In 2023, the dealer Mariane Ibrahim made a radical move in today’s art world: She did not participate in any art fairs, anywhere.
“We took a hiatus,” said Ibrahim, who has galleries in Chicago, Paris and Mexico City and specializes primarily in artists of African descent. “It was great. We’re in such a machine, I wanted to slow down a little bit.”
But now she is back, exhibiting at Frieze Seoul as she did in 2022, when it was brand-new.
The fair’s third edition runs Sept. 5-7 in the Coex convention center in Seoul, and features 117 galleries from 32 countries, from Vietnam to the republic of Georgia.
Ibrahim’s booth will feature the painting “Marco (Polo Boys)” (2024) by Ian Micheal, who lives in Oakland, Calif., and works by the painter Ian Mwesiga, of Kampala, Uganda, and the Tokyo painter Yukimasa Ida, among others.
So why did Ibrahim return? “I’m grateful for fairs, they’re an important showcase,” she said. “I wouldn’t be where I am without them.”
She added, “But it’s OK to question and take a break. It allows you a level of reinvention.”
One lesson she has learned over the years is not to rehang her booth each day for variety’s sake, as some galleries do.
“This way, people can say to their friends, ‘Hey did you see that painting?’” Ibrahim said. “I think it’s frustrating if it changes every day.”
Variety will not be in short supply in the Coex center. Frieze Seoul runs concurrently in the same venue with Kiaf, a fair put on by the Galleries Association of Korea that has some 200 dealers. Tickets are combined, giving visitors access to both fairs.
The larger context of the South Korean art scene is notably busy.
“We also have two biennials at this time,” said Patrick Lee, Frieze Seoul’s director. He was referring to the Busan Biennale and the Gwangju Biennale, taking place in their respective South Korean cities and overlapping with the fair.
“It’s mutually beneficial,” Lee said of the confluence of the fair and the noncommercial exhibitions. “It brings a few extra museum curators to us, and they are ecstatic to be on hand.”
This year, 64 percent of the Frieze galleries are based in Asia or have a space there, and Lee said that was the key factor that distinguishes the fair from the competition around the world.
“The last thing I want to do is make it the same as other fairs,” Lee said.
The Frieze Masters section of the fair, for older and historical art, has 19 galleries this year.
“We’re particularly pleased this year to have many galleries from across the region showing historical Asian art,” said Nathan Clements-Gillespie, the director of Frieze Masters.
He said that time-tested works may also be seen as a hedge when the market is not at its hottest.
“The material that Frieze Masters offers is a certainty throughout time,” Clements-Gillespie said. “There’s a confidence in knowing that you’re buying an object whose value has grown steadily over 600 years.”
The Masters section at Frieze Seoul includes the gallery DAG, with spaces in New Delhi and Mumbai, India, which is participating for the first time.
“It’s part of a larger business strategy to be in key markets,” said Ashish Anand, the chief executive and managing director of DAG. “We thought we should try it.”
DAG — which formerly had a New York branch and will again when it can find the right space, Anand said — is presenting a solo booth of Sohan Qadri (1932-2011), known for his intensely colored abstractions. The Indian-born artist lived in Copenhagen for some 30 years in the latter part of his career.
The booth will feature a series of Qadri’s untitled works on paper made with ink and dye. He frequently used knives and other tools to scar the surfaces of his pieces.
“His works are inspired by yoga and meditation — there’s a high level of spirituality in what he did,” Anand said.
The choice of Qadri for Frieze Masters was strategic. “He has truly global appeal,” Anand said. “We wanted to play it safe.”
He added that the price tags of the offerings — mostly ranging from $40,000 to $100,000 — were also deliberate.
“We’re purposely not bringing million-dollar paintings,” Anand said. “We wanted to bring something at an attractive price point.”
Showing at any fair is a logistical challenge, especially when it is not in a gallery’s home city. But DAG is also showing at the concurrent Armory Show in New York, running Sept. 6 to 8.
Like Frieze Seoul, the Armory Show is owned by Frieze’s parent company, the sports and entertainment conglomerate Endeavor.
“We’ve never done that before,” Anand said. “We’re sending one team to New York and one team to Seoul.”
Luckily, he added, DAG has 150 employees to facilitate multiple fairs. Then, in just over a month, DAG will be participating in Frieze Masters in London, too.
Frieze Seoul’s main section will include many global powerhouse galleries that have spaces all over the world, including Gagosian, Pace Gallery, Hauser & Wirth and David Zwirner.
Included in that group is White Cube, with galleries in Seoul and Hong Kong in addition to London, Paris and New York.
The White Cube booth will feature the painting “Tesseract #7” (2023) by the New York artist Howardena Pindell; “Still Life (medical cabinet) III” (2024), made of steel and handblown glass, by Mona Hatoum, who was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and now lives in London; and the oil “Anthill” (2023), by the Brazilian artist Marina Rheingantz, who lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.
Wendy Xu, the director of White Cube’s Hong Kong gallery who also oversees its broader Asian operations, said that Frieze Seoul had been “quite positive for us, with lots of serious buyers.”
But she was most impressed by the savvy of the locals who attend.
“People come by and they know who the artists in the booth are — they’ve previously studied online,” Xu said. “As an exhibitor, I find that amazing. They’ve done their homework.”
Leeahn Gallery — with spaces in Seoul and the southeastern city of Daegu, where it was founded — is presenting a selection of works meant to highlight a dialogue between the country’s artistic generations. Lee Kang-So, 81, is represented by the oil “Serenity-221256” (2022) and Kwangho Lee, 42, by the enameled copper work “Dissolve 19-24 #1” (2024).
Hongwon Lee, Leeahn’s associate director, said the gallery was focused on collaborations with galleries all over the world in the service of making the artists it represents better known.
“Now that the global market is going through a period of stagnation, we’re trying even harder to promote our artists overseas and collaborate overseas,” Lee said.
She gave the example of meeting White Cube’s founder, Jay Jopling, at the first edition of Frieze Seoul, which led to a show of the Leeahn artist Lee Jin Woo at White Cube’s Hong Kong gallery (closing Sept. 7).
“It’s the best way to nurture our artists and bring them to the next level,” Hongwon Lee said. “Whether the market is slow or good, we have to work together.”
The Tokyo gallery Kosaku Kanechika has its own version of togetherness, presenting two ceramists in dialogue: Takuro Kuwata from Gifu, Japan, and Dan McCarthy of New York’s Hudson Valley.
“Takuro works in bright and vivid colors, and Dan is playful and almost comical,” said Kanechika, who founded his namesake gallery in 2017. “We’re presenting a very modern version of ceramics.”
The booth includes McCarthy’s multicolored “Glaze Tester FacePot, 3 Birds” (2024) and Kuwata’s “Tea Bowl” (2024), a mauve vessel painted with dissolved gold.
It is the kind of combination that might get a collector to ask for further information on the artists.
And, though it has been two years since she last showed in Seoul, Ibrahim, who is returning to the fair post-hiatus, remembers those kinds of conversations from that initial Frieze Seoul.
“There was a poetic curiosity about the work,” she said of the people who stopped by the 2022 booth. Ibrahim had an idea about what motivated that inquisitive spirit, which came right after the worst phase of the Covid pandemic had just ended.
“Beauty is the answer to all of our problems and trauma,” she said.
Read More: Frieze Seoul Headlines a Busy South Korean Art Season
