Korean Biennials Today

Launched in Seoul in September 2026, the print publication Korean Biennials Today takes the history of art biennials in the republic as an opportunity to reflect upon the role of these exhibitions in contemporary culture and to speculate on how they might adapt to reflect our changing circumstances.   

Korea is home to an astonishing number of biennials, dedicated not only to contemporary art but also to craft, ceramics, photography, work by women artists, “nature art,” and many other forms. This testifies to the key role played by biennials in the country’s post-independence culture as signifiers and guarantors of a commitment to free expression, internationalism, local tradition, and cultural exchange. This publication provides a comprehensive guide to those biennials, along with essays and interviews that illuminate their role in (and influence upon) contemporary national and international culture. 

Courtesy of e-flux and Korea Arts Management Service. Photo by Álvaro Martino.

Courtesy of e-flux and Korea Arts Management Service. Photo by Álvaro Martino.

Courtesy of e-flux and Korea Arts Management Service. Photo by Álvaro Martino.

Courtesy of e-flux and Korea Arts Management Service. Photo by Álvaro Martino.

Much of the country’s commitment to the biennial format can be ascribed to context. Participation in the globalized culture of contemporary art serves to distinguish this open, democratic and hypermodern society from the closed, totalitarian, and predominantly agrarian system in the north of the peninsula, for instance. But the nation’s proliferating biennials also serve a domestic function, helping to maintain a culture of artistic practice and participation that flourished as part of the pro-democratic resistance to the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan, and which ultimately contributed to its overthrow. The particular connection of the biennial format to political identity and social organisation is remarkable, if by no means unique in postcolonial countries.

These issues have been thrown into sharp relief by the various crises that have recently engulfed the established biennial format, at least in its older European iterations. It has become a commonplace, for instance, that the Venice Biennale’s model of national representation is antiquated (which makes it more striking that the Gwangju Biennale has recently adopted a comparable format). As the curator of the Korean Pavilion in Venice, Binna Choi, points out in an interview, the idea that self-determining nation states are no longer viable means of organizing a culture is less likely to be accepted without challenge in those countries that can still remember the struggle for liberation.

A precipitous decline in public funding for culture across the west has also put the biennial format under pressure. And yet these exhibitions continue to crop up around the world, notably in postcolonial contexts. Which begs the question: are we witnessing the end of the biennial model, or a global shift? Will the biennial fade into insignificance as the internationalist world order of which it was an expression is overturned by nationalist regimes? Or will it function as a gathering point for resistance to the reactionary turn in global politics, perhaps even offer a space for collective organization and imagination? And is the biennial format now defined more by its recent flourishing in contexts ranging from Latin America to Asia than by its origins in late nineteenth-century Europe? 

Courtesy of e-flux and Korea Arts Management Service. Photo by Álvaro Martino.

Courtesy of e-flux and Korea Arts Management Service. Photo by Álvaro Martino.

Courtesy of e-flux and Korea Arts Management Service. Photo by Álvaro Martino.

Courtesy of e-flux and Korea Arts Management Service. Photo by Álvaro Martino.

All of which is to say, 2026 felt like an opportune moment to illuminate and explore Korea’s rich culture of biennials. This supplement aimed to provide an introduction to that culture, in the form of a short history of the format in Korea and the conditions that shaped its particular characteristics. It also gathers together an index of the country’s most significant biennials, alongside interviews the curators of this year’s Busan Biennale, Gwangju Biennale, and the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, alongside short profiles of some artists who feature in those exhibitions. As such, this publication hopes to stimulate further discussion about the future of an exhibition format that continues to shape international culture, in Korea and around the world.  

Launched during the Kiaf SEOUL x KAMS x Frieze Seoul Talks Program as part of a conversation between editor Ben Eastham, Amal Khalaf (co-artistic director of Busan Biennale 2026), and Hallie Ayres (co-curator of the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennial).

Contents

Interviews
16th Gwangju Biennale: Ho Tzu Nyen, Che Kyongfa, Gahee Park, and Brian Kuan Wood
Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: Binna Choi
Busan Biennale 2026: Amal Khalaf and Evelyn Simons

Essay
Patrick Langley, “Exhibitions of Resistance: a Short History of Korea’s Biennials”

Selected Artists
Jota Mombaça; Dew Kim; Park Chan-kyong and Byungjun Kwon; Christian Nyampeta; Goen Choi; and Hyeree Ro

Directory of Biennials in Korea
Anyang Public Art Project, Busan Sea Art Festival, Busan Biennale, Changwon Sculpture Biennale, Cheongju International Craft Biennale, Daegu Photo Biennale, Gangwon Triennale, Geumgang Nature Art Biennale, Gyeonggi Ceramics Biennale, Incheon Women Artists’ Biennale, Jeju Biennale, Jeonnam International Sumuk Biennale, Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, and Seoul Mediacity Biennale

Korean Biennials Today is a collaboration between e-flux and Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS). Learn more about KAMS: www.gokams.or.kr/eng.