'Not all are like this': Frieze, Kiaf impress galleries and collectors alike with vibrant VIP opening

Concerns about the continued strength and presence of the two largest art fairs in Korea were squashed as Frieze Seoul and Kiaf opened at Coex in southern Seoul on Wednesday to frenetic engagement.

Guests flocked to the venue for the VIP preview — general admission opens on Thursday — but within an hour, walking a straight line across the Frieze floor was a negotiation. By afternoon it was worse, or better, depending on which of the two fairs attendees attempted to navigate. Kiaf, held downstairs in the Hall A convention spaces of Coex, was comparatively calmer than Frieze, held upstairs in Hall C. The fairs assembled 308 galleries — 133 from 30 countries at Frieze and 175 from 18 at Kiaf, 127 of them Korean.

“There are an enormous number of visitors, and I would say this level of interest is a first,” said Baek Jung-youn, a gallerist at Lehmann Maupin Seoul. “Even on day one the inquiries have been huge, and a substantial portion has sold. The response has been explosive.”

Those who have been coming back to Seoul since Frieze opened here five years ago have watched the event change for the better.

“There seem to be fewer New York galleries participating, with more concentration on East Asian galleries, and it’s less Western as the years pass,” Phil Grauer, the founder of Canada Gallery based in New York, said. “But the scope of the participation shows Frieze Seoul isn’t just a regional thing in Korea. In the first few years it was seen as an alternative to Art Basel, and that has changed.”

The absence of several large galleries, including Perrotin and Massimo De Carlo, had been interpreted by some as a sign of Frieze Seoul's decline, but that is not something that should be attributed to the event alone, insiders said.

“Those fluctuations have to do with the overall art market and how the market itself is struggling, not Frieze Seoul particularly,” Grauer said. “Traffic is the same. Collectors and visitors haven’t diminished at all.”

A private collector surnamed Lee, a decade into Kiaf and at Frieze since it launched in Seoul, drew a line the foreign dealers don’t.

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“There was worry about whether Frieze Seoul could be sustainable in its opening years, but that was Frieze in trouble — the market was in a slump,” she said. “Kiaf runs a day longer, so on the first day the crowd tilts toward Frieze. But the proportion of works actually purchased has always been higher at Kiaf over the years.”

The large international galleries this year came to Korea with works anyone can identify from across a room.

Gagosian built its booth around Damien Hirst, fresh off a major show at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), hanging the famous pill and butterfly series. Thaddaeus Ropac paired Lee Kang-so, in the middle of a solo show at Lotte Museum, with Georg Baselitz, who is currently showing solo at the Sehwa Museum of Art.

At Gladstone’s booth, an ice work by French artist Philippe Parreno melted into another shape while people watched, near a piece gathering huge crowds by the late Yayoi Kusama, who died just last month, on Aug. 14. At Tang Contemporary, the phones were out for Chinese contemporary artists Ai Weiwei and Yue Minjun.

Do Ho Suh, whose new MMCA show has been pulling cloud-sized crowds, is also showing at Frieze, with a solo presentation timed to the museum exhibit. Lehmann Maupin gave him a booth of cloth objects, doorknobs included, and STPI Singapore brought his thread drawings at scale.

The newer arrivals found the room generous at Frieze and Kiaf. Longtermhandstand, a gallery based in Budapest, is making its Frieze debut in the “Focus” section, dedicated to up-and-coming galleries.

“It has been a long wish of ours to participate in Frieze, and this was the first time we applied,” said Anna Rokusfalvy, Longtermhandstand’s creative director. “The engagement has been great, and there have been a lot of visitors.”

“There is especially a strong presence of informed people here at Frieze Seoul, and we’ve had engaged conversations with very high-profile people,” said Dominic von Vlahovits, a gallerist with Gaa, based in New York.

The collectors visiting Frieze Seoul and Kiaf said much the same from the other side of the booth.

“I come every year, and it’s a fair that is very alive, with a good display for visitors,” said Maja Hoffmann, the Swiss billionaire behind the Luma Foundation and Locarno Film Festival, who is also a longtime collector. “I’m heading down to Kiaf now to see work from Korean artists.”

“We do several fairs a year, and it is always a jungle of exhibitions, but Frieze Seoul is presented in a curated space and laid out well, with easy access,” said Livia Straus, founder of the Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art. “Not all fairs are like this.”

Frieze Seoul’s strength this year is in two new sections. “Spotlight” revisits artists left on the margins of a Western-centered 20th-century art history: Han Young-soo, who photographed postwar Seoul; the Myanmar artist Po Po; Suk Ran-hee, six decades into abstraction; Son Sang-gi, who painted industrialization. The pleasure of it is finding an unfamiliar name among the masters.

The “Material Practice” section works through ceramics, textiles, glass, metal, wood and paper, where art meets craft and design.

On the lower floors of Coex, Kiaf announced its top-priced artwork, presented by the Art of the World Gallery: a Fernando Botero at $1.9 million, a Marc Chagall at $1.6 million.

The official remarks sang the same tune as those participating, stressing the role of both Frieze Seoul and Kiaf and how they have turned Seoul into a global art hub.

“It has already been five years since these world-class art fairs began opening together in Seoul,” Mayor Oh Se-hoon said in his opening remarks Wednesday morning. “I hope they develop beyond a marketplace into events that lead global art trends and raise Seoul’s standing as a city of culture.”

“Over the four years the two have been held side by side, Seoul has become a city the global art world watches, and Korea is moving beyond Asia toward the center of the world art market,” Culture Minister Chae Hwi-young said. “Here at Coex, work by global masters sits alongside the challenging work of our own artists, and for the next few days this space will be the hottest chapter in the global art scene.”

“Together these efforts are helping to make Seoul a key destination for the arts across Asia, bringing together artists, galleries, collectors and visitors from around the world,” said Frieze CEO Simon Fox.

A gala dinner is set to follow Wednesday evening, with Shinsegae Group’s Chung Yong-jin and Chung Yoo-kyung expected. RM of megastar boy band BTS reportedly came through the Gagosian booth at Frieze in the morning, and more high-profile business and cultural figures are expected to make appearances during the week.

Frieze Seoul runs until Saturday, while Kiaf closes a day later on Sunday. Admission ranges from 70,000 to 90,000 won ($51 to $66) depending on entrance time slot.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]