The Anachronism series began by examining how Korean art has continued to understand and organize itself under changing conditions through languages, institutions, and models of success inherited from the past.
 
It considered the recurring tendency to reproduce earlier formulas under fundamentally different conditions and explored the future conditions required to accumulate documentation, knowledge, and trust rather than prioritizing one-off events and short-term visibility.
 
It then examined the confusion surrounding the Korean art-historical categories of geundae, hyeondae, and dongshidae—terms commonly translated as modern, modern or contemporary, and contemporary—demonstrating that anachronism exists not only in policy and institutional systems but also in the ways art history itself is understood.
 
The final question is now clear. What should Korean art carry forward from the past, and what must it change? Who should lead that transformation, and how can it be translated into an actual working structure?
 
Answering this question does not require a wholesale rejection of the past. Artistic autonomy, critical judgment, the research and preservation functions of public institutions, the sustained development of artists by galleries, international exchange, and cultural openness have all contributed to the development of Korean art. These remain essential values that should be carried forward.
 
The methods through which these values have been realized, however, cannot simply be repeated unchanged.
 
What Korean art must change is not the values inherited from the past, but the structures that continue to reproduce outdated practices under fundamentally transformed conditions.
 
 
 
Values to Preserve, Systems to Change

Not every institution or form is anachronistic simply because it was created in the past. The continued existence of traditional painting and sculpture, or of long-established museums and galleries, is not in itself a problem. Conversely, the use of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, immersive media, or other new technologies does not automatically make an artwork or institution future-oriented.
 
An institution may use the latest technologies while still treating artists as objects of short-term attention, placing events and publicity ahead of artworks, and reproducing closed systems of authority and opaque structures of circulation. Conversely, artists working with traditional genres and media can be entirely contemporary when their work interprets present conditions from a new perspective and expands established ways of seeing.
 
Anachronism should therefore not be judged by the age of a form or the novelty of a technology. It should be judged by whether an institution or practice accurately understands present conditions, whether it has reorganized its functions in response to a changing environment, whether it expands the possibilities of creation and judgment, and whether it leaves behind knowledge and assets that future generations can use.
 
Korean art must preserve artistic autonomy and experimentation, professional judgment and criticism, the public mission and research functions of museums, sustained commitment to artists’ long-term development, and international openness. What it must change are operating systems centered on one-off events and short-term results, closed structures in which the grounds for judgment remain undisclosed, exhibitions and funding programs that fail to accumulate documentation and knowledge, and outdated systems of classification and evaluation that can no longer explain present conditions.
 
 
 
The Density of Accumulation, Not the Scale of Achievement
 
The first transformation Korean art must undertake concerns how achievement is defined and evaluated.
 
The number of exhibitions, visitor attendance, media exposure, participation in overseas events, the scale of public funding, and sales prices have long served as representative indicators of success. Such figures are useful for measuring the external scale and short-term results of a project. They do not, however, adequately reveal what an artwork, artist, institution, or art ecosystem has actually accumulated.
 
In the future, the question should not simply be how many exhibitions were organized, but what research and documentation remained after they ended. Rather than counting the number of overseas exhibitions or international appearances, we should examine whether those experiences led to sustained criticism, research, exhibitions, acquisitions, or subsequent collaborations. Visitor numbers should be considered alongside the impact an exhibition had on public understanding, education, research, and discourse.
 
An artist’s long-term development within the market cannot be assessed solely by short-term price increases or transaction volume. Provenance, exhibition history, transparency in transactions, consistency in price formation, and the development of long-term collections must also be considered. High prices can be generated by temporary attention, but trust can only be built through sustained documentation and verification.
 
The art ecosystem of the future should be evaluated not by the scale of an event, but by the density of the assets that remain after it. An exhibition may close, but its documentation and research should remain. A funding program may end, but the data, relationships, judgments, and experience created through it should accumulate as the starting point for subsequent activities.
 
 
 
Why Does Information on Korean Art Fail to Accumulate?
 
Every year in Korea, countless exhibitions are organized, artworks are produced, and criticism, research, press releases, and interviews are published. Museums, galleries, biennials, art fairs, universities, research institutions, media organizations, and digital platforms all generate vast amounts of information within their respective fields.
 
Yet most of this information remains dispersed across individual institutions and projects. When an exhibition ends, its webpage may disappear or become difficult to access. Artists’ biographies and information about their works are organized differently by each institution. Korean- and English-language materials often fail to correspond, while titles, materials, dimensions, dates of production, exhibition histories, and collection records are documented according to inconsistent standards.
 
Institutions repeatedly research and translate material that another institution has already processed. At the same time, even when significant criticism or research has been produced, it is often difficult to locate. Overseas museums, researchers, curators, and collectors have no easy way to access reliable information on Korean art in a single place.
 
The problem is not that the information does not exist. The problem is that it is dispersed, disconnected, and not maintained over time.
 
Information that is not shared cannot become collective knowledge. Materials that cannot be searched, connected, or reused may technically exist, but they cannot adequately contribute to international art history, research, exhibitions, or the market.
 
 
 
A Public Platform Is Essential Infrastructure for Korean Art
 
Korea now needs a nationally coordinated public platform through which information, research, exhibition records, and materials on artists and artworks can be collectively accumulated and used.
 
Such a platform must not be a simple portal that merely aggregates exhibition schedules and institutional news. It should function as a public knowledge infrastructure supporting the production, research, preservation, and international circulation of Korean contemporary art.
 
Information on exhibitions, artists, artworks, criticism, research, collections, publications, open calls, residencies, international exchanges, and the market should be interconnected. Materials produced by museums, galleries, biennials, art fairs, independent spaces, universities, critics, media organizations, artists, and digital platforms should be capable of integration according to shared standards.
 
International users must also be able to access and use up-to-date information on Korean contemporary art. The platform should continuously document the countries and institutions in which Korean artists are exhibiting, which works are being collected or researched, where new criticism and publications are being produced, and what kinds of networks are being formed within the international art world.
 
 
Such a platform must be fundamentally different from a national branding website designed primarily to promote Korean art. Promotion selectively presents successful outcomes. A knowledge infrastructure records the processes and histories through which art is produced, together with its criticism, documentation, achievements, and limitations. What the international art world needs is not another set of promotional slogans, but accurate, verifiable, and continuously updated information.
 
A public platform should not merely serve as a window through which Korean art is introduced. It should become an infrastructure that international museums, researchers, educators, curators, collectors, and market professionals actually use to research, exhibit, teach, collect, and engage with Korean art.
 
 
 
Artist Documentation Must Meet International Standards
 
At the core of any public platform must be systematic documentation of artists and artworks.
 
Simply listing images and basic biographies of Korean artists is not sufficient. Artwork titles, dates of production, materials, dimensions, edition information, collection records, exhibition histories, publications, criticism, relevant literature, and audiovisual materials must be organized according to internationally recognized standards.
 
The English renderings of artists’ names, artwork titles, materials, and techniques must be standardized and consistent. Korean- and English-language materials should be interconnected, while record creation dates, revision histories, sources, and copyright status must be clearly managed. Artists should be able to update information on their works and exhibitions continuously, while museums, galleries, researchers, and collectors should be able to access and use the material within appropriate limits.
 
Such documentation should not be reserved for established or highly visible artists, or for those currently attracting market attention. It must also record emerging and mid-career artists, artists working in regional contexts, and artists who have not yet received sufficient scholarly attention. International recognition is not created by repeatedly circulating information on artists who are already known. It emerges from an infrastructure that makes it possible to discover and research artists and works that have not yet been adequately recognized.
 
The systematic organization of artist information is not a promotional service. It is a fundamental cultural infrastructure that verifies provenance, enables art-historical research, and strengthens trust in exhibitions, collections, transactions, and conservation.
 
 
 
We Must Build a Protocol, Not Merely a Project
 
The creation of a nationally coordinated public platform will not automatically solve every problem. Building another website and collecting information for a limited period would be likely to reproduce existing failures.
 
What matters is not the external form of the platform, but the creation of shared protocols that can be used by multiple institutions and individuals.
 
Common metadata standards are needed for documenting artists and artworks, together with consistent conventions for recording titles, materials, dimensions, and dates of production. Systems are also required to connect exhibition, collection, and transaction histories. The platform must ensure data interoperability so that information held in different formats by different institutions can be connected.
 
Standards must also determine how materials should be preserved and made public after exhibitions and funding programs have ended, how much of the reasoning behind selection and review processes at public institutions should be disclosed, and how copyright, image use, personal information, and transaction data should be protected.
 
Rather than allowing a single central institution to own and control all information, the platform should enable individual institutions and artists to manage their own materials while connecting them through common standards. If one institution controls all content, the system may become vulnerable to administrative rigidity, political influence, and discontinuity whenever its leadership or operating body changes.
 
The state should provide the infrastructure, standards, and long-term operating resources. The judgment and interpretation of content, however, should be governed by an independent structure in which museums, archives, universities, researchers, artists, galleries, private platforms, and technology specialists participate together.
 
Serving the public interest does not mean that the state must directly own and control everything. It means guaranteeing a sustainable structure through which reliable information can be accessed and used equitably.
 
 
 
Domestic Platforms Must Be Connected to International Networks
 
Accumulating information on Korean art within Korea is not enough. That information must be connected to the international networks actually used by overseas museums, universities, research institutions, curators, galleries, and collectors.
 
This requires more than English translation. The underlying structure must be designed for international search, scholarly research, exhibition planning, and artwork management. Information on Korean artists and artworks should be capable of connection with international museum collection databases, academic research, and exhibition records. Information on Korean art produced abroad should, in turn, be incorporated into the domestic platform.
 
We must reduce situations in which a Korean artist exhibits overseas but no record of the exhibition remains in Korea, in which important research is published abroad but remains unknown to the artist or relevant Korean institutions, or in which domestic and international information on the same artist remains disconnected.
 
International exchange is not a one-way process of transmitting information from Korea to the rest of the world. It must be a reciprocal structure through which documentation, research, critical assessments, and professional networks formed both domestically and internationally continue to circulate.
 
When this kind of real-time exchange becomes possible, Korean art can move beyond being an object of temporary international attention and become a field that the international art world continuously researches, exhibits, and debates.
 
 
 
The Roles of the Public and Private Sectors Must Be Distinct Yet Interconnected
 
The call for a nationally coordinated public platform does not imply that private platforms and art institutions should be replaced.
 
A public platform should take responsibility for common standards, long-term preservation, public accountability, and equitable access. Private platforms can develop specialized curation, rapid implementation, new services and technological experiments, and functions tailored to the needs of the market and users.
 
Museums and research institutions should ensure the accuracy and scholarly interpretation of information. Galleries and market participants should ensure the accuracy and traceability of artwork and transaction records. Artists should document and update their practices and careers, while critics and media organizations should produce knowledge that interprets and evaluates artworks and exhibitions.
 
The role of the state is not to perform all of these tasks directly. It is to establish an infrastructure through which the information produced by different actors can be connected through common standards and accumulated as a public asset.
 
A public platform that excludes the expertise and technology accumulated by the private sector is likely to become rigid. A private platform without public standards and long-term responsibility may become dependent on market demand and short-term profitability. What is needed is a structure that distinguishes the roles of the public and private sectors while connecting them.
 
The answer to the question of who will change the future of Korean art does not lie with a single institution or individual. It begins with a shared infrastructure that connects the information, judgments, experiences, and materials produced by all participants.
 
 
 
Korea Must Become a Producer, Not Merely a Consumer, in the Global Art World
 
The international competitiveness of Korean contemporary art cannot be judged solely by how many Korean artists exhibit abroad or how much their market prices increase.
 
A more important question is whether Korea can produce not only new artworks and artists, but also criticism and discourse, research and exhibition models, data and digital infrastructure, and trustworthy standards for the market.
 
Internationalization has often been understood as the process of integrating Korean artists into the standards and institutions already established by the global art world. To secure lasting influence within the international landscape, however, Korea must move beyond a position in which it waits to be selected by external institutions.
 
Artworks, exhibitions, research, and criticism produced in Korea should generate international debate. Korean museums and platforms should become sources of knowledge used by researchers and curators around the world. Methods of documentation, archiving, artwork management, and information sharing developed in Korea should be capable of becoming models referenced by institutions in other countries.
 
For Korea to become a major site of production in the global art world means more than increasing the quantity of artworks produced or expanding the scale of the art market. It means continuously producing and sharing new artistic languages, knowledge, criteria of judgment, and systems of circulation.
 
The competitiveness of Korean contemporary art depends less on how effectively it communicates recognizably Korean images than on how consistently it produces new artistic values and forms of knowledge that the world can discuss and use together.
 
This requires an infrastructure that goes beyond the achievements of individual artists and institutions and enables the Korean art world as a whole to accumulate knowledge and information collectively. Artworks are created individually, but art history is formed through collective documentation and judgment.
 
 
 
From Sharing Information to Creating a New Reality
 
Moving beyond anachronism does not mean erasing the past. It means understanding the conditions under which past institutions and practices were created and distinguishing between the values that remain necessary and the methods that no longer function.
 
What Korean art must preserve is artistic autonomy and experimentation, professional judgment and criticism, the public mission and research functions of museums, the long-term development of artists, trust within the market, and international openness.
 
What it must change are operating systems centered on one-off events and short-term results, closed structures in which the grounds for judgment remain invisible, exhibitions and funding programs that fail to accumulate documentation and knowledge, and an environment in which the information produced by institutions and individuals remains disconnected.
 
At the center of this transformation must be a public platform through which all information and research produced within the Korean art world, together with materials on artists and artworks, can be collectively accumulated and used. This platform should connect the domestic art ecosystem while also functioning as an international knowledge network through which information, research, and developments concerning Korean contemporary art that emerge abroad can be shared and exchanged in real time.
 
The future of Korean art depends less on how many new projects are initiated than on how accurately the artworks, knowledge, documentation, and experience already being produced can be connected and transformed into shared assets.
 
For Korean contemporary art to become a major site of production in the global art world means that it will no longer wait solely for external evaluation and selection. It means that artworks and discourse, criticism and research, information and data produced in Korea will contribute directly to shaping the new geography of global art.
 
Such a transformation cannot be achieved through the declaration of one individual or the project of one institution. It becomes possible when artists and critics, museums and galleries, the market and policy institutions, universities and media organizations, and public and private digital platforms share their information and experience and work together to establish common standards.
 
As the well-known saying often attributed to Friedensreich Hundertwasser suggests, when one person dreams, it remains a dream, but when many people dream together, it becomes the beginning of a new reality.
 
The future of Korean art is no different. Change can become a reality only when people in different positions imagine the same future, share the knowledge and information they produce, and transform them into a sustainable public foundation.

Jay Jongho Kim graduated from the Department of Art Theory at Hongik University and earned his master's degree in Art Planning from the same university. From 1996 to 2006, he worked as a curator at Gallery Seomi, planning director at CAIS Gallery, head of the curatorial research team at Art Center Nabi, director at Gallery Hyundai, and curator at Gana New York.

From 2008 to 2017, he served as the executive director of Doosan Gallery Seoul & New York and Doosan Residency New York, introducing Korean contemporary artists to the local scene in New York. After returning to Korea in 2017, he worked as an art consultant, conducting art education, collection consulting, and various art projects.

In 2021, he founded A Project Company and is currently running the platforms K-ARTNOW.COM and K-ARTIST.COM, which aim to promote Korean contemporary art on the global stage.