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Busan Museum of Art Announces Its New Year Operating Plan Ahead of Fall 2026 Reopening

내용

Busan Museum of Art (hereinafter “the Museum”) has announced its New Year operating plan, signaling its reopening in fall 2026 following the completion of an approximately two-year renovation project.

The Museum, which first opened in 1998, began renovations in December 2024 to improve aging facilities and transform into a 21st-century museum.

• ●The Museum plans to enhance visitor services by upgrading galleries, storage facilities, and entrances, and by expanding amenities such as a café and a culture-oriented concept store.

• ●The reopening is scheduled for this fall. Through the renovation, the Museum is preparing to leap forward as a “future-leading museum of publicness and sharing” by creating flexible spaces both inside and outside the building. This year’s operating plan has been designed to reflect the reopening.

Exhibitions

After reopening, the Museum will fully unveil its vision through a total of five exhibitions. These exhibitions will move across boundaries between international and local perspectives, exhibition spaces, and genres, presenting expanded roles and possibilities for the Museum.

• ●The first international exhibition after reopening is Future Museology (tentative title). Co-curated with a consortium of more than 10 museums in Korea and abroad, the exhibition will propose new social roles and practices for museums. Moving beyond traditional roles centered on collection and display, it will examine how museums are transforming into expanded public forums and explore the direction the Museum should take after reopening by reflecting global trends.

• ●The special reopening domestic exhibition, Society and Art: From Liberation to the Korean War (tentative title), will examine the social, cultural, and political realities surrounding Liberation in 1945 and the period before and after the Korean War through the lens of art. It will explore the active and vigorous spirit of the times and its narratives in the immediate aftermath of Liberation, and reconstruct portions of history left blank amid rapid change through works by contemporary artists, offering a renewed perspective on history as record.

• ●The Museum will also host an exhibition that reflects on its own history. Rebuilding the Museum (tentative title) is a special collection-based exhibition that sheds light on the Museum’s space and meaning as reconfigured amid social and institutional change, based on institutional and architectural records accumulated from its opening through reopening.

• ●Safe Haven (tentative title) is a children’s exhibition composed like a storybook. The Museum will create a specialized space designed to function as a “secure attachment space” that can help address children’s emotional needs and allow them to experience sensory development. In addition, the Lee Ufan Space will be newly transformed through the installation of a new commission.

• ●The Museum will also continue exhibitions in collaboration with external institutions. Loop Lab Busan will be held in April, and Young Perspectives, New Views 2025 will expand overseas in September following last year’s exhibition in Seoul.

Collection, Acquisition, and Research

After reopening, the Museum will present a signature media sculptural installation symbolizing its vision of “the coexistence of art, technology, and nature.” Hito Steyerl, Ai Weiwei, and others will participate, interpreting today’s crises and challenges from their respective perspectives. Grounded in deep reflection on solidarity and coexistence, and on the relationship among humans, technology, and nature, the works will propose “the future we must build together,” to be realized through a specially designed media structure.

Education

Meanwhile, the Museum’s education programs will be operated in a direction that expands understanding of the exhibitions and spatial changes as reopening approaches after the renovation, and deepens the visitor experience. Through education programs linked to major curated exhibitions and the newly created children’s gallery, the Museum will enhance visitor understanding and create an educational environment that encourages active engagement with the Museum’s spaces.

In addition, following last year, the Museum plans to operate an advanced docent training program to further develop exhibition interpretation capabilities with the goal of strengthening professionalism and communication skills.

Strengthening Engagement with Visitors

The Museum plans to expand its 49,189 online followers who have engaged with the Museum through social media (SNS) into offline audiences, and to strengthen its role as an open platform by lowering barriers to access through citizen-participation cultural events and programs.

Meanwhile, while the main building remained closed, the Museum in 2025 presented exhibitions and related programs through close collaboration with affiliated organizations.

• ●A total of five exhibitions were held, including exhibitions linked to Young Perspectives, New Views 2025 and Loop Lab Busan. Alongside these, the Museum planned exhibition-linked programs such as forums and screenings, as well as citizen-participation education. Marking the 10th anniversary of the Lee Ufan Space, the Museum also hosted cultural events including a commemorative concert, creating a forum of commemoration to reflect on the past decade together with citizens.

• ●In the area of collection and research, the Museum collected 27 new media works and has continued building archival information resources by digitizing art materials such as institutional records and architectural records.

Director  Seo Jinseok of the Busan Museum of Art stated, “With a history spanning 28 years, the Busan Museum of Art will make a new leap forward after reopening as a future-leading museum of publicness and sharing,” adding, “Grounded in the diachronic continuity of cultural history, the convergence of cultural genres and hierarchies, and Asia’s agency, we will become a museum that prepares for the future society.”