Frieze Seoul Moving to Zaha Hadid’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza in 2027

Frieze Seoul will relocate to Zaha Hadid Architects’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in 2027, its first venue change since the fair’s 2022 debut, while COEX in Gangnam undergoes redevelopment through 2029. Kiaf SEOUL, which has been held concurrently with Frieze Seoul since 2022, will remain at COEX, although the two fairs will continue to collaborate on programming and integrated ticketing. Completed in 2014, DDP was designed by Zaha Hadid in collaboration with Samoo Architects & Engineers on the site of the Dongdaemun Stadium (formerly the Gyeongseong Stadium), which was built in 1925. Its 86,574-square-meter complex, clad in more than 45,000 curved aluminum panels, includes a museum, exhibition halls, retail stores, and a design center connected by interior and underground pathways, as well as a public plaza and landscaped park. “DDP is an extraordinary setting and a landmark that Seoul has made its own,” Frieze Seoul director Patrick Lee said, adding that its “distinctive architecture and more concentrated footprint will create new possibilities for [participating] galleries.” Before relocating, Frieze Seoul will return to COEX for its fifth edition, which runs from September 2–5.

Mariam Elnozahy Appointed Chief Curator of 2027 Ulaanbaatar Biennale

Researcher, writer, and curator Mariam Elnozahy has been named chief curator of the second Ulaanbaatar Biennale, which will take place at various sites across the Mongolian capital from June 4–30, 2027. Following an open call, Elnozahy was unanimously selected by a committee of Mongolian art leaders and international curators, among them Tian Zhang, who led the biennale’s inaugural edition in 2025. Elnozahy earned her master’s degree from the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and currently serves as the artistic director of Konsthall C in Stockholm. Previously, she worked at the Townhouse Gallery for Contemporary Art in Cairo and for Ma3azef magazine, and completed a 2022–23 residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. The forthcoming biennale’s title, “Love Songs for Mountains,” draws on the artwork Noorani Metal Sound (2026) by Pakistani artist Zahra Malkani, who is participating in the exhibition.

Alison Nguyen to Screen New Film on New York’s High Line

Vietnamese American artist Alison Nguyen has been commissioned by the High Line and the Chanel Culture Fund to create Prior Occupants, a new film that will screen daily from 10 am–10 pm on New York’s High Line Channel at 14th Street from September 8 to November 16. The project is the fifth installment of the High Line Originals series and the second produced with the Chanel Culture Fund, a collaboration supporting site-responsive contemporary art in public space. Known for her video installations and sculptures that combine documentary material with fictional narratives, Nguyen examines technological change and cultural memory. For Prior Occupants, Nguyen explores the layered history of the Westbeth Artists Housing, formerly the Bell Laboratories complex. Using interviews, archival material, and choreography, she considers how the site’s former role in technological innovation and Manhattan Project-era research continues to resonate in the neighborhood today.

2026 Australian Muslim Artists Art Prize Goes to Lara Chamas

Lebanese Australian artist Lara Chamas has won the 2026 Australian Muslim Artists Art Prize, receiving AUD 10,000 (USD 7,000). Hosted by the Islamic Museum of Australia (IMA) and sponsored by La Trobe University in Melbourne, the annual award recognizes contemporary Muslim artists from across the country, with shortlisted works featured in an accompanying exhibition at IMA. Chamas’s winning piece, titled Dawa Ahmar (2025), which means “Red Medicine” in Arabic, is a five-part mixed-media installation that recreates her grandmother’s prayer mat through incomplete mosaic panels. Drawing on the interiors of the Beit ed-Dine Palace in Lebanon, the work “is a love letter to the people of Lebanon, my parents, my family, my lineage, my grandma . . . and a reflection on the constant devastation that the region faces,” Chamas said. “Australian Muslim Artists 2026” is on view at IMA through November 7.

Jonathan Crockett to Depart from Phillips Auction House

Phillips’s Asia chairman Jonathan Crockett will step down on September 2, ending a decade-long tenure at the auction house’s Hong Kong operation. Prior to joining Phillips, Crockett held roles at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, where he gained experience as an auctioneer and specialist in Asian contemporary art. He joined Phillips in 2016 as deputy chairman, Asia and head of 20th-century & contemporary art and helped expand the auction house’s regional profile, opening new spaces in Tokyo and Seoul. During his tenure, Phillips set Asian auction records for works by Peter Doig, Henry Moore, and Sean Scully, as well as a world auction record for a painting by Indonesian contemporary artist Christine Ay Tjoe. In 2020, Crockett was appointed chairman, Asia and oversaw Phillips’s 2023 relocation to the West Kowloon Cultural District.