Korea Art Week seeks to reach out to public

Korea Art Week 2019 aims to reach a broader audience this year, with a larger number of participants from both the private and public art sectors.

Organized by the Culture Ministry’s Korea Arts Management Service, the weeklong event from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9 promotes local exhibitions and art markets. 

Marking its fifth edition, Korea Art Week will involve some 250 public and private art museums and nonprofit exhibition spaces around the country, a large increase from the 180 that participated last year.

“Korea Art Week’s aim is to make art more relatable to the public,” said Kim Do-il, president of KAMS. “One of the changes it has made, compared to last year’s edition, is that people will have better access to art tour programs.”

A total of 14 art tours will be available this year.

During the event, many public museums and private exhibition spaces will offer free admission or discounts. For example, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s Gwacheon, Deoksugung and main branches will offer free admission, while the Suwon iPark Museum of Art will offer a 50-percent discount.

For those who purchase all-inclusive tickets that cover admission to three ongoing art biennales -- Gwangju Design Biennale, Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale and Cheongju Craft Biennale -- and the Korea International Art Fair 2019, train ticket discounts will be available.

Three-day and five-day KTX passes will be offered at discounted prices of 92,700 won ($78) and 123,600 won, respectively. They can only be purchased at train stations.

An amateur drawing competition has been organized to encourage public participation in Korea Art Week, accepting both online and offline submissions through Sept. 22. Forty winners will be selected.

Meanwhile, KAMS will continue its Visual Artists Market, a program that supports the organizing of temporary art markets. This year, 16 art markets have been selected.

The art markets will offer relatively low-priced artworks -- less than 2 million won -- by mainly Korean artists.

Each market will introduce works by some 40 to 100 local artists, which adds up to around 1,000 artists introduced at art markets that coincide with Korea Art Week, according to KAMS officials.

Combined sales of artworks during Korea Art Week 2018 reached some 450 million won.

Details on the markets and program schedule are available at Korea Art Week’s official website http://artweek.kr/.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)