South Korea has launched the Korea Art Festival, a nine-day celebration presenting 1,850 artworks by 1,300 artists across the country. Organized with the backing of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the festival is designed to consolidate Korea's autumn art calendar into a single nationally branded platform. The anchor events are Kiaf SEOUL 2026, running October 15–19 at COEX with more than 150 galleries from 30 countries, and the Korean Galleries Art Fair on the same dates. Kiaf SEOUL, organized by the Galleries Association of Korea, has grown into the country's flagship fair, and holding both fairs concurrently concentrates international attention on a single week. A first-ever Galleries Night program will extend the fairs' reach, encouraging evening openings and cross-venue programming. The festival opens with a 30th-anniversary special exhibition of the Gwangju Biennale, linking the new initiative to Korea's most established international exhibition. Together, the biennale anniversary, the two fairs, and the nighttime programming are meant to give international visitors a single itinerary for Korean contemporary art. "Korean art is now at a turning point — moving beyond the question of whether it has entered the global art scene to how it will be evaluated," said Kim Hyung-tae, chairman of the organizing body. The festival's scale — 1,850 works across nine days — makes it one of the largest coordinated art events in the country's history, and its national branding marks a step change in how Korea presents its art scene to the world. The festival also arrives as Korean art expands abroad: Art Busan is set to debut in Abu Dhabi this November, extending the country's fair footprint into the Gulf.