Seoul has all the ingredients for success—can Frieze now take its market to the next level?

“For overseas galleries wanting to come back to Seoul, our principal strengths are the buying energy of our artwork lovers and our infrastructure,” says Oh Se-hoon, the mayor of Seoul.

Talking on the opening day of the second version of Frieze Seoul earlier this week, Oh was fast to level out South Korea’s financial clout because the tenth largest economic system on the planet, additionally nodding to the nation’s vibrant cultural historical past and established community of collectors and personal museums.

Oh, a member of the nation’s conservative Individuals Energy Occasion, cites the most important distinction between the artwork market in Seoul and others world wide “is that younger individuals are very interested by shopping for artwork”. He provides: “Younger folks of their 20s, 30s and 40s are actually interested by—and invested in—having fun with artwork in Seoul. That’s the actual power behind this development.”

Hong Kong’s crown

Ten years in the past, there was one other development: all eyes had been on Hong Kong as the worldwide artwork market’s “subsequent large factor”. The Swiss franchise Artwork Basel launched a good within the metropolis, taking up from the native honest ART Hong Kong, and mega sellers started to eye up the prospect of accessing billionaires primarily based on Mainland China. Since then, the Chinese language market (together with Hong Kong) has dramatically expanded, not solely when it comes to worth but in addition its infrastructure of galleries and personal museums.

Nonetheless, dogged lately by rising censorship from Beijing and tight Covid restrictions, Hong Kong’s pre-eminent place is alleged to be slipping. As Received Jae Park, the director of Seoul’s ONE and J Gallery, places it: “Hong Kong is just not what it was once, however all people is aware of that Asia is going on. We have to have an anchor someplace and it looks as if folks have discovered Seoul to be one of the best place for that—at the least in the interim.”

Frieze Seoul gross sales

Regardless of Seoul’s clear ascendancy, nevertheless, the Korean market continues to be in its nascent phases, at the least when it comes to financial worth. Gross sales at Frieze Seoul this week have largely been made across the $100,000-$200,000 mark. Only a few seven-figure sums had been reported; these to breach that stage embody a brand new Georg Baselitz portray which bought to an Asian collector for €1.2m at Thaddaeus Ropac gallery. The Austrian seller, who says Frieze Seoul “has moved up a gear since final yr”, additionally bought a 1988 Donald Judd “stack” exhibited at his Seoul gallery to a Korean collector for $3m. A Calder cellular at Tempo, valued “within the tens of millions”, and an imposing Jeff Koons Gazing Ball sculpture from 2004 at Robilant + Voena for $3.6m had but to search out houses by the tip of the second day.

Many lower- and mid-tier galleries are enjoying an extended recreation. By the tip of the second day, Taipei’s TKG+ gallery had bought 5 work by the Thai artist Mit Jai Inn, two installations by Joyce Ho and 5 work by Chiu Chen-Hung (each from Taiwan) for a complete of $150,000.

Director Shelly Wu says the gallery will “positively not” recoup the price of doing the honest—her experimental programme focuses on video and images by rising and mid-career artists. She provides: “Our intention in doing worldwide festivals is to current abilities from the area to worldwide audiences, so we not solely take a look at the gross sales outcomes, but in addition publicity of the artists to museums and establishments, which we’ve been doing fairly nicely. That is the case for a lot of mid-scale galleries.”

There’s a distinctly extra Asian really feel to the make-up of the honest this yr; round 40% of galleries are from the area and 58% of galleries have a presence in Asia within the form of a gallery or workplace. A number of sellers and advisers noticed fewer American patrons on the bottom and even fewer Europeans than final yr, although collectors from Southeast Asia and China are making up for these shortfalls, having been prevented from travelling in 2022 resulting from Covid restrictions. As Matt Carey-Williams, the director of MCW Fantastic Arts, places it: “The honest felt buzzy and animated on the opening day, although there weren’t as many worldwide guests as final yr. I observed an adjustment in materials: way more major market than secondary market. The honest has energised the first market facet of issues in Korea in a giant method.”

Patrick Lee, the director of Frieze Seoul, confirms there are 93 worldwide museum representatives on the town this week, together with particular person curators and administrators, although bigger patron teams are thinner on the bottom in contrast with final yr. US establishments in attendance embody the Aspen Artwork Museum, The Bass, the Hammer Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork; whereas these from China and Hong Kong embody M+, Ullens Heart for Up to date Artwork and the Pingshan Artwork Museum, in Shenzhen.

Lee is aware of the necessity to hold attracting such people and teams to South Korea. “Frieze Seoul is way smaller than Artwork Basel Hong Kong, however there’s overlap when it comes to the viewers, we’re concentrating on related folks,” he says. “For this honest to succeed, it’s obtained to be better than Seoul. It’s obtained to be international.” As with the opposite Frieze artwork honest franchises, the organisation has efficiently collaborated with different occasions happening throughout in Seoul this week together with Kiaf artwork honest, Seoul Style Week and the Seoul Mediacity Biennale.

One of many perennial issues for the worldwide honest circuit is overcrowding. Lee acknowledges the conflict with The Armory Present in New York, which runs concurrently to Frieze Seoul, is “lower than preferrred”. Now that Frieze has acquired the US honest, the director hopes there’s a likelihood of separating the 2 occasions by a number of weeks.

Within the meantime, Western galleries and public sale homes are making their presence felt in Seoul. This month alone sees the arrival of Sotheby’s and White Dice, who be part of heavyweights comparable to Lehmann Maupin, one of many first Western galleries to arrange store within the South Korean capital; Thaddaeus Ropac, which this yr has expanded its footprint to allow the gallery to indicate two artists directly; and Tempo, which enlarged its house a yr in the past.

Tempo’s president Samantha Rubell declined to touch upon rumours that the gallery is trying to go away its H Queens constructing in Hong Kong, saying: “Regardless of setbacks, the Hong Kong market continues to be extraordinarily vibrant. Hong Kong stays probably the most worldwide metropolis in Asia attracting collectors and curators from everywhere in the world. We’re completely dedicated to persevering with to function our gallery in Hong Kong.” In accordance with a spokeswoman, the gallery has a year-long lease on its H Queens house, the place “programming continues”.

Gagosian, too, is dipping is toe within the water. Final month, the gallery appointed Jiyoung Lee to steer the gallery’s operations in South Korea. Nick Simunovic, Gagosian’s senior director in Asia, says “all choices are being evaluated” with regards to opening a everlasting gallery in Seoul.

On the honest, Gagosian had bought a lot of its sales space prematurely, primarily to Asian shoppers—although not completely Korean collectors, in response to Simunovic. With a concentrate on the gallery’s major market, costs vary from $100,000 to “a number of million {dollars}” for a Jonas Wooden portray. He describes the market in Korea as “subtle and opinionated” and believes pitting Seoul in opposition to Hong Kong is a “false dichotomy”. Although he notes there are apparent benefits of doing enterprise in Hong Kong, particularly it being a commerce free zone and its central location at a cross roads in Asia.

South Korean market slowdown

After a increase yr in 2022, throughout which the South Korean market reached a file 1 trillion gained ($782m), in response to Korea Arts Administration Service, the public sale market within the first half of 2023 is reportedly down by 9.9%, with gross sales of high-end works notably affected, in all probability resulting from elevated rates of interest.

Sellers say a correction was wanted. As Jason Haam of the eponymous Seoul gallery places it: “2022 was lava, it was method too scorching.” He says the start of this yr was “quiet”, however that “companies is slowly choosing up”. At Frieze Seoul, “there’s been a considerable improve in demand out there”, with “shoppers deciding on purchases on the spot”. In the course of the opening day he bought a portray by the 26-year-old Seoul-based artist Moka Lee, which she completed the morning the honest opened, to a Korean collector for $55,000.

Received Jae Park thinks South Korea’s market slowdown may be attributed to the poor well being of the worldwide economic system. “Every part is slowing down,” he says. “It was the same state of affairs in 2008, proper earlier than Lehman Brothers collapsed. Every part was occurring, after which rapidly, all the pieces was gone. What I discover completely different this time is individuals are actually interested by studying what modern artwork is. There are lots of smaller collector teams organising artwork talks and academic programmes, they’re actually making an attempt to study the Western narrative of how we’re the place we are actually, and in addition making an attempt to determine what we must always do as Koreans—to both adapt or take part on this international occasion.”

As Mayor Oh Se-hoon notes, youthful patrons are definitely fuelling the joy within the modern artwork scene. In accordance with Jane Yoon, Sotheby’s managing director in Korea, collectors below the age of fifty now account for round 80% of gross sales on the Seoul outpost of the public sale home. Whether or not they are going to keep the course is one other query. As Park places it: “Issues are altering quick. I’m positive a few of them will fall away and lose curiosity. It’s an extended course of changing into a collector, however the rising curiosity is an effective step.”

Carey-Williams additionally factors out that South Korea’s market nonetheless stays largely home and within the fingers of some. “It’s an area market that has turn into very large and assured. However that handful of massive collectors who can spend $10m on a portray continues to be a handful.”