South Korea has emerged as a cultural powerhouse in recent years, with the worldwide success of the award-winning film Parasitethe Netflix series the squid gameand K-pop superstars BTS.
Frieze targets cities where there is widespread appreciation for culture
“Frieze targets cities where there is widespread appreciation for culture,” Patrick Lee, inaugural director of Frieze Seoul, told AFP.
Seoul has a rich art scenehe added, with “incredibly talented artists, world-class museums, corporate collections, biennials and galleries, making it ideal for an art fair.”
The event comes as the art world moves away from Hong Kong, widely seen as the center of Asia’s lucrative art market, due to financial and political uncertainty.
“Seoul is definitely the most vibrant and exciting market right now in Asia,” said Alice Lung, director of Galerie Perrotin, which opened its second gallery in Seoul in August.
The local art market has had explosive growth since the start of the Covid-19 pandemicwith record visits and sales to art fairs last year.
During this time, rising house prices prompted many young South Koreans to seek out investment options, including stocks, cryptocurrencies and, for some, art.
“Many young people suffered losses with their investments in stocks and cryptocurrencies, and art seemed like a safe bet, especially after some notorious success stories,” said Hwang Dal-seung, president of the Korea Galleries Association.
Lee Kun-hee, the late chairman of Samsung, left behind a trove of antiques and works of art, including pieces by Claude Monet, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso, worth an estimated 3 trillion won (1.5-2.2 billion won). dollars) that have appreciated in recent decades, Hwang added.
Schneider stated that South Korea is a “microcosm of Asia” in terms of the rise of collectors born after 1980, who now have influence in the market.
“Buyers from this group in this region have changed the hierarchy of artists with the most international demand and have significantly increased the speed of transition from artists at the emerging level to those with first-class prices and world fame,” he added.