This study critically reexamines the conventional discourse regarding the stagnation of the Korean art market in terms of the oversupply of art graduates or saturation of exhibition infrastructure. Instead, it focuses on the structural bottlenecks through which accumulated artistic labor and exhibition outcomes fail to translate into market demand and transactions. To this end, this study conceptualizes art labor production, visibility gained through exhibitions, and subsequent market transactions as an interconnected system and analyzes whether the linking mechanisms between these stages function effectively. A qualitative analysis of domestic and international literature and policy materials related to art markets was conducted along with a comparative review of institutional cases from the United States, France, the United Kingdom/EU, Switzerland, and Japan. Findings show that Korean art policy has placed considerable emphasis on exhibitions and the expansion of cultural access, whereas institutional support for the market-conversion stage—encompassing purchase, holding, and resale—has remained relatively limited. Consequently, the Korean art market exhibits a structure in which the accumulation of transactions and the market’s absorptive capacity remain underdeveloped, and the quantitative expansion of art labor and exhibition infrastructure has not directly translated into market performance. Based on these findings, this study argues for a policy realignment from exhibition-centered cultural policy to a broader cultural policy framework that incorporates market conversion more fully.
Yoojin Oh (Wed,) studied this question.