One Artist Supported Each Year
Lee Yuri Selected for 2025
The Korea Arts Council will support Korean artists participating in the New Inc program, an international residency and cultural arts incubator run by the New Museum in New York, USA, starting in 2025.
The New Inc program, launched by the New Museum in 2014, is the first museum-led cultural incubator. Each year, participants selected through an open call are provided with approximately one year of support for experimentation and collaboration among creators in the fields of art, design, and technology. The program offers a wide range of opportunities, including mentoring, workshops, networking, and project presentations.
Celebrating its 12th anniversary this year, the program has selected 74 artists, collectives, nonprofit organizations, and startups. From September 2025 to June 2026, they will participate in five tracks reflecting the social values championed by the New Museum: Art & Code, Creative Science, Extended Realities, Social Architecture, and Cooperative Studies. Each participant will further develop their own projects within these tracks.
ARCO signed a business agreement with the New Museum in 2024 and, as part of its support project for overseas residencies, will officially support one Korean artist selected for the New Inc program each year from 2025 to 2027. Through a separate open call and review process for Korean artists for the 2025 program, artist Lee Yuri was selected from among 103 applicants and will receive support from ARCO.
In addition, through this selection process, three more Korean artists-Ahn Hyoju, Yalu (Im Jiyeon), and Choi Jinseok-were also given the opportunity to participate, bringing the total number of Korean artists in the 2025 New Inc program to four. This marks the largest number of Korean artists to participate simultaneously in the New Inc program and stands as a meaningful example of institutional support to expand the global presence of Korean artists.
Jung Byungguk, Chairperson of ARCO, stated, "Through New Inc, we hope that a diverse range of Korean artists will be able to establish themselves within the global creative network centered in New York and have the opportunity to demonstrate their creative capabilities on the international stage."
The New Museum, established in 1977, is the only museum in Manhattan, New York, dedicated exclusively to contemporary art. It has led the way in presenting exhibitions of experimental artists and pioneering new discourses in visual culture. New Inc is a nonprofit platform created to expand the New Museum's ongoing commitment to new art and ideas, supporting creative practitioners and artists from various fields as they develop new creative projects and businesses. Over the past 11 years, the program has achieved remarkable results, including more than 700 participants, over 130 mentors and 120 entrepreneurs annually, attracting a total of $28.9 million in investment capital, establishing and sustaining 384 companies, and creating 686 jobs in New York City, thus presenting a new model for the art ecosystem and the creative industries as a whole.
ARCO has steadily expanded overseas creative bases for Korean artists by building partnerships with major cultural and residency institutions around the world. The organization plans to further expand support so that artists from various fields can continue international research and creative activities in diverse countries.
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