2024-09-22 12:27:54
More and more pictures are being opened in Seoul. Art fairs attract collectors. South Korean artists are in demand worldwide. Asia has become an important part of the global photography market. This also benefits German gallery owners.
Longega, in this mountain village in the Dolomites, South Tyrolean multimedia artist Fabian Feichter and South Korean adventurer Youlee Ku founded the non-profit project site in 2017. Both know each other from studying at the University of Fine Arts in Munich.
They share their space in a remote area of Italy with other artists in order to collaborate, live with respect for nature and reduce space to essentials. South Korean players especially received their invitation to Val Badia.
They are currently exhibiting a joint project at the German pavilion at the Gwangju Biennale in southwestern South Korea. The Biennale is taking place for the 30th time, but Germany is participating for the first time.
The show “In the Water” takes the English translation of the name of Longega village. But it also represents the fluid nature of the intercontinental network of art, in which places, attitudes and working methods that seem far from each other come closer.
In the world map view, distant South Korea has become more visible in recent years. Also because it is well posted in the world of photography. And Gwangju Biennale is not the only event that reflects this phenomenon. South Korean art is everywhere.
The Frieze Seoul business has established itself
You can see them in New York City, where one of the country’s most famous artists, Lee Bul, born in 1964, has just launched an installation at the Metropolitan Museum. Or in London, where 36-year-old whiz Mire Lee will perform at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. The opening partnership to Frieze London and the Frieze Masters trade fairs are carefully selected.
For Art Basel Paris, which takes place in mid-October, fashion house Guerlain has announced the exhibition “Good Morning Korea!” with famous actors like Anicka Yi and Heemin Chung. But the newcomers also get attention. Hangyol Kim, for example, who studied painting in Seoul and Karlsruhe, has just been selected in Berlin for the shortlist for the Young Generation Art Award, which will be presented for the first time in February 2025 with a prize money of 10,000 euros .
In South Korea, the event only has a home game in early September. The third edition of the Frieze Seoul subsidiary fair, which starts in 2022, attracted 70,000 visitors from 46 countries. Representatives from 130 museums made the trip. According to the fair, sales went well for both local and foreign gallery owners and the artists they represent – despite the difficult global situation, which has also cooled down the Asian market somewhat.
The appetite of Korean collectors is, of course, nothing new. The art market in Korea has been developing well for several decades, Patrick Lee, director of Frieze Seoul, told WELT. “A strong ecosystem of companies, galleries and non-profit spaces. Since the mid-1980s, local collectors have also bought international art,” Lee said, “but they do so through local paintings and are therefore not noticed in the West.”
Through the digitization of communication, in which South Korean companies have been instrumental, collectors and artists have been able to join the global art system. International players also note that it is possible to do good business in the growing Asian market.
In addition to Kiaf, where the most important Korean galleries are presented, Frieze Seoul has created a fair of international importance. In addition, many artists from Europe and the US have opened branches in Seoul. Lehmann Maupin was among the pioneers seven years ago, Gladstone (which sold “many $200,000 paintings” by Anicka Yi at the fair), Pace, White Cube and Ropac followed.
With König and Esther Schipper, the galleries from Berlin now also have branches in Seoul. And Gagosian at least has an office in the South Korean capital. During Frieze, he organized an exhibition at Amorepacific – like other Korean companies, the cosmetics company collects art and operates a museum.
Attraction to German galleries
A philosophy behind the exhibition in Seoul: The Asian art market is strong. After years of Hong Kong being the most popular destination for international galleries to meet Chinese collectors, the pandemic and the region’s major political disputes with Beijing have damaged the art scene. In the current phase of the slowdown in the Chinese economy, some Asian countries, including South Korea, but also the city of Singapore, are realizing the potential to increase their influence in the art business.
In any case, the attraction has an effect on the German galleries. Galerie Neugerriemschneider from Berlin is among six participants from Germany at Frieze Seoul. We have had contacts in the country for 20 years through Tobias Rehberger, who showed up in South Korea early. “Our artists are well represented in the museums here,” said their founder Burkhard Riemschneider, referring, for example, to Tomás Saraceno at the Leeum Museum (which was founded by the Korean technology group Samsung).
The global charts did not find collectors for their regular artists, but also received positions from South Korea for their programs. The Berlin gallery Sprüth Magers, for example, recently added Hyun-Sook Song to its program alongside Mire Lee.
Coming in 1972 as a guest artist, he expressed the experience of Western modernity but also social isolation in his paintings. The pictures are a reminder of a lost world. With transparent socks, Song pushes the boundaries between calculation and abstraction (two paintings were sold at Frieze Seoul for 55,000 and 60,000 euros).
When it comes to international fashion trends, South Korea has been setting the tone for many years,” said gallery owner Monika Sprüth. Seoul has become a hub for contemporary art, “thanks to a strong network of institutions and private collections that have grown over the years.”
You can look back on long-standing relationships with museums and collectors. Its director Shi-Ne Oh is from Seoul, there has been an office there since 2018, and artists from the gallery like Barbara Kruger, Andreas Gursky and Cao Fei have already appeared in major exhibitions in South Korea.
Esther Schipper, who opened her gallery in Seoul in September 2022, is also showing an increasing number of Korean art. New to the program is Hyunsun Jeon, who is currently presenting a small solo show in Berlin. Jeon’s style combines figurative and non-deterministic painting and presents a dichotomy that is typical of contemporary Korean art: it shows the areas of experience that separate South and North Korea and the compromises between monochrome minimalism (dansaekhwa) and realism. socialist (minjung).
How important Seoul has become is also reflected in the fact that the newly established status quo is already being challenged. In 2025, the Japanese art fair Tokyo Gendai will change its date from July to mid-September to take place immediately after the Seoul Frieze. The competition will create more momentum for the Asian art scene.
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