Number of Auctioned Works Declines
Auction Market Rebounds, Led by High-Priced Artworks
Arts Management Support Center Releases '2025 Korea Art Market Review and 2026 Outlook'
It has been analyzed that the domestic art market, which has been in a slump, did not show a clear recovery this year either.
According to the "2025 Korea Art Market Review and 2026 Outlook" report released by the Arts Management Support Center on the 28th, a survey of 154 art market participants, including domestic galleries and art fairs, found that 48.4% of respondents said, "Sales this year decreased compared to last year." Meanwhile, 41.9% responded that sales were "at a similar level," and only 9.7% reported an increase in sales.
Visitors are viewing the exhibition at 'Kiaf SEOUL 2025' held last September at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News Agency
Among the respondents who experienced a decline in sales, 54.7% were small businesses with annual sales of less than 100 million won. As for the reasons for the decrease (multiple responses allowed), 88% cited "overall economic downturn and contraction in consumption." On the other hand, among the companies that saw an increase in sales, 60% had annual sales between 100 million and 1 billion won, and 46.7% of them cited "influx of new customers" as the main reason.
A conservative outlook also prevailed regarding next year's sales. 56.1% of respondents predicted that "it will be similar to this year," while 27.1% expected "a further decrease." The most common reason given for anticipating a decline in sales was again "economic downturn and contraction in consumption," at 76.2%.
The most frequently cited major change in this year's art market was "expansion of transactions centered on mid- to low-priced and small works" (46.5%), followed by "contraction in high-priced artwork transactions" (34.8%) and "changes in collector demographics" (27.7%).
The size of artwork transactions in the domestic art market peaked at 806.6 billion won in 2022, but then entered a downward trend, dropping to 615.1 billion won last year. Amid this continued sluggishness, the auction market, considered a leading indicator of the art market, showed signs of a rebound as high-priced artwork transactions increased.
Looking at the domestic and international art auction results of eight domestic auction houses through November this year, the transaction volume reached 131.5 billion won, up 16.6% from the previous year. The total hammer price at domestic auctions had been declining since reaching 324.2 billion won in 2021, but this year, for the first time in four years, it turned to an increase.
However, the number of auctioned works was 8,782, about 20% less than the previous year. This suggests that transactions became concentrated on high-priced works, resulting in a relatively higher average hammer price overall.
In fact, Marc Chagall's painting "Bouquet de Fleurs" was sold for 9.4 billion won, setting the highest price ever recorded at a domestic art auction. In addition, Chagall's "Paysage de Paris" was sold for 5.9 billion won, and Lee Ufan's "Cow and Child" fetched 3.52 billion won. The number of works sold for more than 1 billion won this year was eight, surpassing last year's five.
An industry official said, "Since the auction market tends to lead the overall art market trend, this can be interpreted as a sign of rebound," adding, "Whether this trend will spread to the broader market will need to be watched in the first half of next year."
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