About

Special Exhibition of Outstanding Galleries 2022, titled Dialogue, is a project presented as a part of a report on the achievements of the Grant for Artist Management program sponsored by the Korea Arts Management Service. The objective of the program, which launched in 2019, is to continuously support creative activities of visual artists and establish an environment of virtuous circulation for galleries through which they can discover and promote promising artists. Every year, the Grant for Artist Management program presents works of select artists through the Special Exhibition of Outstanding Galleries, which is an extension of the program. Nine outstanding galleries and 17 artists selected for the program in 2021 have been invited to exhibit 80 some works ranging from painting and photography to media and installation in Dialogue, which is open for one month, from October 12 to November 9, at the Glass Haus on the 7th floor of the Hyundai Department Store, Mokdong.

Dialogue is the third exhibition presented by the Grant for Artist Management program. This year’s exhibition overcomes the physical limitations of past exhibitions held amidst the pandemic and focuses on the individual stories of 17 artists through the organic communication between artists, galleries, curators, and collectors, rather than presenting a single artistic discourse. Through paired artist-curator interviews, we ensured that the philosophy of each artist reaches the audience more clearly. Curators participating in this project include Taehyun Kwon, Sun A Moon, Jaeho Shim, Annette Doms, Jinsang Yoo, Sunghui Lee, Sookhyun Cho, and Sungah Choo. Daehyung Lee, Artistic Director of Dialogue, interviews directors of the nine named galleries to shed light on their visions and philosophies as well as discuss future strategies to strengthen global competitiveness.

Rather than working with a specific theme, this year’s exhibition experiments with various formats and communication methods between artists, galleries, and curators to think about the values an exhibition in the form of an art fair can present. Superficially, the exhibition shows antinomic and contradictory combinations, but on the reverse side, we see social and environmental practice for a sustainable future. Dialogue is a special exhibition of works by 17 select artists, but the exhibited works are also available for purchase. For this reason, a space in a department store has been selected in place of a museum gallery space for the exhibition, and the works are installed on steel palette racks suitable for product display and storage at warehouse stores. A portion of profits from artwork sales will be donated to institutions specified by the participating artists.

Ultimately, Dialogue examines the direction at which added values created by art exhibitions can point to in a society. The scope of audience consuming and enjoying art will be expanded through this break away from the traditional gallery space, and the steel palette racks used for display will be recycled to serve a different purpose unlike panel walls that are discarded upon exhibition closing. This exhibition reflects on what art can do at the intersection of art and society. We hope that this exhibition will truly deliver on upholding the social values that art must rightly observe.

Project Dialogue
Daehyung Lee

Humanity in the 21st century is still shackled by the pandemic, hatred, war, and environmental crisis, failing to take even a single step away from them. The global supply chain competition caused by the war between Ukraine and Russia fueled exclusive egoism and inflation, and Europe that relied on energy imported from Russia is now preparing to survive the harsh winter. Extreme climate polarization is only being repeated and exacerbated, with one side of the world struggling with severe draught while the other side is experiencing heavy floods. Amidst these conditions and events around the world, the first edition of Frieze Seoul took place in early September and turned the city into a huge party house. The unprecedented rush of visitors from overseas on the occasion of the international art fair kept Samseong-dong, Hannam-dong, and Samcheong-dong lit up late into the night, while continued news on record-breaking artwork sales did not let champagne glasses dry. However, “the scent of colonialism at the end of Joseon Dynasty”that slowly occupied the empty space after the party left a sick feeling that made us alert. The media and visitors fired up over Frieze, major international galleries, and overseas artists on million-dollar sell-out streaks, instead of KIAF, Korean galleries, and Korean artists.

Unfortunately, Korea in 2022 is not regarded as a cultural exchange partner in the global art arena, but merely as a new and emerging market where art from overseas can be sold. What remains after the “tsunami” of Frieze is not the meaning and significance of artworks, but numbers from their price tags. Throughout history, we have witnessed multiple accounts of the art world being bloated from vanity and arrogance that inevitably followed booms, as well as its failure in which the original philosophical messages of the works were lost as a result. The future can’t be drawn solely based on market index presented by “objective numbers.” More contact and dialogue must be exchanged between storytelling strategy partners, including curators, art museums, and magazines, who create symbolic values in a broader context. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, global solidarity and joint research among museums, curators, and art educators around the world have been taking place more broadly, frequently, and competitively than ever. In the end, movement of wealth in the art world is decided by who tells an attractive story first and how it’s told; that means we have a chance too.

Then what should art do to produce an attractive story? First, stories are made clear through dialogue. Subtle nuances of meaning are determined by those engaged in dialogue and the medium of communication, so creating the right environment for communication is key. We confirm that “meaning” and “communication” are undoubtedly the conditions for survival in the art world through the history of art that has been producing new visual language and meaning. Then is there enough communication among us today? Are we preparing a program that is rich enough to have meanings produced by artists communicated to the world?

Project Dialogue is a program intended to foster the global competitiveness of art through the restoration of active dialogue between artists, curators, and gallery directors. Curators Taehyun Kwon, Sun A Moon, Jaeho Shim, Annette Doms, Jinsang Yoo, Sunghui Lee, Sookhyun Cho, and Sungah Choo joined to bring out and unfold discussions of the 17 artists named for the Grant for Artist Management program of Korea Arts Management Service. Various programs through which future visions of gallery directors are shared have also been prepared so the dialogues go beyond discussing the physical perfection of art and focus on more essential philosophies. Restoring artist-gallery-curator conversation is the first action to deliver these changes. We must build a new kind of cooperation system and gather our wisdoms for art that speaks about meaning, not numbers, to see a more transparent art market, all in hopes of establishing a fair standing of art in Korea ten years later. The task left behind by the era of uncertainty is safeguarding and maintaining the long standing, true values of art such as empathy for others, sincerity, and originality.

Grant for Artist Management program, which is funded by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Arts Management Service. Designed to promote such sustainable collaboration and growth among galleries and artists, this program provides galleries with the opportunity to support talented artists, while allowing the artists themselves to focus on their creative activities.

Founded in 2006, the Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS) is a government-run art foundation affiliated with Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. KAMS is devoted to enhancing the self-sustainability of Korean art by systematically and comprehensively supporting the capacity of art institutions and the international distribution of Korean art. To this end, we organize many diverse projects aimed at popularizing Korea’s visual and performing arts, supporting the creation and development of art organizations, building an infrastructure for global distribution, and boosting the social value of art and culture. To stimulate the global market for Korean art, we actively provide support to Korean artists and galleries participating in international exhibitions and art fairs. We also spearhead diverse publications about Korean art and promote the enjoyment and collection of art among the general public through our annual “Korea Art Week” event. For more information, visit KAMS website.

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