On a side street in the bustling Yaksu-dong neighborhood, amid the mostly straight lines of generic office buildings and apartment high-rises, a funky, artsy new neighbor has arrived: Frieze House Seoul.
The house, with its curvy facades, rounded shingles and bonsai-like trees dotting its lawn, will open as a permanent exhibition space during Frieze Seoul, the art fair running Wednesday to Sept. 6. It is based on a model created by Frieze London at No. 9 Cork Street in London, a gallery that opened in 2021. Frieze London is known for short-term exhibitions, artist residencies and fairs and events held throughout the year.
Frieze House Seoul’s opening comes during the fourth installment of Frieze Seoul, which Patrick Lee, the director of the fair, sees as a testament to the event’s popularity and the importance of South Korea in the global arts scene. He wants to replicate the success of No. 9 Cork Street.
“That is the whole concept: to give space to creators, galleries, architecture firms, moviemakers and fashion designers,” he said. “People want to engage with the audience here longer than the fair.”
On a recent tour of Frieze House Seoul, gardeners braved a sweltering day to finish the landscaping while the exhibition spaces inside got a final glow-up. Light trickled in from a skylight over a four-level staircase, the centerpiece of the split-level house. The clean white walls of the exhibition rooms contrasted with the dark wood and curved glass block windows along the stairwell.
“We’re going to divide this house into two exhibition spaces, one about 80 square meters on the lower levels and then the second and third floors at about 140 square meters,” Lee said during the tour. “A gravel area on the ground floor of the stairwell will be for sculptures, rotating on a regular basis.”
The house is a mélange of design styles both inside and out. The slate roof — which also drapes the sides of the house — is made of hand-carved shingles, and walls of meticulously cut salmon-colored granite define much of the outside and the stairwell. A 70-year-old red maple tree and Korean red pines — estimated at around the same age — stand on the lawn, which will be outfitted with tables and chairs.
Lee said that he looked at more than 30 spaces after Frieze Seoul started up in 2022. For him, the house, built in 1988 for the family of Cho Choong Hoon, a former chairman of Korean Air, is an embodiment of the country’s modern history.
“The fact that this house was built in 1988 really shows that energy and that inflection point, both socially and politically, for South Korea,” Lee said. “There were the first democratic elections and then the Olympics, and then the first time that artists could even travel abroad. That means something. This house kind of has that spirit.”
The home is now owned by an art patron, whom Lee declined to name; that person purchased it a few years ago from a different owner who bought it from the family of Cho, who is still seen as a major force in the rapid modernization of South Korea.
Behind the drive for permanent space for Frieze in both London and Seoul is the idea that an art fair is more than just a commercial event that lasts a few days.
“As part of Frieze’s long-term strategy, we have built year-round ventures that strengthen the ecosystem and foster a sense of community,” Simon Fox, chief executive of Frieze, wrote in an email. “Frieze House Seoul builds on this success and will enable galleries from around the world to experience Seoul’s dynamic cultural community all year long.”
The success of No. 9 Cork Street, which is housed in two townhouses in London’s Mayfair neighborhood, is rooted in its ever-changing programming.
“There’s more time to have longer conversations during a three-week-long exhibition than a quick conversation at a fair,” Selvi May Akyildiz, director of the gallery, said from London. “There’s so much buildup to the fairs, but it’s for a week, like a flash in the pan, which is fantastic and exciting — but then it’s over. With Cork Street, that excitement continues all year round because it’s a beehive with this amazing cross-pollination of artists and galleries.”
The inaugural exhibition for Frieze House Seoul, titled “UnHouse” and curated by the South Korean writer, curator and gallerist Jae Seok Kim, will run from Tuesday to Oct. 2. It will “reimagine the home through the eye of queer artists,” Kim said during the recent tour.
Kim, the curator of Xlarge Gallery, which is housed in his apartment, is also a champion of the Euljiro neighborhood, which borders Yaksu-dong.
“This opening exhibition at Frieze House Seoul is, to me, a reflection of the city’s current shift culturally and artistically, and also its location near Euljiro, which is a hodgepodge of queer history, galleries, markets and nightlife,” Kim said during the tour of Frieze House Seoul. “Walking through ‘UnHouse’ is a bit like walking through the evolving city around us.”
Each room in “UnHouse” will function as an immersive narrative with video works, photographs, sculptures, paintings and drawings, Lee said, adding that no other exhibitions are currently planned after “UnHouse” (though he hopes to announce one after Frieze Seoul). The debut installation is an ideal way to open Frieze House Seoul and capitalize on South Korea’s rapid emergence as a vital arts city, he said.
“We have learned a lot from No. 9 Cork Street,” Lee said. “I’d like to open it up a bit to highlight galleries, which will be our main shows, but there can also be filmmakers, curators, book launches, talks and institutions like biennials.”
He added, “I think the programming in Seoul is going to be a reflection of the global interest of the scene here and all over Asia.”
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