Art in Seoul: What to see and where to be in 2026

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Art in Seoul: What to see and where to be in 2026

Published: 01 Jan. 2026, 07:00

LEE JIAN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Suh Do-ho's "Nest/s" (2024) [JOONGANG ILBO]

With international art fair Frieze returning to Seoul for the fifth year, from Sept. 2 to 5, 2026 — again running alongside the local Kiaf fair — the city is gearing up for another packed art calendar.

From time-honored Korean traditions to the sharpest edges of contemporary aesthetics, major institutions are rolling out exhibitions that span centuries in style and sensibility. Here are shows to look out for at seven galleries and museums in Korea.

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA)

″Away from the Flock″ (1994) by Damien Hirst [OCEANOGRAPHIC MUSEUM OF MONACO, JOONGANG ILBO]

One of the most awaited shows of the year, the MMCA's Seoul branch in Jongno District is set to open a major retrospective of English artist Damien Hirst in March. It is the first large-scale survey of his work in Asia, centered on Hirst’s key themes, including death and immortality and the human desire tied to science and medicine.

In August, MMCA Seoul will launch a major solo exhibition of Suh Do-ho, one of Korea’s leading installation artists. Spanning his work from early pieces to the present, the show explores foundational themes such as migration and dwelling, and the relationship between the individual and the community.

At MMCA Cheongju in North Chungcheong, a retrospective of Bang Hye-ja (1937–2022) will open in April to mark the 140th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Korea and France. Moving between Korea and France, Bang built a distinctive artistic world of her own. The exhibition looks back on her life and worldview, as well as her experiments and insights in painting, grounded in “light” as a lifelong source of inspiration.

Specific dates for the exhibitions have yet to be announced.

Leeum Museum of Art

″Resonance″ (2020) by Koo Jeong-a [PKM GALLERY]

Leeum Museum of Art in Yongsan District, central Seoul, is set to open Korea's largest retrospective on mixed media artist Koo Jeong-a, to date, from Sept. 5 to Dec. 27. Koo, 58, was the artist for the Korean Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. The show at Leeum will highlight "her distinctive universe, which explores invisible flows of energy through elements such as scent and magnetism," according to the museum.

From May 5 to Nov. 29, the museum will also mount a group exhibition bringing together the trailblazing works of first-generation women installation artists from around the world, aiming to bring back into view practices that have often been left out of art-historical and critical narratives.

The project began at Munich’s Haus der Kunst before traveling to Rome and Hong Kong, where it was reconfigured and expanded. For its Seoul edition, the Leeum Museum of Art will add works by Alexandra Kasuba, Judy Chicago, Marta Minujín, Lygia Clark and Yamazaki Tsuruko, among others, per the museum.

Hoam Museum of Art

Works by Kim Yun-shin are on display during the 2024 Venice Biennale. [JOONGANG ILBO]

The first major retrospective of Kim Yun-shin, a leading figure of Korea’s first generation of women sculptors, is set to run from March 17 to June 28 at the Hoam Museum of Art in Yongin, Gyeonggi, surveying some 70 years of her artistic career. Spanning the 20th and 21st centuries, the exhibition traces her journey across Korea, France and Argentina to present a comprehensive look at her practice.

Amorepacific Museum of Art

″Spindle and Cover Girl″ (2022) by Rose Wylie [AMOREPAFIC MUSEUM OF ART]

Another much-anticipated program, the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Yongsan District, central Seoul, is set to open its special collection exhibition “APMA, Chapter Five – From the APMA Collection” in April, surveying a broad spectrum of international contemporary art while also tracing major currents and turning points in Korean contemporary art. It brings together around 50 works across painting, photography, sculpture and installation by some 40 artists, including David Hockney, Rose Wylie, Kiki Smith, Gala Porras-Kim, Nam June Paik, Lee Bul, Lee Ufan and Koo Bohn-chang.

In September, the museum is set to present the first Asia-focused curated exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist Jonas Wood. Known for vivid colors, patterns and a flattened perspective that turns everyday interiors and surroundings into bold compositions, the show will display roughly 80 works — including paintings, drawings, prints and wallpaper — offering a sweeping look at his practice over the past two decades and how personal experience expands into new imagery through painterly experimentation.

Specific dates for the exhibitions have yet to be announced.


Gallery Hyundai

Located in Samcheong-dong, central Seoul’s gallery-lined old town, Gallery Hyundai opens 2026 with a two-part exhibition that reconsiders minhwa (Korean folk painting) through a contemporary lens. At the main building, “Majesty and Creativity: Variations on Korean Minhwa” brings together the grandeur of Joseon court painting and the freer inventiveness of folk painting, while the annex presents “Hwa yi do,” which extends minhwa’s forms and spirit into today’s language of painting.

In March, the gallery will stage a solo show by Lee Wooseong, whose practice moves between drawing, painting and animation as he explores the boundary between everyday life and art. Known for weaving Korean emotional textures with younger generational sensibilities, Lee will begin working as a Gallery Hyundai exclusive artist in 2026, and the exhibition will introduce a new current in his recent work.

May brings Katherine Bradford’s first solo exhibition in Korea. Based in the United States, Bradford is known for pared-down figures — swimmers, superheroes and nocturnal scenes — rendered with light and color that balance vulnerability, recovery and humor.

Also at the annex will be a solo exhibition by Kim Myung-hee, shaped by years spent between New York and Chuncheon in Gangwon; through signature series such as her charcoal drawings and blackboard paintings, the show reframes diaspora life and memory as a compressed narrative.

Specific dates for the exhibitions have yet to be announced.


Art Sonje Center

A private art museum also in Samcheong-dong, Art Sonje Center, is set to open the year with a major queer art exhibition, “Spectrosynthesis Seoul” from March 20 to June 28, featuring around 70 artists. The show maps the layered terrain of queer art in Seoul while exploring trans conditions of being and queer notions of time and space.

It is followed by a solo exhibition by media and video artist Aha Ham-yang, from July 24 to Oct. 11, which moves between the intimate and the epic to reconsider the relationship between the individual and the world, proposing new ways of imagining coexistence, according to the center.

Ham has received numerous awards, including the Daum Prize in 2004, the Arko Artist of the Year in 2005 and the Hermes Foundation Missulsang in 2008, as well as participated in the exhibition as a nominee for the Korea Artist Prize in 2013.

Arario Gallery Seoul

Arario Gallery Seoul carries its ongoing exhibition “Pago” through Jan. 31. The solo show by painter Lee Eun-sil draws on East Asian painting techniques and uses childbirth as a central symbol to examine psychological, physical and social shifts, translating the inner tremors of imperfect human existence into painterly form.

In February, the gallery plans a major solo exhibition of late photographer Park Young-sook (1941-2025), a key figure in Korean contemporary photography and feminist art. Known for foregrounding women’s bodies to challenge patriarchal norms and unjust power structures, the survey will also restore and newly present lesser-seen works, including 1960s black-and-white photographs and a two-channel video shown via an analog slide projector. Running concurrently is a solo show by Lee Jeong-bae, whose sculptures — often functional as furniture — capture fragments of urban nature through the sensibility of traditional landscape painting.

May brings two simultaneous solo exhibitions: rising painter Kang Cheol-gyu, whose meticulously rendered scenes layer memory, imagination and emotion, and Philippine artist Leslie de Chavez, who builds critical narratives about contemporary society through painting, installation and sculpture. In July, two Korean painters working across geographies take the stage, followed by a September full-gallery solo by sculptor Kim In-bae, and a November exhibition by New York-based Spencer Sweeney, spanning painting, performance and music.

Specific dates for the exhibitions have yet to be announced, except "Pago."

BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]