At a Jam-Packed Seoul Art Week, Celebrities, Dealers, and Artists Jockey for Attention

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Fancy dinner parties, blockbuster exhibition openings, and a star-studded mega party that was almost impossible to get into kicked off the annual Seoul Art Week, days ahead of Frieze Seoul and Kiaf Seoul, which opened at COEX last Wednesday, September 4. So packed was the Art Week calendar that some major events actually took place the preceding week, and locals said that many in the international art set were already on hand to partake. (It was also Seoul Fashion Week and Korea Blockchain Week, and some collectors had to juggle invitations, trying to attend everything.)

Saturday, September August 31, saw a solid turnout at dealer Jason Haam’s opening of duo solo shows by Swiss artist Urs Fischer and American artist Linn Meyers. Haam, a young and ambitious gallerist, is expandinag his gallery to an adjacent lot that now holds a building he plans to demolish. Meyers’s paintings take up the original gallery space, and Fischer took over the old, fated building, dressing it with white paint and filling it with whimsical sculptures and installations that work in harmony with the quirky real estate.

On Sunday, September 1, several galleries in Gangnam district held low key openings that still attracted a good turnout. Portuguese dealer Duarte Sequeira, who has a Seoul space, also teamed up with the Berlin-based Société to host a low-key dinner on Monday that featured fancy Korean dosirak (meal boxes) to celebrate the debut of the Basel-based Swiss artist Tina Braegger at his gallery. But Sequeira had to give Seoul a miss this year for a much bigger (and more important) party—his own wedding.

One of the biggest and fanciest dinners this week happened at the Leeum museum, which is operated by the family that controls Samsung. On Monday, the Chanel Culture Fund welcomed an array of art world A-listers there, including top collectors and K-pop celebrities such as G-Dragon. The evening also saw the opening of Elmgreen and Dragset exhibition at Amorepacific Museum of Art, the private museum operated by the South Korean cosmetic giant. Guests were impressed by not just the beautifully installed exhibition but also the snacks bar at the reception, which was full of colorful cosmetics-inspired finger-food. Gagosian obviously picked the right time and place for its pop-up debut in Seoul, with its exhibition of Derrick Adams’s paintings hanging in a ground-floor space in the building.

(Left to right) X Japan’s Yoshiki, Lee Byung-hun, his wife, actress Lee Min-jung, and Lee Jin-wook at Paradise Art Night. Photo: Vivienne Chow.

G-Dragon, also a collector, had a busy Monday night. After the Leeum dinner he had to dash to the Paradise City resort, about an hour away by car in Incheon, for its Paradise Art Night. The night featured a preview of the exhibition “Wonder” by Josh Sperling, a preview of an auction jointly organized by Pharrell Williams’s Joopiter and G-Dragon, and an after-party. The underwhelming exhibitions and poor organization of the event did not amuse the guests. Some were spotted running between the exhibition space and the party venue like headless chickens, aiming to get into both and failing because they were closed. Bouncers and security guards were on edge trying to get the crowd under control, using whistles and traffic baton lights to usher guests into queues. They even pushed invited NIPs (not important persons) to the side to make way for a K-pop celeb’s entrance.

It was, indeed, a night of Korean celebrity-sighting. Squid Game star Lee Byung-hun and his wife, actress Lee Min-jung, arrived with Sweet Home actor Lee Jin-wook and X Japan’s Yoshiki. Singer Eric Nam, actress Ha Ji-won, and KAWS were caught posing for photos. But it was Itaewon Class star Park Seo-joon’s arrival that got the women waiting to get into the party to scream at the top of their lungs. The night saw a raucous performance by American rapper Pusha T. Other celebs spotted included fellow Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae and heartthrob Lee Min Ho.

Installation view of “Anicka Yi: There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One”, Leeum Museum of Art, 2024. © Anicka Yi. Image courtesy of Leeum Museum of Art. Photo: Andrea Rossetti

On Tuesday, Leeum hosted a reception and another dinner to toast Anicka Yi, who has a solo show there, and Rirkrit Tiravanija, who has curated a show of young artists; guests included LACMA chief Michael Govan, Serpentine Galleries artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist, and entertainment mogul Miky Lee.

One of the toughest doors of the week was also that night, for the preview of the Pinault Collection exhibition at the Songeun Art Space in Gangnam. “Portrait of a Collection,” curated by Caroline Bourgeois, is the renowned French collection’s first exhibition in Korea in 13 years. Even if you could not get in there, you could visit a string of shows that were open late in the Hannam neighborhood, where a long queue was spotted for Pace’s opening of a Lee Ufan–Mark Rothko blockbuster.

Before the main fairs opened, one art fair had already wrapped. Preview, which focuses on young galleries and emerging artists, ran from August 31 through September 3. Featuring a total of 39 galleries, it moved its dates to coincide with Frieze Week for the first time in its four-year run. Most works were priced at $10,000 or below, according to its director and founder, Mirim Lee, making it appealing to first-time art buyers. While sales may have been a bit slow, and though paintings took up most of the booths, the fair was still a platform for discovery. Among the highlights were the Amsterdam-and-Seoul-based Korean media artist Park Jaehun; Chansong Kim, a painter based between Seoul and Corsica; and the Seoul-based Lee Suhyun, whose cute, colorful drawings on acrylic panels on view were all sold out.

The booth of Ho Chi Minh-based Galerie Quynh, winner of Frieze Seoul’s 2024 Seoul Stand Prize. The gallery presents installation by Vietnamese American artist Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn. Photo by Lets Studio. Courtesy of Frieze and Lets Studio.

By Wednesday’s VIP openings of Frieze Seoul and Kiaf Seoul, art worlders gathering at COEX already said that they had run out of energy. As we have reported, both fairs saw slow sales, despite the aisles of both halls being swamped with eager. Gallerists, especially those from outside of Korea, found it particularly challenging if they did not work with a local art advisor on the ground. Some dealers said that Korean collectors have tightened their purse strings this year, and that clients said they would visit the fair on the weekend, rather than take off a day to attend the VIP previews.

Many VIPs actually left Seoul the following day for the opening of Gwangju Biennale. Whether having such a major biennale opening so close to the fairs’ opening cut led to diminished art sales will probably be an agenda item of the Seoul Art Week evaluation.

Regardless, the night concluded with a blast in the Samcheong area, where galleries and institutions hosted late-night parties and openings. The biggest crowds were at Kukje Gallery (with spicy fried chicken and beer), the MMCA Seoul (the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), Art Sonje Center (with a Do Ho Suh solo show), and Phillips X‘s sales preview.

It was a satisfying week for those who love serial art events, K-glamor, energetic networking, and great art exhibitions. However, dealers looking for business opportunities in a new market might have a different opinion.

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