Skip the Crowds: 5 Seoul Exhibitions to See This Spring 2026
Seoul is loud this spring. Don’t let it rush you.
The city moves fast in April. The cherry blossoms draw crowds, the cafés spill onto sidewalks, the subway cars fill shoulder-to-shoulder. If you came to Seoul looking for something slower — a quiet hour, a room where nobody’s pushing past you to take a selfie — these five Seoul Exhibitions are where I’d send you.
No shoving. No selfie lines. Just art.
Seoul Exhibitions #1 – Damien Hirst at MMCA Seoul
Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible
This is the one to see if you only have time for one. It’s Damien Hirst’s first major solo exhibition in Asia, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art has gone big — over fifty works spanning his career, many never shown in Asia before.
You’ll find the animals suspended in formaldehyde from the Natural History series, the spin paintings, the medicine cabinets, the cherry blossoms, the spots, the butterflies. The diamond-encrusted skull For the Love of God is here too — all 8,601 flawless diamonds of it. The final room recreates Hirst’s London studio, including unfinished canvases transferred directly from his workspace.
Whatever you think of Hirst — and he’s been polarizing for decades — the work still does what he built it to do: it makes you stop and look at death.
- Dates: March 20 – June 28, 2026
- Venue: MMCA Seoul (30 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu)
- Admission: ₩8,000
- Hours: 10:00–18:00 (Wed & Sat until 21:00)
Seoul Exhibitions #2 – Nam June Paik at APMA Cabinet
Rewind / Repeat
This is quieter, smaller, and — if you have any interest in the history of media art — more moving than any of the blockbusters. It’s the Nam June Paik Estate’s first Seoul exhibition in 25 years, mounted by Gagosian inside the David Chipperfield–designed Amorepacific headquarters in Yongsan.
Only eleven works. Most have never been shown in Korea. The centerpiece is Gold TV Buddha (2005) — a gilded Buddha sitting in meditation before a live video feed of itself. The piece has been looping quietly for twenty years, and it still asks the same question: what are we doing when we stare at our own reflections through a screen?
Also on view: TV Bra for Living Sculpture (1969), Paik’s hand-made garment for cellist Charlotte Moorman, and For London and Abroad (Mailbox) (1982), one of only three surviving pieces from Paik’s 1982 Whitney retrospective.
Go on a weekday. Sit with one piece for a long time. That’s the kind of show this is.
- Dates: April 1 – May 16, 2026
- Venue: APMA Cabinet, Amorepacific HQ (100 Hangang-daero, Yongsan-gu)
- Admission: Free
Seoul Exhibitions #3 – Spring Fever at SongEun
Three solo shows, one building
If the Hirst and Paik shows are about the weight of legacy, Spring Fever is about what comes next. SongEun has given three of its floors to three young Korean artists, each with a full solo presentation.
- Jaehyun Kim · Hyperfocal Focus (과초점) — on vision, scale, and attention.
- Jiho Park · Dump (덤프) — a grittier, messier language for sculpture.
- Ria Choi · Red Circuit Ready (레드 서킷 레디) — tension, wiring, readiness.
It’s free, it’s uncrowded, and it’s where you go if you want to see what Korean artists in their thirties are actually making right now. The building is also one of the more beautifully-designed private art spaces in the city.
- Dates: April 2 – May 16, 2026
- Venue: SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation (6 Eonju-ro 152-gil, Gangnam-gu)
- Admission: Free
Seoul Exhibitions #4 – 10 Years at Perrotin Seoul
A decade of the gallery, in one room
Perrotin opened its Seoul space in 2016. Ten years and over sixty exhibitions later, they’re celebrating with a group show that pulls from the entire roster. The international names are the ones you’d expect — Takashi Murakami, Maurizio Cattelan, Daniel Arsham, Genesis Belanger, Jean-Philippe Delhomme, GaHee Park. What makes it worth the trip, though, is how they’ve hung these alongside Park Seo-Bo, Lee Bae, and Shim Moon-Seup — the Korean masters that have anchored the gallery’s Seoul program.
It’s a celebration, not a survey, so the work is meant to feel new — most of it is from 2025 or 2026. Arsham’s Fictional Archaeology pieces turn everyday objects into excavated relics. Cattelan brings the irony. Murakami’s SUPERFLAT compositions remix Hokusai and Utamaro. Park Seo-Bo’s meditative Écriture sits quietly through all of it.
Ends May 2. Don’t wait.
- Dates: March 17 – May 2, 2026
- Venue: Perrotin Seoul (10 Dosan-daero 45-gil, Gangnam-gu)
- Admission: Free
- Hours: Tue–Sat 10:00–18:00
Seoul Exhibitions #5 – Park Chan-kyong at Kukje Gallery
Zen Master Eyeball (안구선사 眼球禪師)
Park Chan-kyong is best known as a filmmaker — and as the older brother of Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Decision to Leave). But his training is in painting, and after nearly four decades of working in film, photography, and installation, he’s returned to the canvas. This is his first solo exhibition at Kukje in nine years, and it’s 24 new paintings.
The source material is old: temple murals, Joseon-era folk painting, Buddhist hanging scrolls, stories of Zen monks. Park calls the result “Zen Buddhist grotesque sci-fi.” The title work reimagines the story of the monk Juzhi — who cut off his disciple’s finger to trigger enlightenment — except here, it’s the disciple’s eyeball being plucked out. The young monk, Park has said, is himself. A visual artist, always imitating, until the eye is finally removed.
“Korean culture once held a great deal of humor and satire,” Park said at the press preview. “At some point, it feels like we forgot and lost it.” The exhibition is his attempt to wake it back up.
See it with Lotus L. Kang’s Chora, running simultaneously in K3.
- Dates: March 19 – May 10, 2026
- Venue: Kukje Gallery K1 (54 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu)
- Admission: Free
A suggested route
If you want to do several in a day, here’s how the geography works out:
- Samcheong-dong morning: MMCA → Kukje Gallery (a 10-minute walk between them)
- Gangnam afternoon: Perrotin → SongEun (both in Sinsa/Cheongdam, cab between them)
- Yongsan alone: APMA Cabinet (this one deserves its own quiet visit)
Four of the five are free. Only Hirst charges admission, and at ₩8,000 it’s still the cheapest blockbuster you’ll see this year.
Go slow. Sit with the work. Come back out into the city a little different than you went in.
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