K-ART POPS
Last October, the third edition of the Asia Now art fair in Paris showed just how far Asian contemporary art, especially Korean art, has come.
The third edition of Asia Now, Europe’s first boutique art fair dedicated to Asian contemporary art that was cofounded by Alexandra Fain, welcomed 33 Asian and Western galleries representing 135 established and emerging artists from 10 Asian territories. Unlike most fairs in Europe that focus on Western art, Asia Now acts as a guide to deciphering the Asian art world, understanding its transformation and revealing its potential for development. It highlights some of the most interesting artists to collect and watch today who are currently unknown in Europe, yet recognised by local and international specialists.
As each edition focuses on a specific region, in 2017, the fair zoomed in on the Korean artistic scene through a special programme coordinated by South Korean curator Joanne Kim, which presented Korean galleries including 313 Art Project,
Choi&lager Gallery, Gallery Baton, The Columns Gallery, Kukje Gallery, Gallery Soso and Gallery Su, conferences, film screenings and performances. Although the Korean art scene today is extremely developed, its artists’ practice marked by maturity, authenticity and technical virtuosity, it remains little known within global art circles. It has only been in recent years that dansaekhwa – the Korean monochrome painting movement arising in the 1970s as a rejection of realism and formalism in favour of modernist abstraction, associated with artists like Ha Chong-hyun, Hur Hwang, Lee Dong-youb, Lee Ufan, Park Seo-bo and Yun Hyong-keun – has captured the attention of audiences outside South Korea, whereas the Chinese art market has exploded with a strong support system. International galleries Pace, Lehmann Maupin and Perrotin have opened spaces and Christie’s an office in Seoul, but Kim notes the lack of small and mediumsized galleries and other platforms promoting young Korean artists overseas.
While Chinese and Japanese artists topped Sotheby’s Hong Kong’s most recent modern and contemporary art sale with prices up to HK$105,287,500 (S$ 18,154,251), Park Seo-bo achieved a new auction record with his Ecriture No. 38-75 painting acquired for HK$13,300,000. Sotheby’s Asia specialist, Jacky Ho, discloses: “Korean contemporary art is very collectable and is becoming increasingly popular on the auction market. The support is strong domestically and internationally because of a still relatively low price point, as well as cultural originality that cannot be found elsewhere. In fact, Sotheby’s opened the door to this category when we held the dansaekhwa exhibition in March 2015, bringing the subject to international exposure. The momentum was then carried on by international galleries and world-leading fairs such as Venice Biennale, allowing the interest to grow even further among collectors.”
Dansaekhwa artists also performed extremely well at the November 2017 Phillips Hong Kong 20th-century and contemporary art and design auction.
Head of sale, Sandy Ma, comments: “The market for the highest- quality works by artists such as Lee Ufan and Chung SangHwa remains healthy. This is indicative of the market recognising the historical importance of this movement.”