Gallery Review Europe Blog European Artists Koreans’ openness to new art a big factor in European gallery’s expansion in Seoul – ‘people show up even if it’s from artists they have never heard of’
European Artists

Koreans’ openness to new art a big factor in European gallery’s expansion in Seoul – ‘people show up even if it’s from artists they have never heard of’


In 2022, big global art market players such as Pace Gallery and Lehmann Maupin announced major expansions in their exhibition space. The year also saw the inaugural Frieze Seoul art fair, the first Asian event held by Frieze, a rival to Art Basel which also stages art fairs in London, New York and Los Angeles.
The exterior of Peres Projects’ new art gallery in Seoul, South Korea. Photo: Peres Projects

Peres Projects’ seven shows held at Hotel Shilla were a good experiment, says Javier Peres, who founded the gallery in 2002. Sales were strong.

One reason for moving is that Peres wanted space to present works by artists who are very ambitious, he says. “We work with a lot of artists who make very large-scale works,” he says.

As a young, foreign gallery it is a privilege to be in this space

Javier Peres, Peres Projects

As a new arrival, it’s location, location, location, he adds.

“Not only is [the new gallery] near the royal palace and other institutions, it is also near mega significant galleries in South Korea, such as PKM and Gallery Hyundai, which are points of reference in the Korean art world,” he says.

The new space is also within walking distance of the National Museum of Contemporary Art. “As a young, foreign gallery it is a privilege to be in this space,” Peres says.

Javier Peres founded Peres Projects in San Francisco in 2002. Photo: Piotr Niepsuj courtesy of Peres Projects

Peres Projects was set up in San Francisco in 2002, but moved its main operation to Berlin with the opening of a gallery there in 2005. In 2022, to mark its 20th anniversary Peres opened two new galleries – the other was in Milan – to “spice things up”.

South Korea has long been one of Asia’s biggest contemporary art markets. Its giant chaebol – family-owned conglomerates such as Hyundai and Samsung – have long invested in art and opened their own museums.

The country’s technological savvy has also seen companies working closely with artists and global institutions to provide tools for making and showing digital art.

“Home Sweet Home: Too Hot to Handle 2”, a 2022 work by Mak2, a Hong Kong artist represented by Peres Projects. Photo: courtesy Peres Projects

It has gained more prominence in the past few years as art dealers looked to diversify away from Hong Kong – the city that for years was seen as the best place for international galleries to establish an Asian presence, until political upheaval and harsh measures to control the coronavirus pandemic altered their thinking.

Peres says he did consider Hong Kong initially, but settled on Seoul during the pandemic when Hong Kong and mainland China were sealed off from the rest of the world for a much longer period than other places.

Compared to other markets, South Korean has a hospitable business environment and he has found Koreans to be “exceptionally open-minded”.

“Midsummer Music”, a 2023 work by Cece Philips. The young British artist is holding her second solo show with Peres Projects. Photo: courtesy Peres Projects

Such open-mindedness is critical to Peres Projects, he says, as the gallery tends to work with young artists in their twenties and thirties who are new to the art world.

A case in point is Cece Philips, a British figurative painter in her twenties who has been given a solo exhibition alongside a separate group show at Peres Projects’ new gallery space.

Philip’s “Walking the In-Between”, her second solo exhibition with Peres Projects, depicts an imagined city of women dressed in tailored suits. They are often in social situations – having brunch, chatting in a group, partying. Yet there is no real intimacy, and their sense of alienation and loneliness is accentuated by the formal postures and blue hue that dominate her paintings.

“I Spy a Stranger” (2023) by Cece Philips. All her artworks were bought before her latest show in Seoul opened. Photo: Peres Projects

South Korean collectors have embraced the young artist, Peres says. All nine paintings by Philips, who is still pursuing her MA in painting at the Royal College of Art in London, were sold before the gallery officially opened on April 28.

Peres says the art market outside Seoul has also been growing steadily. For example, Art Busan, an annual art fair held in Busan, the country’s second biggest city, located on the south coast of South Korea, is a major event on collectors’ calendars.

In 2022, Art Busan – in which 133 galleries from 21 countries took part – more than doubled its previous year’s sales to a record 76 billion won (US$57 million).

Peres Project’s new gallery space in Seoul will show Cece Philips’ works until June 11. Photo: Siwoo Lee

Overall, more money was spent on art in South Korea in 2022 than ever before. According to the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 1.37 trillion won was exchanged in the domestic art market.

These figures tally with Peres’ observation that Koreans’ willingness to support new artistic ideas has continued to grow since 2019, which is when Peres Projects began participating in Art Busan and three years before its opening a space in Seoul.

Even with the reopening to travellers of Hong Kong – where mega art dealer Hauser & Wirth recently announced it is moving to a more prominent, street-level location, and auction houses are aggressively expanding – and the potential for other Asian markets such as Tokyo and Singapore to come to the fore, Peres says he has faith in Seoul maintaining a role as a bridge between European and Asian contemporary art.

“As long as the artworks that we bring in are great, people in Korea will show up – even if they are from artists that they may have never heard of before,” he says.



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