Frieze Seoul 2026 makes its fifth edition a citywide celebration of the artists and ideas shaping contemporary culture

Seoul has never been a city that does things by halves. Its galleries, museums, fashion houses and independent creative spaces have been steadily turning the city into one of Asia’s cultural powerhouses, and this September, Frieze Seoul 2026 is giving that energy an even bigger stage. For its fifth edition, the fair is spilling beyond COEX, Convention and Exhibition Centre, and into the city itself, with everything from 16,000 hidden coins and late-night gallery openings to new commissions, film screenings and exhibitions.

Returning to COEX in Gangnam from September 2–5, Frieze Seoul will bring together more than 125 galleries from 30 countries, with over 70 per cent of participants based across the Asia-Pacific region. International names including Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Lisson Gallery, Pace Gallery, White Cube and David Zwirner will join leading Korean galleries such as Arario Gallery, Gallery Hyundai, Gana Art, Kukje Gallery and PKM Gallery.

This year, Frieze Seoul expands its curatorial programme with two new sections, Material Practice and Spotlight, alongside the returning Focus.

Curated by Hyeyoung Cho, Material Practice explores the relationship between contemporary art and design, drawing on South Korea’s traditions of craft, material knowledge and experimentation. Spotlight, curated by Wonseok Koh, looks back to the 20th century, revisiting artists whose work has been overlooked or whose place in art history deserves a second look. The presentations span Reba Hore’s expressionistic paintings and works on paper, Hoon Kwak’s spiritually charged abstractions, Etsuko Nakatsuji’s installations and mixed-media works, Po Po’s performance and installation practice, and Nobuo Sekine’s material-driven sculptures, alongside paintings by Djordje Ivačković.

Focus, now in its fourth year and advised by curator Seolhui Lee, brings together 16 emerging galleries, each presenting a single artist whose work has been conceived for the fair. For the first time, the section expands beyond Asia welcoming galleries from Europe and North and South America, with practices spanning digital environments, site-specific painting, weaving, woodcut and copper etching.

One of the edition’s most intriguing commissions comes from Yagwang, the Seoul-based collective formed by Terri Kim and In Jeon, and the recipient of the 2026 Frieze Seoul Artist Award. Their new work, Facade Zone (2026), takes the architecture of the fair itself as its starting point. Yagwang will dismantle the partition walls of a gallery stand and reconstruct them as an exposed wooden framework, turning the usually hidden mechanics of display into part of the artwork.

Latex sculptures inspired by Korean Buddhist iconography will sit within the structure alongside a specially designed lighting rig. As light passes through the semi-transparent latex, shadows will shift and fracture across the floor and walls, continually changing the installation.

The fair’s programme then stretches into the city. British artist Ryan Gander will bring The Find Seoul to South Korea for the first time, hiding 16,000 specially designed coins across Euljiro, Hannam, Cheongdam and Samcheong, as well as publicly accessible areas of COEX, from August 31–September 10. Each coin carries a different piece of wisdom and can be kept or passed on, turning a walk through Seoul into an unexpected art encounter. That spirit continues with Neighborhood Nights, with Euljiro on August 31, Hannam on September 1, Cheongdam on September 2 and Samcheong on September 3. Late-night gallery openings, performances and special projects will activate the city’s distinct cultural quarters.

Elsewhere, Mobile Agora by Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho will transform recycled plastic chairs into a circular seating installation, inviting visitors to consider community, climate change and sustainable futures. The Moon Jar Constellation, presented with PBG (Print Bakery), brings together 15 Korean artists—including Gwon Osang, Shim Moon-Seup, Chun Kwang Young, Choi Young Wook and Huh Myoungwook—to reinterpret the moon jar, an enduring icon of Korean aesthetics. A portion of proceeds will be donated to UNICEF.

Film, talks and music round out the programme. Busan Biennale x Frieze Film Seoul 2026, presented at SONGEUN Art and Cultural Foundation, will feature moving-image works by Alison Nguyen, Bhenji Rha, Luiz Roque, Moe Satt and Natasha Tontey. The Kiaf Seoul x KAMS x Frieze Seoul Talks will bring artists including Ayoung Kim, Chan Sook Choi and Christine Sun Kim together with curators and institutional voices to discuss diasporic identity, Korean contemporary art and museum collecting. Frieze Music returns for its fourth edition on September 3.

Beyond the fair, Frieze Week will bring exhibitions including Koo Jeong A at Leeum Museum of Art, Do Ho Suh at MMCA Seoul, Lee Bae at Museum SAN, Sol LeWitt at Amorepacific Museum of Art and Es Devlin at FUTURA Seoul. At Frieze House Seoul, Japanese gallery Yumekoubou will present bamboo artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV. For its fifth edition, Frieze Seoul is making a convincing case for the art fair as something bigger than a destination. COEX may be where it begins, but Seoul itself is where the story unfolds—across galleries, museums, neighbourhoods and unexpected corners of the city.