Footsteps Halt Before Nara’s 12.8 Billion KRW Work... 15 Years of Art Busan, Questioning the Fair Beyond the Marketplace

Over 110 Galleries from 18 Countries Participate
Visitor Numbers Up 30% in First Three Hours Compared to Last Year
“Lighthouse” and “Define” Lead the Way in Experimenting With Exhibition-Style Fair

The 12.8 billion KRW artwork stopped people in their tracks even before they saw the price tag. On May 21, at the BEXCO Exhibition Hall 1 in Busan, the opening of Art Busan 2026 with a VIP preview saw a steady flow of visitors gathering in front of the Yoshitomo Nara piece presented by Ghana Art from the very beginning. Rather than being a work expected to sell immediately, it served as the opening scene of this year’s fair. Amid a sluggish art market, Art Busan opened as a fair that asks not only "what will be sold" but also "what will be shown."

Visitors who came to Art Busan 2026 Preview are appreciating the artworks. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

Marking its 15th edition this year, Art Busan features over 110 galleries from 18 countries. Overseas galleries account for 26, making up around 24% of the total, while new participating galleries represent roughly 30%. During the same period, the new Hive Art Fair was held in Seoul. With collectors and gallery traffic split between Seoul and Busan, Art Busan emphasized booth density and a city-wide art experience over sheer scale. In the first three hours of the opening, 1,500 VIP preview guests attended, a 30% increase from the previous year.

The initial draw came from major galleries. International Gallery presented a solo booth for Julian Opie. Opie’s new and recent works, making their first appearance in Busan in three years since his 2023 solo exhibition at International Gallery Busan, ranged from paintings and sculptures to urban signboards. Gladstone Gallery led with works by Ugo Rondinone, Alex Katz, Peter Saul, and David Salle. Within the same white walls, Rondinone’s paintings, leaving afterimages with concentric colors, and Peter Saul’s canvases filled with vivid primary color tension captured viewers’ attention at distinctly different paces. Whitestone, Tang Contemporary, Johyun Gallery, LEEAHN Gallery, Gallery Baton, and Wooson Gallery also heightened booth density by mixing paintings, sculptures, and installations.

Visitors who came to the Art Busan 2026 preview are admiring the artworks. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

A notable change this year is the layout that draws attention to the booths before the artworks. Art Busan 2026 foregrounded ‘Lighthouse,’ which reimagines gallery booths as exhibition spaces, and ‘Define,’ which explores the boundaries of design and art. Increasingly, the fair introduced booth concepts that offered a singular exhibition experience, such as Eunju Kim’s 21-meter-large work, Yongseon Seo’s solo exhibition-style booth, and Julian Opie’s solo booth.

In a market where it’s hard to hold visitors’ attention with artwork sales alone, this year’s fair shifted the competition not only to price tags and artist names, but also to how much each booth functioned as a standalone exhibition.

The artwork by Yoshitomo Nara showcased by Ghana Art is known to be in the range of 12.8 billion won, drawing intense attention from visitors. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

Jung Kuho’s ‘Baekdong (White Bronze)’ series at The Page Gallery exemplified this change. Depending on size, the works are priced between 70 million and 90 million won. These pieces reinterpret the metal ornaments of traditional Korean bandaji chests within transparent acrylic structures, completed through collaboration between an acrylic specialist and a metal craftsman. Their production method, which achieves transparency without air bubbles, is especially notable. Where practical function was removed, structure, light, and empty interior space remained. The bandaji chest was no longer a piece of furniture with doors, but a sculpture that allowed light to pass through.

Booths that embraced design and crafts also contributed to this trend. Gallery Chaeyul showed works combining mother-of-pearl, lacquer, silver cloisonné, and modular furniture, expanding traditional crafts into lifestyle objects. Gallery Joeun grouped artists like Kwang Young Chun, Younghwan Chung, Jaehyun Lee, and Younjo Baek, adding layers of color and texture to a fair dominated by high-priced headline pieces. These booths played a role in slowing down the pace of the fair, encouraging viewers to closely examine materials and surfaces instead of rushing past works.

International Gallery showcased Julian Opie's work at Art Busan 2026. Photo by Heeyoon Kim

From the very first day, Art Busan confirmed the early excitement through visitor numbers. Within the first three hours of the VIP preview on opening day, 1,500 people attended, a 30% increase compared to the previous year.

An Art Busan representative stated, "This year, we focused not only on artwork sales, but also on enhancing the overall exhibition quality of each booth, collector routes, and city-linked programs," adding, "As Art Busan celebrates its 15th edition, we hope it will be a turning point for expanding into a platform for exchange in the Asian art market based in Busan."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.