Frieze has announced the list of galleries taking part in its inaugural Seoul fair from 2-5 September, which will mark a major moment in the city’s rapidly growing contemporary art scene.
Of the 118 galleries that have taken booths, 94% are international, running their main operations outside of Korea. They are joined by eight local spaces, including Kukje (Seoul, Busan), founded in 1982, and Jason Haam Gallery, established in Seoul in 2018. Global gallery brands with Seoul locations that will show at the fair include Gladstone, Pace and Lehmann Maupin, which last year announced it would open a second space in the city.
Many of the other participating international galleries will also be familiar to regular Frieze fairgoers, such as Gagosian, Luhring Augustine, Pilar Corrias, Sadie Coles HQ, Xavier Hufkins and Mendes Wood DM. 10 galleries will make their Frieze debuts, including Tabula Rasa (London, Beijing) and ROH from Jakarta.
South Korea still has a number of Covid-19 restrictions in place, although these have been greatly reduced since April, with the mandatory quarantine now lifted. All incoming travellers still require a negative fit-to-fly PCR test prior to boarding the plane, and then must take another test as soon as they land in Korea. If the latter result is positive, a one-week quarantine in a government-mandated hotel will be required.
An official policy as to whether galleries can take remotely staffed booths, like those trialled by Art Basel Hong Kong, is as-yet unknown, although The Art Newspaper understands that Frieze is monitoring the situation closely.
The Seoul fair will mimic the structure of Frieze’s other events, and will include a Frieze Masters section dedicated to art created before the 1980s. Ten galleries will take part, including Cardi Gallery (London, Milan) and Seoul’s Gallery Hyundai.
Frieze Seoul will also feature a Focus section, much like the London, New York and Los Angeles events, which will allow ten galleries from across Asia to stage solo presentations of an artist. These include Dastan Gallery from Tehran showing Ali Beheshti, Jhaveri Contemporary from Mumbai which will bring works by Rana Begum, and Parcel from Tokyo, showing Osamu Mori.
The fair will take place in the COEX convention centre in the Gangnam neighbourhood of the city’s south. it will partner with Korea International Art Fair (Kiaf), which runs concurrently. The future and finer points of this partnership remain somewhat unclear. The fairs will have separate entrances and are run as separate entitites.
Kiaf is yet to release its 2022 exhibitor list, but is expected to later this week. Last year, 170 galleries took part, including international galleries with Seoul spaces, including Thaddaeus Ropac and Perrotin. A Frieze spokesperson says that there is nothing stopping galleries from participating in both Kiaf and Frieze Seoul, but that until the former releases its exhibitor list, Frieze cannot confirm whether any galleries with do both.
But while the Seoul fairs are, for now, acting as siblings rather than rivals, the release of Frieze’s latest exhibitor list draws renewed scrutiny on perhaps the closest thing it has to a competitor: the much delayed Art SG. In January, Art Basel’s parent company MCH bought a 15% minority stake in Art Events Singapore, the organiser of the Asian fair.
Art SG (12-15 January 2023) is due to launch its inaugural event with more than 150 galleries, many of which will also show at Frieze Seoul. Notably, however, some major galleries have sided with one, rather than the other. These include Goodman Gallery, Victoria Miro and Esther Schipper.
“There is a powerful sense of anticipation that gives every indication of the strong appetite for Frieze Seoul,” says Patrick Lee, the director of Frieze Seoul. “We are really looking forward to welcoming everyone to celebrate the creative life of the city this September.”
The full list of galleries participating in Frieze Seoul and Frieze Masters Seoul
Anomaly, Tokyo
Arario Gallery, Shanghai, Seoul, Cheonan
Bank, Shanghai
Gallery Baton, Seoul
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, Los Angeles
Bortolami, New York
Canada, New York
carlier | gebauer, Berlin, Madrid
Anomaly, Tokyo
Arario Gallery, Shanghai, Seoul, Cheonan
Bank, Shanghai
Gallery Baton, Seoul
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, Los Angeles
Bortolami, New York
Canada, New York
carlier | gebauer, Berlin, Madrid
Carlos/Ishikawa, London
Château Shatto, Los Angeles
Clearing, Brussels, New York, Los Angeles
Sadie Coles HQ, London
Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, Palm Beach
Pilar Corrias, London
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
Thomas Dane Gallery, London, Naples
Massimo De Carlo, Milan, Paris, London, Hong Kong, Beijing
Don Gallery, Shanghai
The Drawing Room, Manila
Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv, Brussels, Paris
Empty Gallery, Hong Kong
Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
Gagosian, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Geneva, Basel, Rome, Athens, Hong Kong, Gstaad
François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, New York
Gladstone Gallery, New York, Brussels, Rome, Los Angeles, Seoul
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris, London
Alexander Gray Associates, New York, Germantown
Jason Haam, Seoul
Hauser & Wirth, London, New York, Somerset, Los Angeles, Zurich, Gstaad, Hong Kong, St. Moritz, Menorca,
Southampton, Monaco
Herald St, London
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Paris, London, Marfa
High Art, Paris, Arles
Xavier Hufkens, Brussels
Mariane Ibrahim, Chicago, Paris
Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo
Johyun Gallery, Busan
Karma, New York, Los Angeles
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
Tina Kim Gallery, New York
König Galerie, Berlin, London, Seoul, Vienna
David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, New York
Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo
Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
Maho Kubota Gallery, Tokyo
Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Busan
kurimanzutto, Mexico City, New York
Leeahn Gallery, Seoul, Daegu
Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, London
Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris, New York
LGDR, New York, Hong Kong, Paris, London
Lisson Gallery, London, New York, Shanghai, Beijing
Luhring Augustine, New York
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, Los Angeles
Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brussels, New York
kamel mennour, Paris
Meyer Riegger, Berlin, Karlsruhe, Basel
Misako & Rosen, Tokyo, Brussels
Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York
The Modern Institute, Glasgow
mother’s tankstation, Dublin, London
Taro Nasu, Tokyo
Nature Morte, New Delhi
neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Night Gallery, Los Angeles
Take Ninagawa, Tokyo
One And J. Gallery, Seoul
Pace Gallery, Seoul, Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, East Hampton, Palm Beach, London,
Geneva
Perrotin, Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Dubai
Petzel Gallery, New York
PKM Gallery, Seoul
Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, New York, Vienna
Almine Rech, Paris, Brussels, London, New York, Shanghai
Thaddaeus Ropac, London, Paris, Salzburg, Seoul
Esther Schipper, Berlin, Paris, Seoul
Silverlens Galleries, Manila, New York
Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Los Angeles, New York
Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich, Milan
STPI, Singapore
Timothy Taylor, London, New York
TKG+, Taipei
Travesía Cuatro, Madrid, Guadalajara, Mexico City
Two Palms, New York
Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
Various Small Fires (VSF), Los Angeles, Dallas, Seoul
Michael Werner, New York, London, East Hampton
White Cube, London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, West Palm Beach
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Romainville
David Zwirner, New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong
Frieze Masters
David Aaron, London
Acquavella Galleries, New York, Palm Beach
Cardi Gallery, Milan, London
Castelli Gallery, New York
Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins, Havana, Rome, São Paulo, Paris
Daniel Crouch Rare Books, London, New York
Les Enluminures, New York, Paris, Chicago
Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books, Basel, Stalden
Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul
Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, New York
Annely Juda Fine Art, London
Mazzoleni, London, Turin
Richard Nagy, London
Robilant+Voena, London, Milan, Paris, New York
Skarstedt, New York, London, Paris
Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Tokyo, Beijing
Tornabuoni Art, Florence, Milan, Paris
Axel Vervoordt, Wijnegem, Hong Kong
Focus Asia
Dastan Gallery, Tehran Ali Beheshti
Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai Rana Begum
Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong, Shanghai Tao Hui
P21, Seoul Sungsil Ryu
Parcel, Tokyo Osamu Mori
ROH, Jakarta Bagus Pandega, Kei Imazu
Sokyo Gallery, Kyoto, Tokyo, Lisbon Kimiyo Mishima
Tabula Rasa Gallery, Beijing, London Laetitia Yhap
Whistle, Seoul Hejum Bä
Yeo Workshop, Singapore Fyerool Darma
