacles?
 
Answering this requires tracking five- and ten-year survival rates for new galleries, revenue and cost structures among mid-tier galleries, artists’ transitions between galleries, art-fair fees and overseas expansion costs, and the development of client bases. Where data are unavailable, their absence can itself be identified as a challenge for the Korean art market. A specialist forum should be able to specify what needs to be researched and measured, even when answers remain elusive.

Market Entry Without an Analysis of Long-Term Presence and Exit
 
If international galleries’ entry into Seoul is presented as evidence of internationalization, the analysis should also consider which galleries have established lasting operations and which have withdrawn. Entry, establishment, growth, and exit all need to be tracked to assess the sustainability of the Seoul market.
 
An international gallery opening a Seoul branch can indicate international interest in the Korean market. Changes in the international competitiveness of Korea’s gallery sector require separate evidence. When international galleries withdraw, factors such as rent, client bases, sales volumes, and program costs also warrant investigation.

Participation, Market Entry, and Two Different Forms of Internationalization
 
Terminology also needs precision when overseas art-fair participation by Korean galleries is described as a history of expansion abroad. Participation in an overseas event, entry into a foreign market, sustained overseas sales, and an established presence supported by local clients and distribution networks are distinct stages.
 
Frieze Seoul, international megagalleries opening in the city, and visits by international art professionals demonstrate stronger international connections for Seoul as a marketplace. Whether Korean galleries have increased their overseas sales and client bases, sustained participation in overseas fairs over several years, or secured more overseas gallery representation and institutional acquisitions for Korean artists requires separate measurement.
 
Joo’s presentation did not provide a sufficiently developed framework for specialist analysis of galleries and the art market. Several visible developments were used to describe the past five years, but the scale and causes of those changes, and their implications for the sector as a whole, remained insufficiently explained.
 
 
 
2. Jang-Wook Lee — “From Events to an Ecosystem: How Have Korea’s Art Fairs Changed Cities?”
 
Data Were Presented, but Analysis Stopped at the Most Significant Findings

Jang-Wook Lee, senior curator at Space K, discussed how art fairs, particularly Frieze Seoul, had changed the city’s cultural environment and visitor behavior. His interpretation of Frieze as an accelerator of existing change, and his consideration of art fairs at the ecosystem level, merit examination. However, this hypothesis was not adequately supported by market analysis.

The network diagram, made up of points and lines representing the periods before and after 2022, conveyed an intuitive image of change. To read it as analytical evidence, however, viewers need to know which actors the nodes represent, whether the connections indicate transactions, collaborations, or visits, and the periods and sources from which the data were collected.

The chart comparing attendance recovery at art fairs and cinemas can offer a starting point for inquiry. Yet the two markets differ substantially in price, reasons for attending, frequency of consumption, and supply structures. Differences in recovery indices alone offer limited grounds for explaining structural growth in the art market. The next questions should be why attendance recovered quickly and whether those visits translated into purchases.

More Fairs and Visitors, but Lower Sales
 
The presentation’s most significant figures showed rising attendance and event numbers alongside declining sales.

More people attended more events, yet transaction value declined. How, then, did the expansion of attendance and events over these years affect art sales?
 
This discrepancy calls for investigation into oversupply, the high comparison base created by the 2022 boom, interest rates and asset markets, purchasing power concentrated in leading fairs and galleries, differences between new visitors and actual buyers, and declining average transaction prices. Each is a possibility to be tested.
 
The data could have illuminated core features of Korea’s art-fair sector, but the presentation moved toward a cultural and urban narrative without sufficiently examining causes and consequences.

The gallery survey also contained important structural signals. While 92.3% of respondents identified art fairs as a major sales channel, 61.5% reported a decline in average artwork sale prices and 53.8% reported increased operating costs. If prices are falling and costs rising while galleries depend on fairs for sales, the sustainability of that structure requires analysis.
 
Generalizing a survey of leading galleries to the entire sector, however, requires scrutiny of the sample’s composition and representativeness. These separate percentages also do not establish that the same galleries experienced all three conditions.
 
Analysis should compare sales and new-client acquisition with participation fees, shipping, and staffing costs at individual fairs; differences in profit and loss across major, mid-tier, and emerging galleries; and the relationship between participation frequency and profitability. This would help establish how much fairs contribute to galleries’ growth and earnings, and the extent of their costs and competitive pressures.
 
 
 
Connecting Increased Attendance with Changes in Transactions

The visitor model described as “artsumers,” or art consumers, is also an interesting hypothesis. Market analysis requires indicators such as visitor-to-buyer conversion, repeat purchases after a first acquisition, average spending per buyer, and purchase frequency. If attendance rises substantially while sales decline, changes in art fairs’ cultural-event functions and trading functions each need to be examined.

Concepts such as Seoul’s “density” and Busan’s “stay” can be understood within frameworks of urban culture and tourism. To explain them as art-market models requires evidence on length of stay, the shares of visitors from other regions and countries, purchase conversion rates, revenue accruing to local galleries and artists, and the relationship between hotel and dining expenditure and artwork transactions. Tourism effects and art sales need separate indicators, followed by an examination of how the two connect.
 
The presentation of significant figures is the starting point for market analysis. Their causes, implications, and relationships with other indicators must then be interpreted.
 
 
 
3. Moderator Ji-Hyun Lee — “A Conversation with Young Artists”
 
Jinhee Kim, Omyo Cho, and Heejoon Lee: What Do Their Cases Explain About the Wider Market?

In the final session, moderated by Ji-Hyun Lee, co-CEO of ARTCULTURE4U, Jinhee Kim, Omyo Cho, and Heejoon Lee discussed their work and professional experiences. There is value in hearing directly from artists. Within a forum addressing annual market trends and change over five years, however, the session needed to explain why these three artists were selected and what structural changes in the market their experiences illustrated.
 
Artists are the market’s central producers. Relevant evidence would include the number of young artists entering the market over five years, average price levels and transaction volumes, gallery representation and changes in representation, overseas sales and representation by overseas galleries, institutional exhibitions and acquisitions, and continued professional activity after initial market entry.
 
Situating the three artists within this wider structure as examples of different pathways would have made the session a qualitative case study. The indicators should account for differences in medium and distribution, alongside working conditions that sales figures alone cannot explain.
 
“Young artist” also requires a definition: does it refer to age, years since debut, or recent entry into the market? If the category means artists attracting attention, the basis for that attention should be explained.
 
Connecting the experiences of these three artists to market analysis requires selection criteria and an explanation of the significance of their cases. The session did not sufficiently establish what their practices revealed about conditions and changes across the wider market for Korean artists.
 
 
 
4. What the Three Sessions Overlooked
 
The three sessions addressed different subjects but shared a limitation. Galleries were presented through categories and examples, art fairs through statistics and cultural phenomena, and artists through three individual experiences. Analysis connecting these elements within a single market structure remained insufficient.
 
For galleries, the key issues were the roles of different market tiers, growth and stagnation, exit, revenue structures, and the results of internationalization. For art fairs, they were the causes of falling sales, dependence on fairs and profitability, and the relationship between event expansion and transaction trends. For artists, selection criteria needed to be accompanied by an overview of market entry, prices, representation, institutional acquisitions, and continued professional activity.
 
Analyzing the Korean art market means explaining who produces what, who distributes it, who buys it, how prices are formed, and where capital and influence move. A review of the past five years should show how this structure has changed over time.
 
 
 
5. Korea Art Market Needs to Redesign Its Analytical Framework
 
Those who planned and organized the forum also bear responsibility for reviewing its analytical standards. Why was this program, with this level of analysis, presented under the name “Korea Art Market Forum”?
 
Since 2022, the project has stated its aim of explaining the Korean art market objectively to readers abroad and contributing to the internationalization of Korean visual art. By 2026, the forum should also have demonstrated how accumulated cases and survey findings could be connected to standardized longitudinal data and structural analysis. A report intended for global readers needs definitions and methods that can be assessed by those outside the domestic sector.
 
What is needed is a shared system of definitions and classifications, time-series data using consistent indicators, transparency about primary data and research methods, and an analytical model connecting data across fields. Galleries, art fairs, auctions, artists, and collectors should be linked through the relationships underlying transactions and market movement.
 
For galleries, measures of size, years in operation, revenue, represented artists, price segments, overseas revenue, and survival rates should be standardized to track movement between tiers and market concentration.
 
For art fairs, attendance, transaction value, average prices, buyer conversion rates, gallery profit and loss, new-client acquisition, and local economic effects should be measured separately and their relationships analyzed.
 
For artists, market entry, gallery representation, price changes, domestic and overseas transactions, institutional exhibitions and acquisitions, and career continuity should be tracked by cohorts defined by the timing of market entry.
 
For internationalization, participation in overseas events, entry into foreign markets, sustained sales, local networks and revenue, and acquisitions by overseas institutions should be measured as distinct stages.
 
As the Korean art market pursues internationalization, the methods used to study and explain it also need to meet international professional standards.
 
The most consequential question I took away from Korea Art Market Forum 2026 concerned how accurately we understand this market through concepts, data, and analytical methods. Raising the market’s standards begins with raising the standards by which we examine it.

Jay Jongho Kim graduated from the Department of Art Theory at Hongik University and earned his master's degree in Art Planning from the same university. From 1996 to 2006, he worked as a curator at Gallery Seomi, planning director at CAIS Gallery, head of the curatorial research team at Art Center Nabi, director at Gallery Hyundai, and curator at Gana New York.

From 2008 to 2017, he served as the executive director of Doosan Gallery Seoul & New York and Doosan Residency New York, introducing Korean contemporary artists to the local scene in New York. After returning to Korea in 2017, he worked as an art consultant, conducting art education, collection consulting, and various art projects.

In 2021, he founded A Project Company and is currently running the platforms K-ARTNOW.COM and K-ARTIST.COM, which aim to promote Korean contemporary art on the global stage.