In early September, Seoul crackled with energy. The sophomore installment of Frieze Seoul had just opened, and the presence of the K-pop stars RM of the band BTS and Jisoo of Blackpink had caused a stir.
Across town, more than a hundred artists and fans watched a multimedia presentation of dance, music, film and theater at one of the city’s marquee museums, part of a blockbuster retrospective exhibition of the works of the 87-year-old Korean avant-garde artist Kim Kulim.
Together, it seemed to sum up this city’s emergence in the global spotlight.
Over the past 70 years, South Korea has traveled lows and highs as an art movement forged in the ashes of the Korean War has taken off and Korean movies, TV shows, K-pop, fashion and beauty have seized attention the world over. Moving from political upheaval in the decades after the war to economic prosperity, South Korea has become a major player in the splashy business of global art. And Seoul, by many people’s estimations, is poised to be the next major arts hub in Asia — much the way South Florida became a locus for art in the Americas after the arrival of Art Basel Miami Beach, which is running this week.
For many in the global arts scene, it’s both a long-overdue acknowledgment of a city that, at least for the business of buying and selling art, has been obscured by Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.
“You need a lot of factors to make an arts center, and South Korea works at a high level of sophistication and professionalism,” the gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac said in a recent phone interview from London. “For example, Paris is a combination of the great museums, great collectors, a curatorial presence and a certain wealth, and Seoul has that same combination. Many collectors there started building collections three generations ago. A lot of homes have radical art from the ’80s that was not known at the time.”
Mr. Ropac, who also has galleries in Paris, London and Salzburg, Austria, opened a gallery in Seoul — his first in Asia — in fall 2021, at a time when the city’s art scene already had a buzz. That continued, despite the scarcity of in-person events because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In 2019, we decided to start our Seoul gallery, but we didn’t expect the city would take such center stage in the world,” Mr. Ropac said. “We could not have expected that Frieze would even think of doing something here. We would have been happy with the dynamic we were expecting.”
That dynamic seemed to change at warp speed, particularly once Frieze Seoul arrived last September. This year’s edition drew 121 galleries exhibiting artwork from around the world, putting the fair roughly on par with Frieze Los Angeles, which drew 128 galleries this February. Frieze does not disclose sales figures, but the galleries showing at Frieze Seoul reported sales in the millions of dollars.
During both years, Frieze Seoul has operated at the same time (and in the same convention center) as Kiaf Seoul, an international art fair that debuted in 2002, during a period known as Seoul Arts Week. Frieze Seoul drew some 70,000 visitors both years, compared with about 85,000 visitors in Britain (the fair’s place of origin) for Frieze London and Frieze Masters.
“We were looking for a city that genuinely could become the art hub for Asia,” said Simon Fox, chief executive of Frieze, in a recent phone interview from London. “And these attendance numbers really show how strong the appetite is in Korea — that we’re already within touching distance of the volume in London by just the second year.”
Patrick Lee, the director of Frieze Seoul, referred to two major exhibitions in the United States, “Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s-1970s” at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (through Jan. 7) and “The Space Between: The Modern in Korean Art,” which ran through February at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as examples of the growing visibility of South Korea’s art.
“Choosing Seoul is a validation of the tremendous art scene,” Mr. Lee said. “All the areas of culture, film, music, design, fashion have been recognized, but in a way, art took a bit longer because of the unique machinations of art and the way things move.”
Several high-profile galleries have opened Seoul locations in the last year or so. Perrotin opened a second Seoul gallery around the time of the first Frieze Seoul; it has since closed its original gallery to focus on the new gallery, which is in the upscale Gangnam neighborhood, one of the city’s burgeoning art epicenters, with dozens of galleries.
“The Korean art scene is very much internationally connected and has a real desire to take part in what is happening globally,” said Sook-Kyung Lee, a South Korean native who is the new director of The Whitworth art gallery at the University of Manchester, in England, and was formerly a senior curator of international art at Tate Modern in London. “And within Seoul you have healthy public and private funding and so many artists living there.”
Francis Belin, president of Asia Pacific at Christie’s, said that Seoul has emerged as a “vibrant arts hub”; this year, the auction house co-hosted an exhibition of works by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat during Frieze Seoul.
“I have no doubt Seoul will continue to grow and garner international attention,” Mr. Belin said in an email, adding, “the Warhol-Basquiat event was a reflection of our commitment to sharing art of international significance with South Korea.”
And then, of course, there are the city’s many museums, where the history of South Korea is being told in art. One major exhibition is that career retrospective of Mr. Kulim, the avant-garde artist, which runs through Feb. 12 at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA). At a matinee on Sept. 7 during Frieze Seoul, about 70 dancers performed some of his early works for standing-room-only crowds of young Korean artists and fans. Mr. Kim was there to direct, and even came onstage to thunderous applause for a segment.
In the museum’s lower floor, dozens of his paintings and sculptures covered several rooms, a testament to his role in the country’s growing arts profile since the Korean War ended. Though it hasn’t always been a smooth road, the Republic of Korea is now stable — and that stability set the stage for Seoul’s moment in the spotlight.
“The biggest change in the art scene in South Korea has to do with Hong Kong because of the way the Chinese government is trying to govern that city,” said Kyung-mee Park, 65, the founder and president of PKM Gallery in the affluent Samcheong-dong neighborhood. “In the past few years, a lot of Western people have left Hong Kong. They’ve been looking for another place outside Hong Kong.”
Ms. Park, who grew up in South Korea and opened her gallery in 2001, also pointed out that South Korea does not have an import tax on art like many Asian countries. She said a new generation of South Koreans sees art as a solid investment option. The K-pop star RM, who caused such a stir at Frieze Seoul this year, is known for his art collection, which has generated interest among his fans.
“Real estate is considered the most important investment here, but young people can’t afford homes, so they need another investment,” Ms. Park said.
Mr. Ropac said South Korea’s combined creative and business environment is unrivaled in Asia. “You can move art in and out of the country with no restrictions,” he said. “Also, art world centers cannot exist if artists don’t live there, and this makes Seoul really stand out. It’s astonishing that the international art world took so long to realize this.”
