Troubles for Korean art at home, better reception abroad – Korean Herald, New York Magazine

Lee Yong Deok Singapore Art Museum

KOREAN ART

‘Art Market in Doldrums as Auction Bids Plunge’ shouts the title of a story in Chosun.

The Korean art market is reeling from the economic crisis, with the highest bid prices at domestic art auctions plunging 38.2 percent last year. So Jin-su, professor at Kangnam University and manager at an art market researcher, on Monday released a report on Korea’s art market in 2008, which said the sum of the highest bids at domestic art auctions was W119.1 billion (US$1=W1,314) last year, down 38.2 percent from W192.6 billion in 2007.
Chosun

The art market has seen a downward trend since the end of 2007 after two years of a boom. The financial crisis is a major cause but the Korean art world has stumbled through a series of setbacks in 2008.

Fire and forgeries hit Korean art

•  Flames swallowed Namdaemun, Korea’s 600-year-old National Treasure No. 1, on Feb. 10, breaking the hearts of Koreans.
• Shin Jeong-ah, a former art professor and curator who forged her academic credentials and embezzled gallery money, was sentenced to a year and six months in prison in April.
• Park Soo-keun’s painting “A Wash Place.” was sold for a record 4.52 billion won ($3.4 million) last May but was soon entangled in forgery controversies.
• Other pieces by famous artists such as Kwon Ok-yeon and Do Sang-bok were put up at auction but were exposed as fake by the artists themselves or their surviving family. The auctions were canceled at the last minute.

Vacancies and misuse of budgets in art institutions

Important instutions and galleries were left with gaping holes in their ranks and budgets.

Hong Ra-hee, the former head of the Samsung Museum of Art, Leeum and who was selected as the most powerful figure in Korean art industry, announced that she would no longer participate in any of Leeum’s business when she resigned earlier this year. Her resignation was the result of the accusation that she used some of Samsung’s slush funds to supplement her collection of paintings. Roy Lichtenstein’s painting, “Happy Tears,” was at the center of the controversy.

Kim Yun-su, the former director of the National Museum of Contemporary Arts, was dismissed in November, accused of buying Marcel Duchamp’s installation art “La Boite en Valise” for an inappropriately high 600 million won without going through proper purchasing procedures.

Kim Jeong-heon, former chairman of the Arts Council Korea, was also released from the office in December for a similar reason, the misuse of the council’s budget. He was blamed for an investment loss of 5.4 billion won, which allegedly came in the form of regulations violations.

Gallery, fair and auction sales at home down

According to the Korean Herald gallery insiders say ‘with a big sigh that this year was the worst in sales ever’.

The art auction market, which was worth over 192.6 billion won last year, dropped over 40 percent, to 114.9 billion won. More than 80 percent of the bid was successful last year but this year, only 50 percent managed to sell. New auction companies such as D auction and Open auction are delaying the opening of their businesses.

It is the same situation with biennales and art fairs. Many opened this year, including Gwangju Biennale, Busan Biennale, Daegu Photo Biennale and Korea International Art Fair.

In size and quality, they left nothing to be desired. Most of them succeeded in attracting their most visitors ever, as 360 thousand visited Gwangju and 160 visited Busan during the period.The fairs, however, did not result in good sales. More than 61 thousand visitors entered the KIAF this year, but the sales dropped from 17.5 billion won last year to 14 billion won.

New tax on art introduced

Starting from 2011, art pieces that cost more than 60 million won will be taxable. Works of Korean artists are excluded but

galleries worry that the real-name dealings system will make the art market shrink even more, considering how art collectors usually do not open to the public the specifics of the dealings. They also question how exactly the government will be able to estimate the prices of each art piece.

Opportunities in the gloom: Koreans move into world market

A light of hope does shine on the troubled art industry, though. Some auction companies and art galleries are paving their way into the world market, trying to survive through the depression.

Seoul Auction and K auction, the top two auction companies in Korea advanced into Hong Kong and Macao this year and are putting up a good fight. Seoul Auction sold Lichtenstein’s “Still Life with Stretcher, Mirror, Bowl of Fruit” at 9.3 billion won in Hong Kong.

Arario Gallery, Gallery Hyundai, and PKM gallery opened in China, Arario Gallery and Gana Art Gallery in New York, and Pyo Gallery in Los Angeles in the United States.

Korean Herald

 And it seems as if the strategy of going global might just have a chance. At Art Basel Miami in December 2008, Korean art sold strongly and conceptualist and sculptor Hyungkoo Lee was a big hit says  New York  Magazine

More posts on Korean art, market watch, globalisation, recession, art fairs

• Thirteen Korean artists at Singapore museum until March 2009 – review IHT a useful summary of the main movements in recent contemporary Korean art
• Korean art’s spread through Asia threatened by meltdown September 2008

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Korean contemporary art spread through Asia threatened by meltdown

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KOREAN CONTEMPORARY ART

Korean artists and galleries have made a huge impact on Beijing recently with the presence of PKM Gallery, Do Art and Arario Beijing in the Brewery International Art Garden says Theme magazine. All three spaces showcase Korean artists but throw Chinese and international artists into the mix as well.  “Today some of the best galleries in Beijing are Korean” agrees Dr Katie Hill, writer curator and lecturer specialising who is currently writing a book on Visual Modernity in China to be published by Lund Humphries in 2009.

Further south, Seoul Auction, Korea’s largest and longest-established saleroom, has announced its move into the Hong Kong market.

Seoul Auction will be the first Asian saleroom to enter the Hong Kong market reports the Financial Times and is kicking off on October 7 2008 with a $38.5m sale of modern and contemporary art. “Hong Kong is now the world’s third biggest art market and has huge growth potential,” says the firm’s marketing director Misung Shim. Among the offerings is Roy Lichtenstein’s “Still Life with Stretcher, Mirror, Bowl of Fruit” (1972), with an estimated sale price of $9m-$10m and Willem de Kooning’s “Untitled XVI” (1982), with an estimated price of $5.85m-$7.8m, as well as contemporary Chinese and Korean art.

To the west ARTSingapore 2008, held this year 10 – 13 October 2008 and known in the past for its focus on South East Asian works, will for the first time in its history have significant representation from India, Japan and particularly Korea. This year 22 new Korean galleries will participate including Park Ryu Sook Gallery, Gallery Neo, Gallery Yeh, Gallery SP and Gallery Bhak.

But with financial markets floundering, is the timing right for Korean artists and galleries to realise their ambitions?

Absolutely not claims the Financial Times , after all visitors were thin on the ground at this month’s Korean International Art Fair, ‘which opened its doors on the “day of days”, when international financial markets were in meltdown’. With the Kospi (Korean stock index) in freefall and the won plummeting, “it was hardly the time to expect Koreans to buy art”. What a contrast to last year, when the Korean art market was booming, Korean buyers were active in auctions in New York and three new art funds were launched.  “The problem is, 80 per cent of Korean art buyers are pure speculators,” said Juhl Joohyun Lee, director of Arario gallery, “and the international situation is having a drastic effect on the Asian art markets.”

Further discouraging buyers is the fallout from the Samsung scandal. Earlier this year Korea’s golden couple, Samsung chairman Lee Kun-Hee and his wife Hong Ra-Hee were accused of using money from a $64m slush fund to buy art for the Leeum, Samsung’s art museum. Lee stepped down from his chairmanship of Samsung, and while Hong was cleared of these charges, buying by Samsung, previously one of the country’s biggest art collectors, has apparently come to a total halt.

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