FRIEZE SEOUL 2024

The fair will highlight established artists who have been consistently active since the 1960s but have not been sufficiently studied in art history. Among them, the works of PARK Youngsook (b. 1941, Korea), a foundational figure in Korean contemporary photography and feminist movements, will be introduced. PARK has pursued original feminist work with a deep awareness of gender representation and a continuous focus on women, the marginalised, and the peripheral in the male-dominated Korean photography scene of the 1960s and 70s. Since her first solo exhibition in 1966, she has depicted the oppressive realities of women and promoted women’s liberation through her work, including as a member of ‘Another Culture’, a feminist cultural movement group formed by female scholars in women’s studies, sociology, and anthropology in 1988. Her works, which portray the history and realities of women from various backgrounds, will be featured at the exhibition Connecting Bodies: Asian Women Artists at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul this September, and she will also have a solo booth in the Spotlight section at Frieze Masters, the world’s largest art fair, in October.

Another participating artist is JUNG Kangja (1942-2017, Korea), who will also be featured in the Connecting Bodies: Asian Women Artists exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul. In 2023, JUNG was one of 11 key female artists selected for a solo booth in the Modern Women section at Frieze Masters in London, which highlighted pivotal moments in women’s rights and feminism from 1880 to 1980. She also gained attention from both domestic and international art institutions and collectors through her participation in the exhibition Only the Young: Experimental Art in Korea, 1960s–1970s, which toured the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. At this fair, JUNG’s representative painting series, Monument of Hanbok will be exhibited.

ARARIO GALLERY will also present the works of RYU In (1956-1999, Korea), a first-generation figurative sculptor well-known for his works. RYU left behind about 70 works during his short life of 40 years. He intensely expressed the fundamental anxieties, frustrations, and complexes of human life through his unique technique of distorting or transforming realistically depicted human body parts and employing theatrical devices. In the 1980s, when abstract and installation art dominated the Korean art scene, RYU built a reputation as a prominent figurative sculptor by presenting precise and powerful figurative sculptures centred around the human body. In the 1990s, he expanded his scope by introducing new figurative sculptures incorporating formal elements and combining sculpture with installation art.

The gallery will also spotlight mid-career and young promising artists who are active both domestically and internationally in their unique artistic languages. One of the featured artists is SUN Xun (b. 1980, China), a notable figure in contemporary Chinese art who has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Saint Louis Art Museum, Drawing Center, Hammer Museum, Yuz Museum, Minsheng Art Museum, TANK Shanghai, and Hayward Gallery, among others. SUN Xun has continuously experimented with various materials and media, including elaborate hand-drawn and painted stop-motion animations, woodblock reliefs, and installation art. At Frieze Seoul, he will present works that evoke shamanism and folk beliefs embedded in East Asian traditions, featuring anthropomorphised animals in a magical, fictional world. These works subvert the perspectives and positions of humans and non-humans, observers and observed, raising critical questions about anthropocentric thinking.

New works by LEE Jinju (b. 1980, Korea) will also be unveiled. LEE is known for her delicate depiction of strange and mysterious scenes, objects, and landscapes encountered in everyday life, using the colouring techniques of traditional Korean painting mediated by water. Her method of observing and meticulously rendering figures bathed in soft light resembles the portrait techniques of the Joseon Dynasty. However, LEE’s work addresses the female body and inner self, which were not deeply explored in traditional painting, with the figures in her works expressing themselves through obscured eyes, back views, or hand gestures. LEE is set to have a solo exhibition at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai this October. Additionally, the gallery will showcase works by KIM Inbai (b. 1978, Korea), known for his work that crosses the boundaries of human perception structures, such as between plane and three-dimensionality, time and space, and language and non-language. KIM won the 35th Kim Sejoong Young Sculptor Award in 2024.

Finally, the work of Yohan HAN (b. 1983, Korea), an artist who deals with the theme of ‘performance,’ which is also the subject of this year’s inaugural Frieze Live program, will be featured. HAN has been conducting various formal experiments with a focus on the relationship and communication between performance, sculptural works, and media. At the ARARIO GALLERY booth, his ‘Drum’ series, which combines the traditional Korean drum-making technique of ‘drum filling’ with the shaped canvas format, as well as video works documenting his performance pieces, will be displayed. Born in France, HAN has held solo exhibitions at Surim Cube and Gallery Chosun and participated in numerous group exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, Seoul Art Space Mullae, Centre Pompidou in France, Espace des arts sans frontières, and Espace Pierre Cardin. He has also been an artist-in-residence at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Goyang Art Studio, Cheongju Art Studio, La Générale Nord-Est in Paris, and Cité Internationale des arts in Paris. HAN was selected for the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture’s ‘First Art Support’ in 2019 and participated in La Nuit Blanche in Paris in 2016 and 2017.

In addition, the gallery will present recent works by international artists such as Subodh GUPTA (b. 1964, India), who has a solo exhibition scheduled at ARARIO GALLERY SEOUL to coincide with the opening of Frieze Seoul; Kohei NAWA (b. 1975, Japan); Buen CALUBAYAN (b. 1980, Philippines); and Gisela McDaniel (b. 1995, USA).

Through Frieze Seoul 2024, ARARIO GALLERY aims to present works that encompass various currents of contemporary art, offering domestic and international audiences the diverse allure of contemporary art.