Coinciding with ‘Talking Bodies’ at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Frieze Seoul sees stand-out presentations by Asian women artists
Taking place 4 – 7 September, the third edition of Frieze Seoul coincides with major institutional exhibitions across the Korean capital foregrounding Asian women artists.
Opening in August, Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) is hosting a survey exhibition, ‘Paintings of Korean Women Artists’, with an accompanying conference joint-hosted with the Association of Korean Modern & Contemporary Art History the following month. The former director of SeMA, Kim Hong-Hee, who participates in this year’s KAMS x KIAF x Frieze Talks series, is also publishing a book, Korean Feminist Artists: Confront and Deconstruct, in October.
Opening in September, ‘Talking Bodies: Asian Women Artists’ at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) and Anicka Yi’s solo show at Leeum Museum of Art explore feminist art from a transnational perspective.
Frieze Seoul 2024 is following suit. This year, there are significant solo and group presentations at the fair highlighting the works of women artists of Asian heritage, from South Korea to Indonesia.
Park Youngsook, Body and Sexuality 2, 1998. c-print, 175 × 110cm. Edition of 10.
Courtesy: the artist and Arario Gallery
Park Youngsook (Arario Gallery) is renowned for her contributions to contemporary Korean photography and the feminist movement. She is the only photographer to be featured in the MMCA exhibition focusing on Asian female artists from the 1960–’70s.
Amplifying the voices of female and LGBTQ+ artists, P21 is showing oil paintings by Keem Jiyoung, who will also present a solo exhibition at P21 that runs during Frieze Seoul 2024. Keem’s recent works focus on flames and their haloes, positioning candlelight as a symbol of vigils, memory, loss, resistance and ephemerality.
Citra Sasmita, Fragments from Book of Fire 1, 2024. Acrylic painting on Kamasan traditional canvas, 45.5 x 31.5 cm. Courtesy : the artist and Yeo Workshop
Self-taught Indonesian artist Citra Sasmita reimagines traditional Balinese narratives and ancient iconography to create an empowered mythology for a post-patriarchal future. Ahead of her first solo exhibition in the UK at the Barbican early next year, Sasmita's new Kamasan paintings, traditionally practised exclusively by men, shed critical light on the overlooked role of women in Indonesian history and challenge post-colonial narratives that perpetuate gender stereotypes and inequality.
Juin Shieh, Crumpled Memory III, 2019. LED, paper, epoxy and iron, 80 × 80 × 30 cm.
Mind Set Art Center brings a curated show titled ‘Herstory’ that features three female artists from different generations who together explore the intricate relationships between memory, existence, motherhood and femininity. Taiwanese artist Juin Shieh, through a variety of media, revisits Greek mythology, employing vivid colours to depict legendary female figures such as Celine and Daphne, who died fighting for independence and freedom.
Park Kyung Ryul, 17:50 – unknown, 2024. Oil on canvas, 210 × 170 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Baik Art
Park Kyung Ryul describes her practice as ‘sculptural painting’, seeing individual brushstrokes as physical objects in order to expand conventions of abstraction into three-dimensional space. Park’s site-specific installation in Baik Art’s presentation for Focus Asia incorporates paintings, sculptures, works on paper, mirrors, found objects and organic material.
Pacita Abad, To Paint with a Twist, 1991. Acrylic, plastic buttons on silk-screened, stitched and padded canvas, 205.7 × 144.8 cm.
At Tina Kim Gallery, Pacita Abad and Mire Lee both use their materials to dynamic effect. The Filipina-US Abad worked across textiles as well as paper and canvas. Selections from her ‘Asian Abstractions’ will coincide with the late artist’s first major North American retrospective, travelling this October to the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Lee’s sculptural works are less vibrantly colourful, but just as astounding in their own way. Her hoses, motors, silicone and cement form visceral, complex and intimate assemblages. Catch them in Seoul ahead of her landmark Turbine Hall Commission at London’s Tate Modern this October.
