The glassy atrium at Amorepacific Museum of Art pulsed with energy on Monday night as a thousand VIP guests gathered ahead of Frieze Seoul and Kiaf (Korean International Art Festival).
Servers floated through the crowd with colourful, custom-made amuse-bouche celebrating Mark Bradford’s first solo show in South Korea. His exhibition “Keep Walking” sprawled across a 600-square-meter (6,500-square-foot) floor and featured works emblazoned with long strips of cloth and a new series Here Comes the Hurricane (2025) made specifically for Seoul. Guests raised Champagne flutes as industry heavyweights such as artist Lee Bul and collectors mingled. Gagosian opened Takashi Murakami’s show at the same time in the same building, adding another gravitational pull for VIPs.
If buzz alone closed deals, Seoul would be sold out by dawn. But the numbers tell a different story.
The Macro Jolt
Seoul emerged as one of the fastest-growing art markets, getting a significant boost from Frieze Seoul’s arrival in 2022. But the past year has been shaped by a sharp shock. An hourslong martial law declaration on Dec. 3, 2024, froze sponsor appetite and coincided with the won’s slide, raising the effective price of US-dollar-denominated art, shipping and insurance.
“Last year, Korea experienced significant political turmoil, and although that has settled, economic challenges have continued and worsened,” says Eunice Jung, director of Kiaf.
“The Korean art market peaked in 2022, reaching approximately 800 billion won [$573.4 million], but has since declined to around 500 billion won,” says Sanghoon Kim, a marketing professor at Seoul National University. “Over the past four years around 100 small galleries closed, shrinking the total from 700 to around 560,” Kim continues. “It definitely seems like galleries are now focusing more on discovering domestic artists rather than overseas ones, aiming for areas that are less affected by exchange rate fluctuations.”
Lean Times
The social calendar feels pared back too. Multiple participants have confirmed there are far fewer VIP dinners and late-night parties, a sign that the market’s mood has shifted from spectacle to substance.
Local fallout has been visible. The gallery Various Small Fires shuttered its Hannam space, the Seoul branch of German gallery König went dormant, and Peres Projects is winding down following insolvency proceedings. One and J. Gallery, once a champion of young contemporary Korean artists, suspended its operations in June.
Young-joo Lee, senior vice president of Pace Gallery Seoul, says local buyers’ price ranges have fallen: “People don’t buy over a million-dollar works anymore, so many blue-chip galleries are bringing works under half a million dollars.” Seoul-based PKM Gallery’s Kyung-mee Park echoes the shift, saying collectors are negotiating harder and event budgets have been trimmed, as “every won counts.”
The retrenchment isn’t limited to galleries: Phillips auction house is skipping Seoul this year. “In the current economic climate, many companies, including Phillips, are concentrating their resources rather than dispersing them,” Jonathan Crockett, the auction house’s Asia chairman, wrote in an email, adding that Phillips has “chosen to focus our collective efforts in Hong Kong this Fall.”
Christie’s, which hosted a special exhibition in Seoul coinciding with the fair in 2022 and ’23, doesn’t have programming this year. Ada Tsui, vice president for evening sales at Christie’s Asia Pacific, says that “senior members of the department have flown in to join our local team this year, and we always use this moment to engage with clients.”
Frieze Seoul reflects that recalibration. The fair still counts about 120 galleries with 20 brand-new exhibitors this year, including Hong Kong’s 10 Chancery Lane Gallery and Tokyo’s Ota Fine Arts. But more than 40 galleries from last year didn’t return, among them Michael Werner and David Kordansky.
Patrick Lee, director of Frieze Seoul, remains “bullish,” stressing the long game. “Around the world it’s a challenging time economically, not just in the art world,” he says. “I think we’re all facing that, and the art world is not immune. I think the market is cyclical.”
Glass Half Full
During the boom, Korean collectors were young, tech-savvy and focused on returns, but many of them are gone. “Some people came to see art purely as an investment. They didn’t care about what was truly important,” says Pace’s Lee. “Those people popped up—and then disappeared. All those bubbles are gone now.”
Now the market is largely composed of older collectors, according to Rosa Suehyun Kim, of the art advisory Artline. “They know what they want and have a strong sense of which pieces to acquire or release,” she says, adding that the market is in a “healthy” phase of correction. “It creates room for Korea to mature toward more rounded, regionally grounded collecting, and to move beyond dependence on a handful of major galleries or on treating art primarily as an investment.”
Similarly, many dealers have opted to frame the down market as an opportunity.
“It’s a great time to collect, not a great time to speculate,” says Chris D’Amelio, a senior partner at David Zwirner gallery. Its booth at Frieze Seoul pairs multimillion-dollar anchors such as Yayoi Kusama with $10,000–$250,000 works including Wolfgang Tillmans’ photographs. “You’re not here to make money in Year 1. You’re here to develop a region,” he says.
Indeed, he continues, reduced competition could be an opportunity for a committed few: “Prices aren’t climbing, discounts are possible, and you might finally find that Agnes Martin you always wanted.” David Zwirner didn’t disclose its first-day sales after the fair and declined to comment on its results.
Seoul’s Next Chapter
Joonsoo Yeo of Gallery Chosun, one of Korea’s longest-running contemporary spaces, with roots stretching back more than five decades, takes the long view as well. Doubling down on Korean-centric curation at this year’s Frieze Seoul, Yeo sees uncertainty as an “opportunity to regroup and prepare.”
“This isn’t just about today’s economy—it’s the natural cycle after an extreme,” says Kim, the art adviser. “The hype phase eroded originality.”
Optimism persists, though the next phase may depend on more than market forces. “The Korean government’s upcoming national agenda includes Korean culture as a top priority,” Kim, the marketing professor, says. “There’s a push to upgrade the entire ecosystem, not just scale and profit, but better platforms and policies to support sustainable growth.”
“Even if business is slow now, it doesn’t mean the art market is dead,” says Yeo. “We need to recognize how brilliant this moment is. The psychological and environmental conditions for art in Korea have improved dramatically.”
By Stella Ko