FRIEZE LONDON 2026

The booth prominently features artists currently exhibiting at Kukje Gallery, as well as those with exhibitions forthcoming. Park Seo-Bo, whose retrospective Changing Unchanging is on view at Kukje Gallery Seoul to mark the third anniversary of his passing, is represented by Ecriture No. 220729 (2022). Repeated vertical lines run across a purplish ceramic surface, with a red window structure at the center, reflecting the artist’s sustained exploration of color and materiality in the final years of his practice. Meanwhile, Seeun Kim, currently presenting her solo exhibition Pictos and Pitwall at Kukje Gallery Seoul K2, shows Folding painting-Lines for the next (2023), which translates the city’s multilayered visual perception and embodied experience into painting through the motif of the “tunnel,” a space of passage and transit. Moving beyond a straightforward depiction of the urban landscape, Kim traces the trajectories of movement and sensory responses of the body within a rapidly changing environment. Korakrit Arunanondchai, whose solo exhibition Post Ritual Bodies is on view at Kukje Gallery Busan, unveils a new work There’s nothing more to do (2026), in which body heat captured by a thermal camera is layered with ultramarine blue pigment on a transparent projection screen.

Ahead of her upcoming solo exhibition in November at Kukje Gallery Seoul’s Hanok, Jenny Holzer offers Survival: Protect me... (2018). Renowned for using text as a primary medium to address socio-political issues and the human condition, Holzer engraves words onto dense stone, evoking the interplay between language, material, and the body. Heejoon Lee previews his forthcoming solo exhibition at the gallery with A Shape of Taste No. 104 (2018), an early work that transforms memories and urban landscapes of Seoul into geometric abstractions through distinct color fields and textured surfaces. The presentation also emphasizes artists who are broadening the global reach of Korean contemporary art through major institutional exhibitions worldwide. Highlights include works by celebrated figures participating in RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me, which recently opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Following his record-breaking sale for a Korean artist at Frieze Seoul 2026 in September, Yoo Youngkuk is represented by Work (1984). The painting reveals his mature realm of abstraction, where previously strict geometric intersections yield to softer lines and a refined approach to color. Featured in the same exhibition, Han Youngsoo, a pioneer of modern Korean photography, records daily life in the postwar Korean society with precise compositions and keen observation in Myeong-dong, Seoul 1956-1963 (1956–1963, printed in 2025). Meanwhile, first-generation female sculptor Kim Yun Shin presents Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One 2002-749 (2002), contrasting the rough surface of Brazilian Jasper with polished carved facets to articulate her distinctive sculptural philosophy toward nature and material. Additionally, Ha Chong-Hyun, currently the subject of his first major retrospective in North America at the Asian Art Museum (AAM) in San Francisco, contributes Conjunction 25-10 (2025). The thick, vertical impasto of off-white paint pushed through the back of the hemp canvas highlights his signature “back-pressure” method, underscoring his enduring investigation into gesture, materiality, and the two-dimensional plane. Haegue Yang, who will present her solo exhibition Haegue Yang: Through at Dia Beacon in New York beginning October 10, introduces her new work Blunt Bloom (2026). The work combines traditional embroidery elements from a workshop in Tainan, Taiwan, with Asian lacquer painting techniques, incorporating fortuitous environmental traces and local craft heritage onto a surface where time, place, and memory converge. Yeondoo Jung’s new work Smoke Drawing - The Balance (2026) depicts scallion flowers found in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, home to a significant Koryo-in community, rendered in soot from fire. Employing soot, an unstable and ephemeral medium that easily disappears, Jung invokes traces of labor and survival shaped by a history of forced displacement, visually articulating the delicate tension between “rooting” and “uprooting.” The booth also spotlights artists actively engaged on the international biennial stage. Invited to the Busan Biennale 2026, Suki Seokyeong Kang showcases Mat 120 × 165 #23-79 (2023), combining hwamunseok, traditional woven reed mat, with metal frames to expand the pictorial format into a three-dimensional architectural space. Lotus L. Kang, whose participation in the Bvlgari Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia has drawn considerable attention, presents Tract LXII (2026). The work comprises cast bronze and aluminum forms derived from everyday objects and fragments of memory—such as anchovies and lotus roots—suspended vertically in a wind-chime-like arrangement. Jang Pa, currently participating in the 16th Gwangju Biennale’s IVAE Pavilion, introduces Gore Deco – Flat Hole #2 (2025). By intersecting violence against women with hierarchies of ornamentation, the work challenges established visual conventions surrounding the female body and the gaze.

Finally, the booth brings together works by artists with deep-rooted connections to London. Anish Kapoor, currently featured in a major retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London, presents Green and Brandy (2021), from his Mirrors series. Through the reflective distortion of the concave disc, the work draws the viewer’s body and surrounding space into its field, blurring the boundaries between material and immaterial, as well as reality and perception. Julian Opie offers Muhammad 2. (2025), created in collaboration with a London school to capture the confident, playful strides and individual character of children. Through his signature visual language of bold, simplified outlines and a restrained color palette, Opie conveys the spontaneous motion of the human form.