Damien Hirst, Do-ho Suh and Jonas Wood among top artists showing in Seoul in 2026
Seoul’s 2026 art scene will also see the opening of the Centre Pompidou Hanwha Seoul and the return of the Gwangju and Busan biennales
The year 2026 sees Seoul museums turning to Korean masters and internationally active contemporary artists, while new art exhibitions examine queer art through the lens of the city’s own histories and neighbourhoods.
New institutions are also joining the scene, including Centre Pompidou Hanwha Seoul, while the country’s major biennales – Gwangju and Busan – return to anchor the year.
Read on to find out more about what lies ahead for Seoul’s art scene in 2026.
Korean masters in focus
This year, major Seoul museums are dedicating solo exhibitions to established Korean artists, alongside contemporaries with strong international profiles.
In September, as the city enters its annual peak art season with Frieze Seoul, Do Ho Suh and Koo Jeong-a will take centre stage.
A comprehensive survey of Suh’s practice will be mounted at the Seoul branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. Long concerned with ideas of home, displacement and belonging, his work often takes the form of delicately constructed installations that replicate architectural spaces drawn from his personal history. Using translucent fabric and other materials, Suh recreates corridors, staircases and rooms at full scale, inviting viewers to move through them.
Koo follows her representation of the Korean Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale with an exhibition at the Leeum Museum of Art centred on perception. Working with intangible media such as scents and magnetic fields, she creates environments that subtly disrupt the viewer’s sensory order. Her work will extend beyond the gallery into the museum’s lobby and other unexpected corners.