Frieze Seoul 2026, COEX: Three Hours on Closing Day with a Card-Event VIP Pass

Saturday, September 5, 4 p.m. The pass on my phone said this at the top:

VIP INVITATION | ADMITS ONE.

I had won it through a KB Kookmin Card Amex (American Express) event, so Frieze Seoul 2026 was free. The pass was good for unlimited visits from September 2, but a work project ate my week, and I only made it on closing day. Hardly the VIP way to use a VIP pass. Still, those three hours were wonderful.

Five lines on the pass

The invitation was a digital pass that opens as a web page (passes.frieze.com). Here is what it said:

• VIP INVITATION | ADMITS ONE: a VIP invitation for one person
• Unlimited entry from Wednesday Sep 2, 12:00: unlimited entries from noon on Wednesday, September 2
• Admits entry to: Guest of American Express
• SCREENSHOTS / PRINTOUTS NOT ACCEPTED
• LAST ENTRY 18:30 / CLOSING TIME 19:00

A four-day pass, used for one afternoon. That last line set the plan: get in before 4 p.m. and you have three hours until closing. I used every one of them.

The LG U+ VIP lounge

Right after going in, I passed a banner washed in purple and green: FRIEZE VIP LOUNGE PRESENTED BY LG U+ (LG U+ is a Korean mobile carrier). Stanchions marked out a queue in front, and the same words appeared again on the wall just inside the door.

A first hour that started in green

Two pots of grey plants on a green background, set on a floor of pink and yellow covered in dots. A painting done in big, flat blocks of colour.

A few booths on, a carpet hung on the wall. A densely patterned teal carpet folds into several wave-like layers, fringe and all.

The Amex lounge was called "Jumak"

American Express named its lounge Modern Korean Lounge Jumak. The sign reads September 2-5, COEX, with the FRIEZE SEOUL and AMEX logos side by side. Behind the lettering, people sit under a thatched roof, pouring drinks and ladling soup from a pot. A jumak was a roadside inn in old Korea that sold drinks and meals.

The bar was built from old timber posts and beams. A gold AMERICAN EXPRESS logo hung on the back wall, soban (small traditional dining tables) sat on a shelf, and a white moon jar of dried grasses stood at the end of the counter. Red drinks and paper-cup desserts were lined up along the top.

Around 5 p.m. I got one of each. A red sparkling drink in a clear footed cup, with a sprig of rosemary and a blackberry pinned on a bamboo pick. A paper cup of ice cream topped with a round, powder-coated rice-cake ball, brown cake crumbs and syrup, two wooden spoons stuck in. Even the plate underneath carries the AMERICAN EXPRESS logo.

Works where the material comes first

Get close to this canvas and brown blotches spread over a rough cloth ground, with water drops of every size covering the surface.

Some works sat on the floor. A cat-shaped sculpture painted orange and white stretches across the keys of a wood-panelled CASIO keyboard, its power cable running to an adapter on a Makita 18V battery by the wall.

Twenty minutes before closing: Do Ho Suh's house of thread

The photo at the top of this post is that work. Inside a large frame on a green wall, a beam of thread slants across white paper, and a hanok (traditional Korean house) made of thread floats in the middle of it. The name on the wall label: Do Ho Suh.

I had only ever seen his work on a screen. In person, it was captivating.

Do Ho Suh has spent years making work about home. He is best known for recreating the places he has lived in sheer fabric, rooms that can be folded up and carried from city to city. In his hands a house is less a building fixed to the ground than a memory you take with you.

The hanok here doesn't touch the ground either. It hangs inside a cascade of thread pouring from above, and the thread keeps falling past it, loosening into strands like hair along the bottom of the paper. A house built not from brick or timber but from thread: thin enough to snap, yet running on and on. That is what memory is like.

Step in toward the lower left and a small figure is walking away, its body woven from many colours of thread, a few loose strands trailing from its head. To me they looked like threads come loose from the house. People leave home; home follows them like a thread that never quite breaks.

One more thread work, just before closing. Door frames stack inward like a long corridor, and loose ends spread out on all sides. Through one door, another door. Last entry had already passed; there were less than ten minutes to go.

Notes for next year's Frieze Seoul

• 📍 New venue: In August 2026, Frieze announced that Frieze Seoul 2027 will be held at DDP (Dongdaemun Design Plaza) instead of COEX, which hosted all five editions through 2026.
• 🎟️ Combined ticket: In 2026, Frieze and Kiaf SEOUL ran together at COEX. In 2027 they split between DDP and COEX, but a combined ticket covering both is reported to continue.
• 📱 Bring the live pass: Mine said SCREENSHOTS / PRINTOUTS NOT ACCEPTED. Keep enough battery and data to open the web pass at the entrance.
• 💳 Card events: My invitation came from a KB Kookmin Card Amex event, as a Guest of American Express. Amex also ran its own lounge inside the fair.
• ⏰ Plan backwards from closing: Last entry 18:30, closing 19:00. I went in before 4 p.m. and used the full three hours.
• 🗺️ Map: Open COEX in Google Maps

Jayden's verdict

I didn't use the VIP pass like a VIP. But three hours on the last day, and one house made of thread, were enough.

• Highlight: Do Ho Suh's thread hanok. In person, it is genuinely captivating.
• Entry: free, won through a KB Kookmin Card Amex event.
• Regret: a pass good from September 2, used only on closing day because of a work project.
• Tip: next year it's DDP. If a card event gets you a pass, clear your calendar from day one.