On January 19, 2024, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) and the Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS) held “Korean Art Market Settlement and Outlook Seminar” at Ferrum Tower in Seoul.

The seminar featured presentations on the Korean art market in 2023 and the outlook for 2024. There were also presentations on the overseas art market, a presentation on art consumption trends in 2023 based on art fair consumer research, and a presentation on the development of art market research. In addition, a roundtable on changes in the art market centered on noteworthy issues was held.

According to the Korean Art Market Settlement Report released at the seminar, the last year’s size of art market was estimated at 675 billion KRW, a decrease of 17.0% from the previous year. KAMS, which organized the survey, had estimated that the art market would reach over 1 trillion KRW in 2022 at last year’s seminar, but in response to feedback that the sales of art fairs and galleries were simply combined, the survey excluded the sales of galleries that participated in the art fair sales survey, thus reducing the size of the market itself. Using the previous methodology, the art market was valued at 863.9 billion KRW last year, down 12.8%. The number of artworks traded last year was estimated at 51,590, also down 15.1%.

The downturn was particularly stood out for auction houses, which sold an estimated 140.9 billion KRW last year, a decrease of 36.1% from the previous year. The number of works sold (approximately 16,508) was also estimated to be down by 18.1%. In the case of auction houses, the sales of large-scale auction houses with sales of more than 10 billion KRW fell by 47.5%, but the sales of medium-sized auction houses with sales of 1 billion to 5 billion KRW increased by 38.1%.

The sales of galleries were estimated 425.4 billion KRW in artworks and galleries sold 24,541 works, down 5.6% and 9.2%, respectively. The value of artworks transactions at art fairs decreased by 5.5% to 288.6 billion KRW (including gallery sales), while the number of artworks sold was estimated to decrease by 10.5%. Excluding gallery sales, the amount of transactions at art fairs is estimated to be around 4 billion KRW. The survey did not include the results of Frieze Seoul.

The number of artworks purchased by museums was estimated to be 19.3 billion KRW and the number of artworks sold was 1,304, a decrease of 32.2% and 53.6%, respectively.

Meanwhile, a survey of domestic galleries, auction houses, art fairs, museums, and exhibition spaces from December 20 last year to January 10 this year on the outlook for the art market this year compared to last year found that 47.8% expected it to be similar to last year. This was followed by 26.0% who predicted a somewhat recession and 14.4% who predicted a very recession. 11.6% expect a moderate recovery and 0.7% expect a strong recovery.
As for the number of visitors to art exhibitions this year, 45.9% expect the number of visitors to remain similar to last year, while 31.5% expect a slight increase.

Key issues to note in the Korean art market this year include the third edition of Frieze Seoul and Kiaf, and the Korean art market afterward, changing art buying trends as new consumer groups emerge, and the rise of young galleries and art fairs.

References

• 연합뉴스, “지난해 미술시장 규모 17% 줄어든 6천675억…경매시장 36.1%↓”, 2024.01.19