A-list gallery White Cube, which currently has branches in London, Paris, New York and Hong Kong, will open a new outpost in Seoul, becoming the latest in a wave of Western galleries to do so. The approximately 3,000-square-foot street-facing space in the upscale Gangnam-gu district of the South Korean capital will occupy the ground floor of the same building as Horim Art Center, an art museum private house housing a collection of modern Korean art and antiquities.
“The Korean art scene is characterized by deep ties to the local and the global. This is perfectly displayed in our new White Cube location,” said Jini Yang, Director of White Cube Seoul. The arts journal. While White Cube currently represents only one Korean artist, Park Seo Bo, a member of the 1960s Dansaekhwa movement renowned for his minimalist abstract paintings, the gallery has previously exhibited works by two other Korean artists, Minjung Kim and Seung- Taek Lee.
Also of note, Thaddeus Ropac announced he would open a second gallery in the city, emulating Peres Projects, which last month unveiled plans for a second branch in Seoul, and Parisian gallery Perrotin, which trumpeted the opening a second outpost there. July. That same month, global megagallery Pace revealed that it would expand its Seoul gallery by 8,500 square feet. In recent years, the city has become a magnet for Western galleries seeking to capitalize on the fashionable art market, as well as for museums and fairs seeking to develop their brands. Newcomers to Seoul’s art scene include Paris’ Center Pompidou, which announced in March that it would open a satellite in Seoul, as well as New York’s Gladstone Gallery, Lehmann Maupin, König Galerie and Various Small Fires. . Art fair operator Frieze inaugurated its first event in Seoul in 2022.
