Extensively-renovated Busan Museum of Art to reopen in 2026

BUSAN – In March 1998, the Busan Museum of Art (BMA) opened its doors as the first public art institution in the southeastern port city. Its opening, which came two years after the founding of the Busan International Film Festival, marked the municipal government’s broader initiative to reshape the cultural landscape of Korea's second-largest city.

Over the course of its 25-year history, the BMA has become a stage for creatives hailing from Busan and beyond.

Its establishment of Space Lee Ufan in 2015, a dedicated annex for the eponymous minimalist master, marked a new turning point, enabling the museum to invite internationally celebrated artists – Antony Gormley, Takashi Murakami, Christian Boltanski and Bill Viola – under an annual exhibition series titled “Lee Ufan and His Friends.”

Under the leadership of newly-appointed director Suh Jin-suk, the museum is now gearing up for its first extensive renovation to start anew as a “future-facing institution of the 21st century,” said Suh during a press conference, Monday.

He has previously helmed the Nam June Paik Art Center in Gyeonggi Province and the Ulsan Art Museum, the country’s first media-centric public institution.

With a budget of 43 billion won ($32.7 million) and a scheduled reopening in 2026, the two-year remodeling will focus on overhauling both “the hardware and software of the BMA,” he added.

As for its “hardware,” the renovation will address the entire aging infrastructure. The building has a history of recurring leaks since 2016, which was exacerbated by the damage inflicted by Typhoon Hinnamnor last year. Issues with its temperature and humidity controls nearly led to the cancellation of “MurakamiZombie,” Murakami’s largest retrospective to date in Korea.

The redesign will also concentrate on “eliminating spatial boundaries” between floors and between box-like exhibition halls for a more fluid, versatile environment that can accommodate a wider array of artistic genres.

Among other architectural changes are the expansion of the museum’s storage space to better stow the 3,000 works in its collection, as well as the construction of a UV glass-encased facade as the canvas for new media works.

On the "software" front, the BMA plans to work on proposing a new manual on Korea's arts administration system – including budget execution and collections management system – that is more fitting for today’s public museums by conducting relevant research and hosting international forums.

The museum is also in talks with major contemporary art institutions in other Asian countries to form a collaborative network that will materialize as joint exhibitions and publications in the future.

"The initiative seeks to re-narrate the modern and contemporary art history of Asia, including Korea, which still exists in a state of vacuum, from an Eastern perspective,” Suh explained. “Since the era of West-induced modernization, many Asian nations have lacked agencies to critically contextualize and analyze their modern art with their own language and perspective.”

Ahead of the scheduled renovation, the BMA is hosting two final exhibitions to reflect on its 25-year journey.

“The Past Reveals Itself to Have a Plot” provides an overview of the museum’s curatorial trajectory by examining its past exhibitions, while “Post Media and Site” explores the identity of its space through a series of site-specific commissioned works. Both shows will run until Dec. 17.

While the physical museum undergoes its transformation, Space Lee Ufan will remain open. The BMA will continue to engage audiences through Metaverse-based online exhibitions, according to the director.