10 Must-See Shows during Frieze Seoul
Gabriel Orozco, El Guapo, 2024.© Gabriel Orozco. Photo by Gerardo Landa Rojano. Courtesy of White Cube.
As Frieze Seoul approaches, galleries across the city will be opening some of the most daring exhibitions of the season. While Frieze and KIAF take over the COEX convention center in Gangnam, a range of shows across the city will be luring international visitors flying in for the major moment in the Korean art calendar. From Georg Baselitz’s imposing eagles soaring with vibrant impasto at Thaddaeus Ropac to Gabriel Orozco’s quiet explorations of geometry and nature at White Cube, blue-chip galleries are projecting a strong vision. Elsewhere, Lee Ufan’s meditative brushstrokes engage in a conversation with Mark Rothko’s emotional color fields at Pace Gallery, while new space Futura Seoul introduces the multisensory work of Refik Anadol, merging AI with nature.
Here are Artsy’s picks of the shows to see during Frieze Seoul 2024.
Georg Baselitz, Welten, die es nicht gab, mit Filzhut, 2023. © Georg Baselitz. Photo by Ulrich Ghezzi. Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac.
Georg Baselitz, Ohne Titel, 2024. © Georg Baselitz. Photo by Ulrich Ghezzi. Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac.
During Seoul’s fair weeks, Thaddaeus Ropac, a gallery known for its global roster of heavyweight artists, showcases a major solo exhibition by Georg Baselitz (alongside another from Sean Scully). Perched on a hill in Hannam-dong, the gallery blends seamlessly into this affluent neighborhood, which is a hotspot for art and culture in the city. Baselitz’s “adler barfuß” series is characteristic of the German artist’s signature boldness: Multicolored eagles with nearly three-meter wingspans have been rendered with energetic strokes. The cut-out plastic eyes add a playful twist to Baselitz’s expressive impasto, revisiting both personal and art historical themes.
Opened in the heart of Gangnam a year ago, White Cube Seoul has rapidly emerged as a cornerstone in the city’s contemporary art landscape. Known for showcasing top-tier international talent, the newly arrived gallery brings global perspectives to the city. Its exhibition of work by Gabriel Orozco is a good example. Orozco, celebrated for his conceptual versatility across painting, sculpture, and design, introduces new works from his “Diarios des Plantas” series. This series, composed of delicate leaf prints and gouache washes, creates a visual conversation between nature and geometry. Drawing inspiration from botanical observations in Acapulco, Mexico, and Tokyo, Orozco combines traditional Japanese and Chinese painting techniques with his abstract compositions, blending organic forms with structured design.
Lee Ufan, Response, 2022 © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of Pace Gallery.
Mark Rothko, No. 16 {Green, White, Yellow on Yellow}, 1951. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy of Pace Gallery.
Hannam-dong’s thriving quarter includes another significant exhibition in Pace Seoul’s “Correspondence: Lee Ufan and Mark Rothko.” This show connects two influential voices in abstraction, offering a fresh perspective on the way color and form can convey presence and absence. Lee Ufan’s minimalist brushstrokes—deliberate, crisp gestures—capture moments of breath, preserving fleeting energy within the stillness of his canvas. His paintings create the feeling that time itself has paused, suggesting a delicate interplay between air, space, and materiality. In contrast, Mark Rothko’s vast expanses of color invite viewers to step into ethereal, atmospheric spaces, where boundaries dissolve, and color washes over the canvas in soft, emotional layers.
The exhibition, which was curated by Lee himself in collaboration with the Rothko family, will also include a new work by the Korean artist, Relatum – Correspondence (2024). Here, stone and steel offer a grounding counterpoint to the lightness of the paintings. Together, the works prompt viewers to consider the relationship between permanence and impermanence, presence and space, in the deeply reflective atmosphere of Pace’s Seoul space.
Yoo Youngkuk, Work, 1964. © Yoo Youngkuk Art Foundation. Courtesy of PKM Gallery.
Known for its emphasis on promoting Korean artists internationally, during Seoul’s art fair weeks, PKM Gallery highlights the life and work of Yoo Youngkuk in Korea’s abstract painting movement. His work uses precise geometry paired with organic elements taken from nature, reflecting the traditional Korean philosophy of harmony. The show features the late painter’s famous depictions of mountains and oceans, but these are not mere landscapes—they act as studies in balance, exploring order and movement. His calculated use of color and form subverts chaos while enacting restraint, creating works that both soothe and challenge. Yoo’s devotion to the “golden mean” creates an interplay between nature and logic—a fitting subject in a time when balance seems elusive.
Gallery Baton’s exhibition “The Apple and the Moon” by Doki Kim invites viewers into a world where the cosmic and the mundane intersect, provoking us to rethink the invisible forces that bind the universe together. Inspired by Newton’s apple, Kim’s new works blur the lines between the micro and macro. In her installation Umbra (2024), she scatters tiny lights across the gallery’s floor, creating flickering fragments, evoking molecules or atoms. Both mesmerizing and elusive, these deconstructed images suggest the fluidity of reality.
Meanwhile, the series of images “Partial Solar Eclipse” plays a trick on the viewer’s perception, transforming an apple’s surface into the vastness of a planet. Elsewhere, Kim’s dark, paraffin-covered sculptures in To Night, From Night embody a fragile strength—these giants with delicate hands reach for connection in the shadows. In sum, the exhibition contemplates how the smallest moments can unlock the mysteries of the universe.
Bona Park’s “Whistlers” has transformed Gallery Chosun’s high ceilinged underground space into a thoughtful reflection on female solidarity. Located near MMCA (the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), this gallery is known for its focus on promoting Korean artists and experimental shows. Park’s exhibition builds on her relationship with WING, an organization that supports women exiting prostitution, and explores the idea of friendship as an act of resistance. The show features the video Whistlers (2023), where 12 women engage in a synchronized breathing performance, transforming their exhalations into a poetic collective act.
This breath becomes tangible in the installation How to Whistle (2024), where the air exchanged in the video is symbolically stitched onto T-shirts donated by the artist’s friends. These shirts are then hung on washing lines in the gallery. Park also presents 12 gouache paintings in the series “Mountains,” where she depicts small objects held dear by the women in WING, becoming symbols of shared care. These pieces actively reframe friendship as labor and resistance, placing emotional connections at the forefront of the art-making process. As Park’s first major solo show in years, it holds significance in the local art scene, where conversations about feminism, community, and healing are gaining increasing traction.
Refik Anadol, installation view of Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive, 2024, at Serpentine North. Photo by Hugo Glendinning. Courtesy of Refik Anadol Studio and Serpentine.
In the heart of the historic Gahoe-dong neighborhood, brand new art space Futura Seoul will be launching its inaugural exhibition, “Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive,” by Refik Anadol. This formidable new player in Seoul’s evolving art scene occupies a grand two-story space with towering dimensions.
For this show, Anadol’s Large Nature Model, a generative AI trained on extensive datasets from sources like the Smithsonian and the Amazon Rainforest, digitally reconstructs nature in captivating, data-driven visual forms. The work also integrates multichannel sound and even scent, in the form of 500,000 fragrance molecules, allowing visitors to not only see but also smell digital landscapes. It’s sure to be an encounter that examines how technology intersects with and preserves the delicate ecosystems of Earth—an unmissable highlight in the city.
Gallery Hyundai’s exhibition “Shared Destinies” traces the poetic, transformative journey of Korean American sculptor John Pai, in his first solo exhibition in Korea in over a decade. In this show, Pai presents works created over the last 70 years, which all begin with a single point or line in space and evolve organically into intricate, dynamic forms.
His sculptures have a life of their own, frozen in a moment yet seemingly ready to shift at any time. Drawing inspiration from music, dance, and East Asian philosophy, Pai’s sculptural practice is a testament to the power of spontaneity and intuition. His work captures movement, energy, and tension in a way that feels both timeless and immediate. Gallery Hyundai’s long-standing reputation as a tastemaker for both Korean and global art scenes makes this exhibition a must-see for collectors and enthusiasts alike.
Kukje Gallery, also located near the MMCA, has long held a reputation for supporting both Korean and international contemporary artists. With its sleek, minimalist architecture, the gallery serves as a prime space for exhibitions that challenge conventional narratives and explore complex sociopolitical themes. Kyungah Ham’s “Phantom and A Map” exemplifies this commitment. In this solo exhibition, Ham uses embroidery to convey covert political messages, often engaging North Korean artisans in the process.
The show delves into the fractured history of the Korean Peninsula, addressing themes of power, secrecy, and resistance. Through intricate craftsmanship and vibrant color, Ham layers personal memory with larger political critique, transforming ordinary materials into striking commentaries on societal boundaries. Phantom and A Map not only reflects Ham’s ongoing exploration of these issues but also serves as a rare opportunity to witness art that bridges personal narrative with geopolitical themes.
Known for his use of found objects collected in Harlem, Nari Ward transforms everyday materials into sculptures and installations with powerful sociopolitical narratives. In his current show at Lehmann Maupin, copper, with its healing connotations, becomes a canvas etched with depictions of liquor bottles and prayer candles, in several new works that nod to communal rituals of mourning and celebration. Other bodies of work explore the subject from different angles. In Medicine Bats (2011), reproduction glass baseball bats are presented in cabinets to symbolize the duality of protection and violence. Meanwhile, his new installation OHM (2024) uses found shoelaces to explore the connection between meditation (reflecting the traditional sound in the title), ritual, and resistance.
