Glass, mirrors and different shiny surfaces outline the gathering of the Seoul-based enterprise capitalist Tony Lyu, whose earlier residence had little wall house and an abundance of pure mild resulting from its many giant home windows. “I used to be afraid of work getting broken by the solar,” he says. Since he started gathering artwork 5 years in the past, Lyu has gone from an avid inside decorator to an artwork truthful common who’s now dedicating a complete ground of his new home to his rising assortment—a mixture of worldwide heavyweights like Olafur Eliasson and Korean artists like Ha Chong Hyun, reflective of his international upbringing between South Korea, Japan and the US.
In his present function as a enterprise associate at SoftBank Ventures Asia, he has been capable of combine his eager enterprise sense along with his love of artwork, together with serving to devise the technique for @artart.as we speak, South Korea’s largest Instagram account for exhibiting artists and art work to most people. One in every of Lyu’s most vital enterprise offers noticed him create Korea’s first bitcoin trade in 2013; he offered the corporate in 2017 and has largely divested himself of his cryptocurrency holdings.
Lyu’s new residence in Seoul has an entire ground dedicated to artwork
Courtesy of Tony Lyu
Nevertheless, his angle in direction of the dramatic rise and up to date crash of NFTs is comparatively dispassionate: “Crypto doesn’t bear a lot weight on artwork. In addition to the provenance issue I don’t see that a lot overlap.” Slightly, he considers the rise in NFT artwork to be associated to different types of various investing that has gripped Korean millennials previously decade, together with music royalties, fractional investing and the reselling of luxurious gadgets like sneakers.
The Artwork Newspaper: What first turned you on to artwork?
Tony Lyu: Once I was in faculty at The Cooper Union in New York finding out engineering my room-mates had been all artists. I used to be jealous that what they do is about self-expression. I later studied visible design to construct my web sites, after which studied philosophy after I offered my first firm, which helps me perceive the messages that the artists try to convey.
What was the primary work you purchased?
A dangling sculpture by Tomás Saraceno from 2019 (pictured above). It’s formed like a cloud and made from Plexiglass. I purchased it through Esther Schipper gallery, straight from the studio. My condo on the time was in a skyscraper with clouds passing by the home windows. The sculpture felt like a stray cloud that had wandered in and crystallised.
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/cxgd3urn/production/cec21846e7509bab0f56d81926952765f4def802-1244x778.jpg?w=1920&h=1201&fit=crop&auto=format)
Lyu just lately purchased this triptych by the French artist Laurent Grasso from his collection Research into the Previous, which mixes conventional portray with a recent theme
.Courtesy of Tony Lyu © the artist
What was the final work you purchased?
By coincidence, the final two works I purchased each have an equine theme. The primary is a portray by Tomokazu Matsuyama: it’s a horse rider on a big canvas. The second can also be a portray, a triptych by Laurent Grasso, and it’s additionally of a horse rider in a panorama. Each are about mixing Jap and Western tradition and mixing conventional portray with extra modern themes. I’m drawn to works of this nature as they assist me perceive my id as a world citizen, who respects custom however needs to transcend its boundaries.
What do you remorse not shopping for once you had the prospect?
I discover that if I’m having a troublesome choice [to make], the most suitable choice is to not purchase, since you most likely received’t be a great steward for that work. If it’s meant to be, will probably be.
Should you may have any work from any museum on this planet, what would it not be?
It’s a historic Korean piece known as the Jikji—a Buddhist textual content that’s the oldest surviving guide on this planet printed with movable steel sort. Dated to 1377, it predates Gutenberg’s Bible. It’s at the moment held by the Nationwide Library of France. I feel it might be good to have it again in Korea.
The place do you prefer to eat and drink when you’re in Seoul?
For meals: Monk’s Butcher, Lazy Farmers, Forest Kitchen. For espresso: Daelim Changgo, and Conhas in Hannam, which has an empty swimming pool in its courtyard.
What tip would you give to somebody visiting Seoul for the primary time?
In Seoul you both plan your day round visitors, or spend it in visitors.
The place do you go in Seoul to get away from all of it?
The Han River, particularly Ttukseom Hangang Park, you’ll be able to lease kayaks and paddle boards. The river is large and has loads of peaceable spots—it’s among the finest bits of Seoul.