Following a successful debut in Texas last year, collector and entrepreneur Jeffrey Lawson’s Untitled Art returns to Houston next month with an edition that promises to be even more anchored in the city’s expansive art ecosystem. On the exhibitors’ list are 98 national and international galleries operating at different market tiers, attracted by the promise of new buyers brought to town by the major aerospace, tech and manufacturing companies putting down roots in Houston. (NASA, Axiom and SpaceX are all already here, and Apple has just opened its new manufacturing facility.)

Untitled Art’s Texas fair emerged after years of conversations with Houston’s art insiders and local government. The goal was not just to bring a fair to Houston but to create an event that could fit seamlessly into the city’s existing artistic fabric. “There’s already tons of culture,” director Michael Slenske told Observer, “and all of their museums have key expansion plans, like the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), the Orange Show for Visionary Art, LMAAHH’s Latino cultural complex and the Ismaili Center, which are on the horizon.”

Ahead of the fair, we asked a group of Houstonians deeply involved in the city’s art scene how it has evolved and expanded over the years, what conditions past and present have allowed that growth and how Untitled is bringing new visibility to the regional talent among international art lovers and professionals.

Historical institutions such as the Menil Collection have long attracted visitors to the city. “I think Houston has always been a really thriving art community from artists, supporters, donors, collectors,” CAMH director Ryan Dennis told Observer. Dennis, a Houston native who left and returned, has been leading the institution for over a decade, watching the city’s art scene evolve around her. Artists find ways to show their work here, while collectors, as well as local institutions and organizations, offer different opportunities to pursue and support their practices. She pointed to mid-sized organizations such as Lawndale, Project Row Houses and DiverseWorks, adding that she sees “this kind of atmosphere of support.”

Timed with the fair, Project Row Houses will open the third edition of the Southern Survey Biennial, showcasing, in its historic row houses, the work of six artists and one collective selected from more than 200 submissions across 13 Southern states. One will be awarded the $25,000 prize—one of the largest awards of its kind for a Southern-based artist. Founded in 1993 by seven artists who bought a block of neglected houses in the Third Ward and turned them into space for art and community life, PRH has become a national model for socially engaged art.

According to Dennis, CAMH’s key mission has included helping the city’s art offerings move beyond the “Southern blind spot.” Notably, since its founding in 1948, CAMH has embraced a rare and forward-thinking non-collecting model, closer in spirit to an ICA and focused on creating a responsive platform attuned to its community’s needs. “We do a great job at programming and collaborating with the organizations in the city, from education to other arts organizations and even DJs and performers in the city.”

CAMH’s exhibition of teen-created art spotlights Houston’s young talent while introducing them to the many career pathways in the art and museum worlds. The programming has also included very ambitious projects, most recently a survey of Tomashi Jackson’s decade-long, socially engaged practice, as well as “Theaster Gates: The Gift and the Renege” in 2024, which functioned both as a research platform and a public forum, spotlighting the material history of Freedmen’s Town, a 19th-century neighborhood built by formerly enslaved Africans in Texas after the U.S. Civil War, and expanding the institution’s impact beyond its walls. “It’s often a collaborative process—a conversation between the artist, the museum and the community—that leads to an extension of the exhibition beyond the gallery walls,” co-director Melissa McDonnell Luján told Observer in a recent interview.

There’s also a gallery scene that, despite being relatively contained, has remained at the forefront of the latest artistic expressions. Barbara Davis, founder of Barbara Davis Gallery, was one of the first dealers to show Joseph Beuys’s work in Houston and gave Julie Mehretu her first solo show, among many other pioneering moments across more than four decades of operation. “There’s a stereotype of Houston and Texas, but when you’re there, you don’t see any tumbleweeds or cowboys. It’s a very sophisticated city, with several world-class museums and a great cultural offering between ballet, opera and theater,” she told Observer.

Davis pointed to the Moody Center for the Arts as an example. It’s currently showing “Radiant Geometries: Vectors of Knowledge from the Indigenous Americas,” an ambitious group exhibition exploring Indigenous knowledge systems and their longstanding relationship with mathematics, science and technology in the Americas. Featuring works by now more widely acclaimed artists such as Sara Flores, Melissa Cody and Eamon Ore-Giron, among others, the show demonstrates how these forms of ancestral wisdom and technologies, revived through contemporary practices, offer ways of knowing that continue to shape relationships to territories, waterways and interspecies care, as mathematical, metaphysical and artistic knowledge converge within them.

Davis also pointed to a series of new private initiatives; some collectors have opened new art centers or provide access to their holdings. PAC Art, for example, opened in the city in 2022 and hosts artist residencies and a rich public program of talks and other gatherings. During Untitled, PAC will present a public art project by Cuban artist Reynier Leyva Novo, Blue Bones (2026), during which Novo will cover images and objects in blue paint, shifting their function into material evidence of the survival, loss and urban change of the Third Ward neighborhood. The project is part of the fair’s extensive, citywide programming, which allows exhibitors to present site-specific works alongside their fair booths and collaborate directly with local institutions and partners.

Over time, Davis has cultivated a group of collectors who have grown more sophisticated and increasingly able to appreciate challenging works rather than simply decorative ones, though she admits there’s still more work to be done. “My goal has always been to be an international gallery. That’s why when I first opened the gallery, I brought these shows to Houston,” she explained. Today, she still shows artists who continually challenge and reinvent traditional approaches to the medium. “I look for artists who are making something that is fresh, smart, universal, and lasting. That’s what I want. I know when it transcends you, the artist is saying something.”

Last year at the fair, the gallery presented an installation-heavy, elegant solo booth by Teresa Serrano. This year, Davis is staging “The Shape of Breathing,” a solo exhibition by Yuriko Yamaguchi, at the gallery through October 17, 2026. At the fair, she will present the articulated structures of Miguel Ángel Madrigal, paintings by Vargas-Suarez Universal, the spatialist sculptures of Eduardo Portillo and delicate installations by Yamaguchi.

The city’s gallery scene has also been expanding, welcoming new spaces, including the Brazilian gallery Almeida & Dale and dynamic new prospects such as the whimsically named Laura (the gallery). Founder Laura Burton is a seasoned art professional who moved to Houston after a few years working in New York galleries. Houston is a much easier city, she pointed out: “In New York, I never had a commute shorter than 30 minutes, and 45 minutes to an hour was pretty normal. Here, my life is contained within a handful of neighborhoods. I can be at the Menil, MFAH, CAMH, Asia Society, Craft Center, HMAC or Lawndale in five minutes. My longest commute is to my gallery in the Heights, about 15 minutes away.”

This translates into another, more generative proximity between artists, industry professionals and collectors. “We hang out in each other’s homes. You might meet an artist or curator for the first time in your bathing suit at a pool party,” she joked, noting how that casualness and accessibility, combined with the aforementioned physical proximity, make for unusually easy relationship building. “Sometimes I think that Houston’s art scene must be what SoHo felt like in the ’60s and ’70s. Our art world is compressed here, and I think that’s a great thing,” Burton added, recalling how recently she went to a curator’s birthday party at Neon Boots, a queer line-dancing and karaoke hall, and the room was full of artists, curators, collectors, gallerists and museum directors, all dancing together under a cowboy-boot-shaped disco ball, which was “very Houston.”

The city is also enormous and growing, with people arriving as major industries put down roots. “There is an extraordinary concentration of people doing incredibly ambitious things,” she went on, sharing how a friend, a fashion designer from New York, moved here to work on the spacesuit for the next crewed lunar mission. “My last opening was filled with hot young gays who moved to Houston for their careers. I meet newcomers more often than I meet people who grew up here. Houston is a city of transplants, and I think that constant influx makes the cultural fabric richer.”

There is, of course, serious economic power behind all of this. “If Texas were a country, its economy would rank among the 10 largest in the world, but Houston has always had this funny disconnect between what exists here and how the city is perceived from the outside,” according to Burton. “Houstonians know what they have, and frankly, I don’t think they’ve ever been terribly concerned with whether everyone else knows it. I moved here from New York, thinking I was leaving the center of the universe. Houston doesn’t seem particularly concerned with being anyone’s center. It still feels a little like a best-kept secret.”

Since opening last year, Laura (the gallery) has been growing sustainably. Burton had a particularly successful Untitled last year, with a solo presentation of Shuling Guo that sold out and placed a painting in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art. Other works went to blue-chip collectors from Los Angeles, New York and Asia. “The fair was massive for me last year. I still felt like a newcomer to the scene, and through Untitled I met collectors who became clients and built relationships that continued long after the fair closed,” Burton said.

She will also be showing again this year in the Nest sector, where she will present the work of Raina Lee, whose research-driven practice transforms personal travel, and in particular her recent discovery of Hawaii and its cultural memory, into glazed ceramic “paintings” and postcard-scale wall works. With its more reasonable fees, Nest offers an access point for younger galleries like Burton’s. This year, it will host 24 emerging galleries, artist-run spaces and nonprofit organizations from across the U.S., Latin America, Europe and the state of Texas, including Serious Topics (Los Angeles), Constitución (Buenos Aires), mimo (Brooklyn), Martha’s (Austin) and Gattopardo (Los Angeles), among others. The sector will also inckude a special presentation of works by alums of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Core Residency Program.

One of the great advantages Burton has found in having a gallery in Houston is that, since Texas still feels like relatively uncharted territory, she can work with extraordinary artists who might already be represented in New York or Los Angeles. “Running a gallery here is incredibly rewarding,” she said. “I think a lot of that goes back to the extraordinary cultural legacy Dominique de Menil established here.”

Since its first edition, Untitled has had an impressive host committee, including Texas-based philanthropists and collectors such as Jereann Chaney, Suzanne Deal Booth, Judy Nyquist, Melanie Lawson and John Guess Jr., as well as cultural advisors such as Katharine Barthelme, Adam Green and Lea Weingarten. But philanthropist Janet Hobby, who also served on the fair’s host committee, argued that Houston has had a distinctive arts ecosystem well before the arrival of the fair, which is simply adding another layer to its richness by bringing visitors from around the world to town. “We have world-class institutions and collectors who are deeply engaged in what is happening internationally, but there is also a real commitment to supporting Houston and regional artists. I think that combination is what has made the city’s art scene so vibrant,” Hobby said. “Untitled Art is creating opportunities for discovery while giving visiting collectors and arts professionals a deeper understanding of the community that already exists here.”

“Houston’s art scene rivals that of any city in our nation, and it’s great for us to add Untitled Art Houston to the roster of reasons for artists, collectors and patrons from around the country to come visit,” echoed Ben Ackerley, a collector and co-owner of Hotel Daphne, the art hotel that opened in late 2025 with artworks from his family collection. “We built Hotel Daphne to bring a cool boutique hotel to the Heights, finally, but also to be able to have a space to showcase works from our collection by incredible local artists.” This year, they are sponsoring a new $30,000-50,000 acquisition prize at the fair to further their commitment to fostering the local art scene.

As collector [Steve] Zimmerman told Observer, Houston’s art world doesn’t just live in museums and galleries but increasingly extends to restaurants, hotels and other hospitality structures. “It lives in the places people spend their time,” he said. Zimmerman is co-owner of La Colombe d’Or, another Houston-based boutique hotel featuring work from the owners’ private collection. “At our hotel, guests are surrounded by art before they ever walk into one of the many shows staged in the city.”

To Zimmerman, this evolution of what can be considered a cultural venue is one of the factors that makes Houston different. “There is incredible work happening outside the traditional art circuit that the rest of the world simply hasn’t caught up to yet,” he argued, adding that an international fair like Untitled gives the city an opportunity to shine a light on the depth and energy of an existing art scene.

Owen Duffy, meanwhile, is a curator who recently moved to the city to take over the position of head curator at Asia Society Texas, the largest and most active Asia Society center in the United States. Timed with Untitled, the institution is staging a major show by Yoshitaka Amano, one of the most celebrated illustrators and character designers of our time, responsible for the creative direction of iconic media universes, including the groundbreaking Vampire Hunter D franchise and the beloved Final Fantasy video game saga. Titled “Yoshitaka Amano: Big Bang,” the exhibition surveys approximately 30 years of Amano’s multimedia painting practice through roughly 40 works in oil paint, ink and automotive paint, including New York Nights II (1997), a surreal scene extending more than 50 feet.

For Duffy, it was quite a change to move to Houston, not only because of the city’s sprawling, horizontal topography but also because of the very different pace of life. “If New York is competitive, Houston is collaborative above all, with colleagues across the various institutions genuinely wanting to uplift the city’s art and culture scene collectively,” he told Observer.

Duffy also noted that the city has undergone significant growth since he moved, both in terms of its literal physical transformation and in the maturity and sophistication now circulating through its networks. “When I interviewed for the position at Asia Society Texas, everyone admitted it wasn’t the prettiest place, but it was booming,” he recalled. “The city’s architecture and topography basically embody unchecked growth. However, amid the sprawl in Houston, there is a bubbly, percolating belief in the potential of the city itself, as a laboratory for the future of America, in many senses: demographics, economics, weather, politics and beyond.”

The city has offered him opportunities for growth and to stand out he might not have found elsewhere. “In Houston, if you genuinely want to contribute to the cultural scene, you’ll find like-minded people who want to help you do that. It feels like things can just happen here if you have the passion and drive to execute,” he reflected. “There aren’t barriers in terms of insane real estate costs. Sure, you might not be able to see 100 gallery shows in a day, but you have space for deep, extended and meaningful conversations.”

Duffy also drew a parallel between Houston’s current scene and what New York’s art scene must have felt like during the 1950s and ’60s in terms of social dynamics. “A sprawling city, but a tight-knit art scene. It’s weird, dynamic, and booming,” he said, acknowledging that Untitled has tremendous potential to be a catalyst for energy in the city, activating on a larger regional, national and international scale what was already there. “Houstonians are extremely welcoming, and extremely proud to show off their city as something more than an energy capital. All year I’ve been telling folks that they should come visit for this week (and anytime, really, even the summer—you can see how we truly live in the swamp). And, simply put, last year’s Untitled was just really dang fun.”

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Several recent biennials around the world have focused on water and waterways to explore the complex entanglement of human histories and geological time that has led to the world we inhabit today. The upcoming 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art takes a similar approach on a more ambitious scale, extending for the first time beyond the Greater Toronto Area through a series of artist projects and institutional collaborations across North America—turning the event into a platform for fluid exchange at a sensitive moment in cross-border relations between the two countries.

Set to open on September 26 and running through December 20, the 2026 Toronto Biennial is curated by Allison Glenn, whose research-driven, site-responsive approach has defined a career that includes roles at The Shepherd in Detroit, the 2023 Counterpublic Triennial and New York’s Public Art Fund. The Art Museum at the University of Toronto serves as the main hub of the 2026 edition, with 18 artist projects across two gallery sites. Other projects have been developed in collaboration with institutional partners rather than in spaces dedicated exclusively to the Biennial. “The 2026 Toronto Biennial of Art is an invitation to view the Great Lakes, and global waterways, as a confluence,” Glenn said in an early announcement. Growing up in nearby Detroit, she noted, deeply informed her “understanding of how water, as both a physical resource and a historical witness, connects distant geographies through shared, fluid systems.”

Poetically titled “Things Fall Apart,” the Biennial is thematically centered on the notion of rupture—something Glenn has focused on for years. “I have actually been looking for about a decade now at artists who use rupture as an ontology, as a way of understanding,” she tells Observer. “It becomes a kind of throughline through which they understand their work.” That investigation first took shape in her essay “Notes on Rupture,” which considered a group of Caribbean artists and the ways they employed fractures conceptually, formally and materially. (That essay later became the curatorial proposition she submitted for the role.)

The Biennial’s artists treat rupture as a space of possibility—every new chapter must first pass through a breaking point from which things can be reimagined and communities can heal and rebuild. The title draws on several sources but overall resonates with today’s fractured political and cultural climate of sustained conflict. It traces back to Chinua Achebe’s landmark 1958 novel Things Fall Apart—whose title originates from W.B. Yeats’s 1921 poem “The Second Coming” and then resurfaced in The Roots’ fourth studio album, released amid the anxieties of Y2K, ongoing war and the social aftermath of the crack epidemic in the United States.

In using this title, Glenn wanted to enter an existing cultural dialogue around moments when political and social structures are breaking apart. She feels that we’re currently in such a moment and she wanted the Toronto Biennial to reflect that while also building upon its longstanding engagement with water. “I believe that these editions of the Biennial should be in dialogue under the umbrella of a larger project. I wanted to create a dialogue between our time and what came before.” The inaugural edition focused on Toronto’s waterways, hidden rivers and shoreline; Glenn has widened the lens to include global waterways, trade routes and voyages.

The 2026 edition of the Toronto Biennial will feature work by 30 artists and collectives, including 12 Canadian and 22 international participants from across the U.S., the Caribbean, South America, Europe, Africa, the SWANA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa) and South and Southeast Asia. Most of the projects are site-specific or responsively adapted to their contexts, including a constellation of 16 newly commissioned works installed in dialogue with Toronto’s urban fabric and the surrounding region. Several names on the list have become familiar presences in institutional and biennial circuits, including Antonio Obá, Charisse Pearlina Weston, Coco Fusco, Julien Creuzet, Kent Monkman and Naotaka Hiro.

The selection was based on how these artists’ practices engage rupture, waterways, trade routes and voyages, Glenn explains, citing as an example the Detroit-based “label for a movement,” Underground Resistance, which will present Drexciya, the legendary Detroit techno and electro duo formed by James Stinson and Gerald Donald in the late 1980s that built an Afrofuturist aquatic mythology around a water-breathing nation descended from pregnant, captive African women thrown overboard during the Middle Passage. “It is a sonic and visual orthography that imagines an underwater world for those who chose water on the journey,” according to Glenn. “There’s this really lovely way that the mythology, or this orthography, unfolds, and it also unfolds through the music. For me that was really resonant.” The Biennial project draws together and reflects back that sonic and visual mythology.

Glenn also mentions Dawit L. Petros and his iterative body of work examining a British imperial expedition along the Nile, which she has followed for almost a decade: “They were trying to navigate the river, and there were six cataracts that they couldn’t navigate without muscle from the empire. They needed support from people who were basically imperial subjects because they couldn’t navigate it themselves.” Indigenous people from Manitoba, alongside Indigenous Africans, participated in navigating the river because they had knowledge of the difficult landscapes and waterways. In Petros’s speculative treatment of this history, the six cataracts become six installations at the Aga Khan Museum. “In thinking through these connections to rupture and waterways, there is also this idea of the Nile itself as being anti-colonial in a sense,” she continues. “Through Dawit’s speculative project, he interrogates, questions, positions, repositions and reframes this moment.”

Waterways are not, however, literal subjects for every artist in the Biennial. Colombian artist Andrés Ramírez Gaviria focuses instead on astronomical data gathered through radio telescopes. He takes information originally produced for scientific research and translates it first into sound and then into light. His work addresses rupture through the loss and transformation of information as data passes from one system of representation into another. “His work maps the movement of quasars, pulsars and other celestial bodies in the sky, operating at a different temporality.”

For the Toronto Biennial, Ramírez Gaviria is developing a site-specific work involving a light installed in the University of Toronto galleries. The light will pulse slowly at particular intervals in response to data related to quasars, pulsars and other celestial bodies, giving visitors a bodily experience of another temporal scale. “We’re talking about deep time—the kind of time that we can’t necessarily understand in relation to our bodies,” Glenn explains, noting how, with her encouragement, the artist is extending the project to the CN Tower in what will be his first site-specific intervention of this kind.

The installation sites shaped many of the works, including Brendan Fernandes’. Born in Kenya with longstanding ties to Canada, including Mississauga, he will revisit a performance he first staged in Denmark in 2023, “The Calls,” adapting it for Toronto and bringing it into dialogue with water. The resulting work is not technically a new commission, but it becomes site-specific through its presentation as a choral performance with two dancers aboard a tall ship on the lake during opening weekend.

“So much of the work I’ve done is site-specific,” Glenn says. “I like to think about site and place and the conditions that need to be present to make the work as dynamic as possible.” She acknowledges that this can turn the role of curator into something more akin to producer. “With these new commissions and site-specific projects, it’s really about asking: how we can shape this work to make sense in this context.”

Cameron Harvey’s project is another example of how some works expand the Biennial’s concerns from individual cities toward the North American continent as an interconnected ecological space. Los Angeles, Anchorage and Toronto may be geographically distant, but fire, flooding and other climate conditions make their environments increasingly interdependent.

Harvey had a solo exhibition at Pepperdine University in Malibu in late 2024 when fires affected the area. While the museum’s architecture protected the artworks, the fires transformed the campus’s native chaparral vegetation. “Because it’s native, it’s resilient, and it is meant to change. It had the power to withstand those fires,” says Glenn. Soon after, during the devastating Los Angeles fires of early 2025, Harvey was evacuated from her home and temporarily lived in her studio. There, she developed a proposal examining how chaparral changes over time, connecting that ecological process to her own experiences. The resulting works will be shown simultaneously at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto and the Anchorage Museum in Alaska—”places that have burned or are dealing with the fallout.”

Public programming connects the Toronto Biennial of Art to its namesake city and its communities. Unlike in previous editions where the public programs had a separate curator, Glenn is responsible for both the exhibition and adjacent programming. She welcomes this structure because she does not see programming as secondary or hierarchically separate from exhibition-making. Performances—including Fernandes’s project and a procession by Rebecca Belmore that will open the Biennial—are all part of the same vision. Consequently, Glenn worked closely with Ilana Shamoon and the programs team to consider how visitors might experience Toronto differently during the Biennial’s run, whether they are residents or encountering the city for the first time.

As part of the public program, the team is developing a mobile arts curriculum in dialogue with Glenn and participating artists. The aim is to offer deeper engagements with individual practices and encourage multigenerational and multisensory forms of learning around the works presented. Asked how a temporary biennial can leave a longer-lasting trace, she pointed to the catalogue as well as a new collaboration with Bloomberg Connects. The digital platform will let audiences engage with the Biennial beyond its physical sites, adding another layer of accessibility, particularly for visitors who may not connect easily with traditional interpretive material in galleries.

Through these interconnected approaches—site-specific commissions, institutional collaborations, public performances, digital access and the Biennial’s expanded North American footprint—Glenn sees “Things Fall Apart” as operating not simply as an exhibition in a single city but as a network of relationships between artists, landscapes, histories and communities that carries a broader and longer-lasting impact extending geographically and durationally beyond the Biennial’s own structure.

More in art fairs, biennials and triennials

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• Can Seoul Art Week Sustain More Fairs? PAVILION and Design Miami Say Yes.

• The Venice Biennale and Central Asia’s Rise in the Global Art World

It’s no secret that the great generational transfer now underway is shoring up the auction business, making that segment of the art market healthier and more active than it might otherwise be. Newly flush inheritors are dipping their toes into the auction world, certainly, but there are also the collectors who, in planning for the future of their holdings and to legitimize letting go of valuable works of art, are selling at auction and directing the proceeds of sales not toward family foundations but toward philanthropic causes. Doing so creates a visible and lasting legacy, spares their heirs the complications of managing a collection and, in some cases, reduces estate-tax exposure.

In that vein, Sotheby’s recently secured nearly 50 works from the collection of Seattle real estate developer Richard “Dick” Hedreen, which will be offered as part of The New York Sales this November and in a dedicated Old Masters auction in New York in February 2027. Expected to generate a total exceeding $90 million, the sale of Hedreen’s holdings will support the construction of a new building for the Seattle University Museum of Art, as well as the museum’s development. The new building will house a major gift from Hedreen: 350 works, up from the more than 200 initially announced, which may be the largest donation of art ever made not only to a university in Washington state but to any university in the U.S.

Dick and his late wife, Elizabeth “Betty” Hedreen, built the collection over roughly six decades, and the gift—which Seattle University valued at more than $300 million—spans contemporary art and Old Masters works, with pieces by Willem de Kooning, Rashid Johnson and Amy Sherald alongside Bronzino, Jacopo da Pontormo and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun.

One of the highlights of the November sales will be Roy Lichtenstein’s Reflections on “Painter and Model” (1990), which will hit the block with a $20-30 million estimate shortly after the Whitney Museum opens “Roy Lichtenstein: Like New,” the artist’s first major survey in more than 30 years. Held in the Hedreen collection for more than three decades, the work draws inspiration from Picasso’s 1928 Painter and Model—the preparatory study was made directly on a MoMA postcard reproduction of Picasso’s painting—while extending Lichtenstein’s earlier experiments with mirrors into the more disruptive visual language of his Reflections works. Bands of simulated glare fragment and partially obscure the composition, turning it into an image of an image being viewed and, in effect, putting art history under glass. The work was last seen in Lichtenstein’s landmark retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York in 1993.

Another top lot secured by Sotheby’s is Cecily Brown’s monumental 12-foot-wide canvas Untitled (Shipwreck) (2017), with an estimate of $7-10 million. Part of a body of work Brown made between 2016 and 2018, the painting explores the possibilities of a blue palette while drawing inspiration from dramatic Romantic maritime scenes, particularly Delacroix’s The Shipwreck of Don Juan (1840) and Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa (1818-19). An entire section of Brown’s 2025 mid-career retrospective at the Barnes Foundation was dedicated to the artist’s ongoing dialogue with art history and her ability to draw on it to address the realities of the present. Speaking at the preview of that show, Brown drew parallels between those earlier scenes of shipwreck and suffering and the ongoing migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. “I don’t like being in my library tower making work about issues and other people’s suffering,” she commented, explaining how she was drawn to the possibility of engaging with past masterpieces as a means of reading the present and drawing out the sociopolitical implications embedded within them. “I realized this is kind of what art is for: the distancing that you get by looking at an older painting, even if it’s about a timeless subject and something that still exists, provides some comfort to make it acceptable. You can look at paintings of the most horrific things you’d never seen in real life.” Embracing the ambiguity of an image in continuous flux, Untitled (Shipwreck) invites confrontation with those layered meanings through Brown’s characteristically seductive application of paint.

Leading the dedicated Old Masters sale in February will be Georg Pencz’s 16th-century Portrait of Sigismund Baldinger, carrying a hefty estimate of $8-12 million that is supported in part by an exceptional provenance. An outstanding example of the sophisticated Northern European portrait tradition that defined his work, the painting remained with Baldinger’s descendants for more than 370 years before entering the Herzog Collection. A rare example of Pencz’s great late panel portraits to remain in private hands, the painting sold for £5.6 million ($8.5 million) when offered in London in July 2010, establishing a new world auction record for the artist and underscoring its status as one of the most important German Renaissance portraits ever to come to market.

Another highlight will be Bartolomeo Cavarozzi’s The Sacrifice of Isaac (ca. 1615-17), estimated to achieve $7-10 million. Rediscovered in the late 20th Century, the painting was initially associated with Caravaggio himself before scholars attributed it to Cavarozzi, one of the most accomplished painters to emerge from the Caravaggesque movement. Trained in Rome, Cavarozzi absorbed Caravaggio’s dramatic naturalism and contrasts of light and shadow before traveling to Spain around 1617, where his work helped transmit that visual language to a new generation of painters. Painted circa 1617, probably in Spain, at the height of Cavarozzi’s powers, The Sacrifice of Isaac last sold at Sotheby’s London in 2014 for £3.7 million, then a record for the artist. Also included in the group is Titian’s The Mater Dolorosa (ca. 1550-55), believed to be one of the first works in which the Venetian master introduced vibrant color to what had previously been a traditional Northern European theme, creating a new type of devotional painting. Rediscovered only two decades ago, the work relates to other similar paintings by Titian, including two in the Prado. Technical imaging of the panel revealed that its original conception closely corresponds to one of these paintings, which Titian painted for King Philip in 1554.

Also just announced as part of the February sale is Gaetano Gandolfi’s The Birth of Venus, which, together with its pendant, was most probably commissioned from the artist by Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov in the late 1780s and is considered among the artist’s greatest masterpieces. The two paintings were separated and remained in private collections for over a century, resurfacing in scholarly attention in 1977 when finished oil sketches of the compositions emerged, suggesting the existence of larger versions. Carrying a $2-3 million estimate, this work was rediscovered in a Brussels collection and unveiled to the public for the first time in 2002, while its pendant, Diana and Callisto, was discovered more recently, in 2009, and now belongs to the collection of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA.

The Hedreens began collecting modestly in the 1960s, initially buying Pacific Northwest artists, including William Ivey and Guy Anderson, partly to furnish their home. A key turning point came in the mid-1970s, when they became acquainted with Charles Cowles, then a curator of contemporary art at the Seattle Art Museum. Cowles introduced them to dealers in New York, London, Basel and Zurich and encouraged them to think internationally. “His idea was that you can buy better art by shopping in the world market than buying locally. He turned what was an interest into a passion,” Hedreen acknowledged in a statement when the major gift was announced in 2024. Since then, Hedreen has worked closely with Seattle University to determine which works would be included to best serve the institution and its educational mission. Once the selection was finalized, the remaining works could be directed elsewhere—including to auction, where the proceeds could help fund the infrastructure needed to house, preserve and display the collection.

“Betty and I always felt that we were custodians of the artworks we acquired, holding them in trust for a larger purpose,” Hedreen added, noting the Jesuits’ longstanding emphasis on the arts and humanities, including art history, and how that tradition has shaped Seattle University’s educational mission and its ties to the city’s arts community. “My goal is to keep the collection together in the new Seattle University Museum of Art, which will have a profound and lasting impact on students and faculty.”

Elizabeth Hedreen was an alumna of Seattle University, and the couple were longtime supporters of the university’s engagement with art and the city’s cultural ecosystem. Betty served as Vice Chair of the Seattle Art Museum board from 1994 to 1998 and chaired its governance committee. Together, she and Dick were among Seattle University’s foremost donors to the Chapel of Saint Ignatius for 25 years and chaired the campaign that enabled the construction of the Lee Center for the Arts, where the Hedreen Gallery was named in their honor.

What is particularly distinctive about the Hedreen collection is that it isn’t a trophy list assembled around a single market moment. Instead, it cuts across a broad arc of art history, placing Old Masters alongside Postwar American art and works by some of today’s most sought-after artists. Such category-fluid collecting has become increasingly fashionable but was far less common when the Hedreens began building their holdings. The result is an unusually museum-ready collection capable of illustrating the evolution of art across centuries, well suited to the educational mission of a university museum.

Speaking about the importance of art museums on university campuses, Hedreen noted that an on-campus museum “gives the university the tools to teach art history and visitors experience art and how the art speaks to them.” His hope at the time of the gift was that Seattle University would develop a collection capable of standing alongside those of major museums while becoming a destination for gallerygoers, collectors, students and the broader public interested in art.

This is not the first time Hedreen has sold major works. Over the decades, he and his wife would periodically let go of pieces, often using the proceeds to fund new acquisitions. Among the most significant was David Hockney’s Nichols Canyon (1980), which sold at Phillips in December 2020 for $41.1 million. The Hedreens also owned Francis Bacon’s 1976 triptych Three Studies for Self-Portrait, which they acquired at Sotheby’s in November 2005 for about $5.1 million before selling it at Christie’s New York on May 13, 2008, for $28 million. Another Bacon from their collection, Pope with Owls (ca. 1958), was reportedly acquired by Hedreen from Thomas Ammann Fine Art in 1986 for roughly $700,000 and sold at Phillips on November 17, 2021, for $33 million. Provenance entries in several auction catalogs also trace major works by Willem de Kooning, Wayne Thiebaud, Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein and Balthus through the Hedreen collection before those works passed, mostly through private transactions, to subsequent owners who later consigned them at auction.

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Public sculpture has long commemorated heroes, consolidated national narratives or embodied religious and civic virtues, but as grand nationalistic stories began to fracture, that role has been increasingly scrutinized and challenged. Today, in a fast-shifting, polarized contemporary society, anything that enters public space beyond simple advertisements assumes, in some way, a political and social dimension. Public sculpture, more than simply attention-capturing urban decor, is expected to deliver a message, offer commentary or function as a community or societal activator, catalyzing reactions and discussions at different levels.

In her first public commission, Genesis Belanger grasped both the challenges and opportunities inherent in creating sculpture for broad engagement. On view at City Hall Park through November 15, her sculptural ensemble “Heads or Tails” offers an articulated commentary on the contemporary human condition, immersed in fast-shifting social and economic dynamics that have disrupted any fixed definition not only of the “public” sphere but also of individual identity and existence. The sculptural group, presented by Public Art Fund, is dense with psychological and symbolic meaning, yet Belanger succeeds in maintaining the playful, whimsical energy that makes her work accessible to different viewers, as all good public sculpture must be.

“I’m always trying to make work that resonates with a broad audience and feels honest and true in the way it depicts our present moment,” Belanger tells Observer. “The opportunity to make an installation that would be encountered by an even broader audience was really exciting.” She describes the project as a major departure from her previous work—it is her first public commission and one of the few occasions in which she has produced outdoor sculpture—but acknowledges continuities with the way she develops gallery and museum exhibitions. “I’m always considering the space and thinking about what kind of environment I want to create before building out the details and narratives through the additional sculptures. This project was similar, but the context was already dictated.”

Belanger says she was given considerable freedom in terms of scale, provided the sculptures did not obstruct walkways or restrict access to the park. She was less interested in dominating the site than in integrating artworks into it so they would interact naturally with visitors and the flow of city life. At the same time, she could not avoid the political implications of the location.

For the two main figures, she drew on the tradition of Lady Justice and the broader history of public sculpture built around allegorical personifications of civic virtues. Rather than reproducing a conventional heroic figure in bronze, however, she questioned what such a symbol might mean today and confronted what it means to represent a woman’s body in contemporary public space.

“I feel that an allegorical personification of a virtue is probably the most ubiquitous form of public sculpture, and I saw an opportunity to make my own version and to consider what might make it a more relevant symbol for our moment,” Belanger explains. Here, as throughout her oeuvre, she depicts women’s bodies as fragments. “I think the experience of being a woman is that you are consumed in bits. You are reduced to one part and never taken in your totality.”

Her Lady Justice is assembled from distinct bodily components, with visible breaks that make the figure resemble a stack of parts, reflecting the contemporary fragmentation and dissolution of any idea of identity as a stable unity. At the same time, it exposes the long history of representing the female body through a relentless process of decomposing and recomposing parts and iconographies according to shifting artistic canons.

To further complicate this play of parts, Belanger intentionally used her husband as the model for the figure. “Women have been the artist’s muse forever, so I thought that, as the artist, shouldn’t my muse be a man?” she reflects, recalling how Michelangelo also used male models for female figures in the Sistine Chapel. This gives the sculpture a more muscular and ambiguous body, helping Belanger avoid a conventionally seductive or “titillating” representation. Further muddying immediate readings is the figure’s unbalanced stance: one foot, wearing a heel, appears more relaxed, while the other, bare foot, carries the body’s weight.

The hybrid body invites questions of gender fluidity, suggesting the seemingly endless possibilities of assembling identity beyond fixed binaries. “If everything is accessible to you, and you can assemble yourself to be whatever you want, then these binaries can break down and become much more fluid,” Belanger says.

The way one of the figures, Lady Justice Unbiased, holds an object in its hand, together with its self-conscious posture, makes it appear to be posing for a selfie—but the face is incomplete, even as the reflected image held in its hand appears whole. The other figure, Lady Justice Impartial, further exposes this sense of incompleteness, and perhaps a longing for fulfillment and stability, by extending an empty hand. The fact that both hands are out, empty, however, suggests it will be receptive and impartial in welcoming the truth. Belanger acknowledges that the figures suggest a reflection on people’s attempts to construct coherent digital identities and narratives around a sense of self and existence that feels increasingly fragmented and disorienting.

Meanwhile, her fountain intervention introduces a flock of birds that, in the tradition of theatrical garden sculpture, brings a lively presence to the water display while also carrying a more sobering symbolism, as they scavenge pennies from beneath the water. Pennies were traditionally thrown into fountains to make wishes, but after they were decommissioned, even wishing became more expensive, Belanger quips. She connects the work to the broader affordability crisis and to a fully financialized world in which everything is treated as an opportunity to extract unrealized value. “I wanted to create this flock of birds to open a question of why everything is more expensive… It is more expensive because we live in this fully financialized world, in which everything is viewed as an opportunity to extract unrealized value. I wanted the birds to collect even the smallest amounts of unrealized value, as they are scavenging the pennies and these last wishes from the fountain.” In the metaphorical narrative, the birds are stand-ins for private equity figures on nearby Wall Street, extracting even the smallest remaining forms of value from a capitalist system confronting its own failures.

Three potted fruit trees waiting to be planted complete the scene, prompting a reflection on our relationship with nature today as something increasingly mediated, appropriated, domesticated and reduced to an inanimate backdrop. “I wanted to engage in that conversation about artifice and nature’s role in the contemporary world,” she says, explaining how she developed the trees by examining decorative representations of plants in wallpaper and tapestry, then translating those flattened images into three-dimensional forms. “In the context of our digital lives, nature often feels like a backdrop for a selfie anyway. Does it even need to be real? Are we losing the ability to discern the difference?” Belanger suggests. These mediated, highly artificial simulacra of nature appear to be the only greenery available within the urban environment.

The entire ensemble is a thoughtful remix of canons and tropes traditionally associated with art made outdoors, ranging from the classical statuary evoked by the surrealist-looking figures of Justice to the Baroque tradition of theatrical garden sculpture and the ornamental waterbirds that populated fountains and landscaped gardens in later periods. It is a playful, eclectic remix of stereotypes and idealizations that have become anchored in the collective imagination and remain immediately legible to viewers, while preserving an intricate entanglement of critical messages. Belanger “wanted to test whether it was possible to make public art that is complex without being alienating, but instead accessible and interesting.”

“I wanted to see whether it was possible to thread the needle. I wanted to engage with the complicated issues of our moment and, hopefully, present questions that might help others feel less alone, because they are also thinking about these difficult aspects of our politics and culture,” she adds. “At the same time, I wanted the work to be beautiful and fun, because that is what it feels like to be human.”

The result is a whimsical cacophony of meanings, aesthetics and messages, as disorienting as the world itself and the ceaseless flux of information to which we are exposed each day, rendering truth, justice, civil responsibility and even the self increasingly debatable and unstable. “Nothing is just one thing. It is all these complicated things mashed together. It is political, cartoonish, heartbreaking and fun, as much of our existence today.”

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The highly anticipated Kengo Kuma-designed MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives opened this past spring, conceived as a model for the museum of the future. Its specific mission involves “transporting culture for the next 100 years,” essentially translating the complex layering of disciplines that simultaneously shape our reality and imagination—art, science, technology, urbanism and mythology—into a single, continuous storyline through its extremely fluid, dynamic, spiraling architecture.

Rising above one of Tokyo’s most strategically reconfigured transit zones, MoN Takanawa is a cultural node embedded within a corporate infrastructure. Developed as part of the broader Takanawa Gateway urban project led by East Japan Railway Company, the institution reflects the company’s ongoing expansion into lifestyle, real estate and cultural production. The area surrounding Takanawa Gateway Station, designed by Kuma, has become a testing ground for new forms of public-private urbanism, where mobility, commerce and culture converge.

MoN Takanawa tells these interconnected stories by investigating the intersections between them. Its imposing architectural language privileges fluidity and circularity, both evident in its spiraling system of terraced gardens that, together with large windows, wrap around the exterior. The museum’s interior is a sequence of layered volumes and planes that encourages visitors to drift between spaces, reflecting a broader trend in contemporary museums toward embodied knowledge and experience rather than purely intellectual engagement.

A large tatami covers almost the entire fourth level, offering a space to rest that contrasts with the sensory overload of this explorative journey. At levels three and five, visitors encounter the “Boxes,” which contain the museum’s exhibitions. The top floors are dedicated almost entirely to terraces lined with suspended gardens and fountains that extend the experience outdoors, offering an oasis of peace above the frenetic urban life of Tokyo flowing just below.

MoN Takanawa’s architecture is arguably the project’s most successful component, operating as a social condenser equally suited to gathering with others or a solitary pause. The memorableness of the spatial experience, unfortunately, is not matched by an equally rigorous curatorial methodology. The main inaugural exhibition only properly begins on the fifth floor, accessed—somewhat awkwardly—through the museum shop. From there, the visitor enters the first thematic chapter: the spiral. “Spirals are beautiful,” declares the exhibition, proposing a universal language that cuts across nature, technology and culture and serves as the central theme of the entire show. The multisensory choreography that unfolds inside leans heavily on darkness and high-tech display strategies, creating a dramatic, immersive environment. Individual works, however, risk being overshadowed by the broader scenography of effects, there perhaps to compensate for a lack of depth.

Among the more intriguing artistic presentations is Morpho Towers/Two Standing Spirals by Sachiko Kodama. Using ferrofluid, a magnetic liquid that spikes, swirls, divides and recoagulates in response to invisible forces, the installation evokes a quasi-living organism. Developed in collaboration with engineers and supported by institutions such as Sony Computer Science Laboratories, the work exemplifies the exhibition’s ambition to bridge art, science and technology.

Similar poetic potential can be found in Time Stratum IV by Toshio Iwai, in which projected light interacts with rapidly spinning transparent discs. The resulting flicker of layered imagery recalls early animation devices while conjuring fantastical, almost aquatic visions. Meanwhile, Akinori Goto’s sculptural work, composed of sequential walking figures revealed through light, poses a more explicitly philosophical question: what does it mean to move forward, collectively, in time?

Despite these and other compelling moments, the interpretive framework remains surprisingly didactic. Labels often default to simplified explanations, reducing complex works to accessible but somewhat reductive takeaways.

Once the initial sensory activation subsides, everything is largely left to narrative panels. The exhibition’s second chapter, “Cities and Livings,” expands the spiral motif into the domain of urbanism and mobility. Here, the connection to JR East becomes more explicit. Wheels, loops and networks serve as metaphors for human connectivity, illustrated through a wide array of displays—from global route visualizations and Mongolian nomadic traditions to roller coasters and conveyor-belt sushi systems. At its strongest, this section hints at a sociology of movement; at its weakest, it veers into conceptual sprawl. A demonstration of cyclone technology (borrowed from vacuum-cleaner engineering) sits somewhat awkwardly alongside reflections on human relationships, underscoring the exhibition’s tendency to conflate analogy with argument.

This expansive logic culminates in broadly speculative questions: can spirals shape not only cities but entire nations? To anchor this historically, Japanese mythology is invoked, with a panel recalling the creation myth of Izanagi-no-Mikoto and Izanami-no-Mikoto, who stirred the primordial ocean with a jeweled spear, generating the archipelago in a circular motion.

These evocative references, unfortunately, are introduced only briefly and fail to achieve the depth needed to anchor not only the exhibition’s claims but also the museum’s broader ambitions. As the narrative unfolds, the somewhat random accumulation of themes becomes overwhelming, even as it effectively mirrors the chaotic layering of stories and stimuli that define our daily social media consumption.

Sumo, drones, seasonal rituals, sports and everyday habits all enter the spiral framework, producing a kind of curatorial excess without arriving at a final connecting thread or resolution. The inclusion of a detailed index at the beginning acknowledges this complexity but also further highlights the lack of a clear throughline. By the time visitors encounter the monumental inflatables of a cartoonish figure and chronobiology-inspired installations that link bodily rhythms to spiraling DNA structures, the exhibition feels less like a cohesive argument than an ever-expanding field of free associations.

The final piece of the show, a participatory Spiral Fortune Slip, creates a more ritualistic moment, offering visitors personalized reflections—”words to enrich your life”—and bringing the experience full circle. It is, all things considered, a fittingly ambiguous conclusion: intimate yet generic, reflective yet lightly commodified.

For the moment, MoN Takanawa functions less as a traditional museum than as a hybrid cultural center—a place to spend time, meet others and engage with a spectrum of experiences rather than a tightly curated narrative. If approached with this mindset, a visit is enjoyable. Seasoned museumgoers, however, may find the overall lack of content disappointing.

It is illustrative of the fractured roles museums are expected to serve today: not just spaces to encounter culture but also spaces for aggregation and community engagement, drivers of culture-led development and urban regeneration and symbols that foster a sense of belonging within the chaos of metropolitan life. MoN Takanawa is primarily civic infrastructure, and its dialogue and contextualization with the surrounding railway system is particularly compelling; the building itself seems to echo the logic of transit, with its loops, flows and layered pathways.

If the museum struggles not only with coherence but also with achieving a fully resolved narrative of human culture for the next 100 years, its architecture succeeds in offering a new kind of public space for a megacity like Tokyo. MoN Takanawa may not fully resolve the relationship between spectacle and meaning, but it captures something essential about contemporary cultural production and today’s narratives: the desire to connect—across disciplines, senses and individuals—even if this eventually risks embracing the overwhelming saturation of information and perspectives that define our time.

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The opening of the ParkSeoBo Museum immediately next to the Park Seo-Bo Foundation was one of the most anticipated events of this year’s Seoul Art Week. The blue five-story cubic structure designed by architect Choi Moon-kyu is surmounted by a crystalline, striated glass block reminiscent of the artist’s luminous monochromes. With 2,000 square meters that will host rotating temporary exhibitions, it was initially conceived as a mausoleum but will now function as a cultural center, honoring the artist’s legacy while carrying forward his commitment to relentless creative innovation.

“The museum’s directive is to continue in the spirit of Park Seo-Bo and the educational values he sustained throughout his life,” director Sam Seung-ho tells Observer. “He worked as a professor for a long time. One of the teachings he always gave his students was printed on the wall of his classroom: not to resemble any of his teachers, not to resemble talented peers and not to be indebted to previous history.”

Since the foundation was established in 2019, creating a physical exhibition space has been among its most pressing priorities. Initially, it considered opening museums in other cities, such as Jeju, Busan and perhaps Yeongju, but those plans didn’t come to fruition. “We decided that we could at least create a small space and turn the memorial into an art museum instead,” Sam explains. “We started building the space here because it is right next to his residence. It was accessible, and the studio was nearby as well.”

The museum’s architecture is intentionally porous to its surroundings and to nature. One of the building’s defining characteristics is the incorporation of small gardens and natural spaces across its different floors. While Park Seo-Bo did not provide extensive architectural direction, he preferred to see his work presented in relation to nature.

The museum’s location, between small mountains in a residential area, also influenced the architectural approach. The intention was to create small spaces that connect the institution to the surrounding natural environment, including providing a kind of passage or habitat for wildlife, so the museum could exist in harmony with its environment rather than stand apart as an isolated object.

While still alive, Park Seo-Bo wanted his works to be exhibited alongside those of other artists. After his passing, when the foundation considered what principles the museum could be built on, it decided to focus on the kinds of ideas he had pursued throughout his life. The museum won’t be a “temple” to Park Seo-Bo, Sam explains, but a catalyst for connections between artists and across different art worlds: “Instead of artists or viewers simply coming here to learn something about Park Seo-Bo and taking something away, we want this to be a platform, or a museum, that connects new artists and creates new creative approaches to art, encouraging new thinking among younger-generation artists.”

Throughout his life, Park Seo-Bo was forward-thinking in creating new opportunities for younger generations, giving them room to show and present their work through grants and a residency program. The foundation is continuing this approach by supporting artists from newer generations and introducing them to the Korean art world. Some former residents, Sam reports, are now well-regarded contemporary artists showing with major galleries.

This logic informs both the foundation’s acquisition strategy and the programming at the ParkSeoBo Museum. Its inaugural show, “Park Seo-Bo & Huong Dodinh: Emptiness, Fullness,” pairs the Korean master’s work with that of Vietnamese-French abstract painter Huong Dodinh. Encountering each artist’s various series across three floors, one can see how the pairing explores the expansive possibilities of painting through texture, layering and rhythm, allowing it to breathe and expand beyond its surface.

If Park Seo-Bo’s Ecriture conjures the accumulation of action and time on the canvas as he repeatedly draws and pushes lines across water-soaked hanji paper, Huong Dodinh layers dozens of coats of mineral pigment, creating an almost geological depth in which shimmering light appears to emanate from within the surface, from the matter itself. This laborious accumulation of matter becomes an accumulation of space and time, in a meditative gesture that attunes itself to the cyclical essence of nature while expanding toward a more transcendental dimension.

Moving to Paris in 1953 after the outbreak of the First Indochina War, Dodinh encountered the European avant-garde but remained largely independent of the dominant trends of the period, developing a highly personal language of abstraction, much as Park Seo-Bo forged his own path despite periods abroad. Park Seo-Bo was not familiar with her work before they met for the first and only time in 2023. She requested the meeting while visiting Korea for an exhibition, and they spent several hours together, becoming aware of affinities between their practices. Both recognized parallels in their approaches to painting, treating it as a philosophical and almost mystical act that connects human making to something that transcends its immediate earthly dimension.

Still, the future of all foundations and private museums requires building funding structures that allow them to outlast their founders. Sam was forthright about the fact that the foundation is still establishing a long-term financial model. The institution was initially supported by funds and artworks left by Park Seo-Bo, although its general policy is to preserve the works for future generations rather than sell them. Additional funds left by the artist currently support the institution, alongside significant donations from his family. The foundation is now working to create a more stable, longer-term model that will leverage both existing resources and external donations to preserve and carry forward the legacy of the Dansaekhwa master while continuing its research and presenting exhibitions that bring together artists from Korea and around the world. In doing so, the ParkSeoBo Museum also hopes to broaden the discourse around Korean contemporary art and expand its horizons as the country’s artistic ecosystem becomes increasingly visible on the global stage.

Tokyo Gendai opened to VIPs yesterday (Sept. 10) with 69 galleries, including 30 international exhibitors, for the final time at Pacifico Yokohama. The fair will move to the more central Ariake GYM-EX in 2027, aligning it more closely with Art Week Tokyo and Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK). Sharing the news of the shift over Mori Bar’s signature martini earlier this week, Magnus Renfrew, the fair’s co-founder, told Observer that a venue change had been in the works for some time, but securing a space on those dates proved difficult. “Venues in Tokyo are incredibly challenging to find when you’re trying to organize something of this scale and ambition,” he said, adding that the feedback so far has been positive. “Everybody feels that being in Tokyo, and being there at a time when everything is happening simultaneously, is going to be a very powerful draw and generate a lot of attention.”

Japan’s art market has been growing steadily even as neighboring markets have stalled. Following a 38 percent drop in 2020, it rebounded to $756 million in 2022 and has since stabilized. Sales reached $692 million in 2024, up 2 percent year over year, even as global sales declined by 12 percent, according to The Japanese Art Market 2025 report prepared by art-market economist Clare McAndrew as part of the FY2025 Art Ecosystem Infrastructure Development Promotion Project commissioned by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Since Tokyo Gendai launched in 2023, international galleries, including Pace and Ceysson & Bénétière, have opened spaces in Tokyo, while a new generation of Japanese galleries has helped expand the ecosystem in the capital and elsewhere, becoming increasingly visible at international fairs.

Long-established institutions such as the Mori Art Museum continue to demonstrate the strength of Japan’s top-level museum programming, but other local museums have also adopted a more international outlook, increasingly collaborating with institutions across the region. Last year, for example, a vast survey of recent decades of Japanese art, “Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989-2010,” was jointly organized by the National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT) and M+ in Hong Kong, while the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) contributed to the production of the major Do Ho Suh survey now at MMCA Seoul, before it lands, slightly smaller, in Tokyo and closes its tour at M+. Meanwhile, in tandem with the fair, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) is hosting an extensive Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibition featuring approximately 60 gelatin-silver photographs spanning his early work in the late 1970s through the present.

New private museums and collections have also opened in Tokyo and around the Japanese peninsula in recent years. Perhaps most impressive is the Ueshima Museum, which showcases the collection of Japanese entrepreneur Kankuro Ueshima. Ueshima began collecting in 2022 and opened his own museum just two years later. Today, the collection numbers more than 850 works, ranging from emerging Japanese artists to extremely recent acquisitions by internationally established names, including some works one might have previously encountered only at Art Basel, in Venice or in New York. Currently hanging in the museum, for example, is a monumental Nigel Cooke canvas from his exhibition at Fondazione Querini Stampalia, alongside works by Alicja Kwade and Raqib Shaw acquired directly from their most recent exhibitions in New York.

“The galleries, artists and cultural institutions shaping the market continuously produce world-class projects and programs, and Tokyo Gendai’s mission is to connect that energy with global audiences,” Renfrew said during a press conference. “The creativity emerging from Japan’s galleries, studios and institutions is what gives this fair its purpose, and it is a privilege to help bring the work to the fair.”

Most importantly, he said, that connection doesn’t end when the fair doors close but drives new projects and collaborations throughout the year, resulting in longer-term cross-cultural exchange. One can see how this manifests in Mari Katayama, a photographer and performer whose work hangs in the VIP lounge and who has gained considerable momentum since the last Tokyo Gendai, where she presented with YKG. The exposure helped initiate what she described as a whirlwind year, now culminating in an upcoming museum presentation alongside Mariko Mori’s long-overdue and largest survey since 2003.

Looking at the broader context, Tokyo Gendai takes place in a Japan that has benefited from considerable political and economic stability, which has in turn contributed to collector confidence, according to director Eri Takane. At the same time, the Japanese art market is anchored by a collecting culture that has developed over decades and is driven more by passion than speculation, having already experienced the consequences of an earlier bubble. “We have had around 50 years of history in the gallery business in Japan,” she said. “I think the collectors are not really investors. They’re buying from passion.” That has helped insulate the market from the trend-driven bubbles seen elsewhere. “I think that’s the beauty of it. It’s not really trendy, like a bubble; it’s very stable.”

In a move toward greater accessibility and transparency, Tokyo Gendai introduced an online catalog this year that openly lists a price range for each work, helping generate early sales and holds before opening day. It’s likely a smart move as a younger generation of Japanese collectors is beginning to reshape the ecosystem, coinciding with a broader generational transfer within Japanese family businesses. As second-generation heirs assume greater responsibility and gain greater independence in decision-making, Takane expects their more international education and exposure to filter increasingly into their collecting and anticipates “some of those international tastes and other forms of exposure are going to start coming through.”

And rather than limiting themselves to acquiring art, some younger collectors are establishing communities, curatorial platforms and residency opportunities for artists and curators. According to Tokyo-based collector Yu Kimoto, older Japanese collectors often approach art as a long-term investment, but he and his peers tend to be guided more by curiosity and enjoyment than financial calculation. “If it turns out to be valuable, that’s great,” he said in a recent interview with Observer. “If not, that’s totally fine.” He’s emblematic of a generation whose collecting has been shaped by relationships and research conducted online as much as in person, across art and design, street culture and other collectibles. As part of the Tokyo Gendai VIP program, Kimoto opened his newly renovated and elegantly curated Omotesando apartment to visitors, showcasing an outstanding collection of Isamu Noguchi’s Akari lamps alongside work by established contemporary talents like Tom Sachs and KAWS.

The newly introduced Miki (“Trunk”) section, dedicated to works on paper including photography, drawing and prints; Tane (“Seed”), devoted specifically to digital media including NFTs, animation, film, AR, VR and gaming; and Hana (“Flower”), focused on emerging talent, are a bid to attract younger and newer collectors looking for work at lower price points. At the same time, younger dealers increasingly arrive from outside the conventional gallery system, bringing backgrounds in other creative industries, often coupled with experience studying or living abroad and fluency in English. “They’re really smart. They don’t limit themselves to focusing only on the gallery,” Takane said.

Hisatomo Kato, the force behind CON_, for example, works fluidly across art, music and fashion. Fresh from a successful Frieze Seoul debut the previous week, Kato is presenting Yukino Yamanaka in Hana. Through the fluidity of paint, Yamanaka’s subjects hover between self and other, probing the endless possibilities of constructing and reconstructing identity across digital and physical space. Faces and bodies dissolve into ambiguous forms, capturing metamorphosis itself and pushing against the boundaries of the conventional human archetype. By the VIP preview, the gallery had sold more than five paintings, each priced under $10,000, all to private collections. Kato described it as a homecoming of sorts. “We are presenting a Tokyo painter, a Tokyo gallery, at a Tokyo fair. Collectors responded to the quiet intensity of her small canvases from the first hour, and it is encouraging to see a fair in Japan building this kind of momentum for emerging artists.”

Meanwhile, rising Osaka dealer Marco Gallery straddles both Hana and Sato with a solo presentation of wood-carved fantastical horses by Yiru Saruchudo, an artist born in Mongolia and now studying in Tokyo who is attracting attention for an impressive exercise in world-building through craft and organic materials. Titled “Echoes of Life” and rooted in memories of the Mongolian plateau, with its vast expanses of sky and grass, the presentation treats wood not simply as material but as an integral element in a broader proposition about alternative ways of living symbiotically with nature. The surfaces retain traces of chainsaws, chisels and carving tools alongside the natural bark of the trees, continually entangling the artificial with the natural, the human with the nonhuman. With prices below $25,000, several red dots had appeared on the gallery’s checklist by evening. Behind Marco Gallery is Toshimitsu Komoda, who brings a background in law alongside a rigorous gallery program grounded in research and curated presentations, an approach that has helped the gallery begin participating in international fairs while building its artists’ careers.

The horse also becomes an allegory for mounting tensions between humans and nature and for the existential weight of contemporary life in the work of young Atami-based Syozo Taniguchi, presented in Hana by HARUKAITO by ISLAND, in conjunction with his solo exhibition at the gallery. Priced between $10,000 and $20,000, the booth was sold out by the evening.

Tokyo Gendai’s Hana section feels particularly expansive this year, demonstrating the vibrancy of the country’s emerging talent, whose distinctive visual languages make the trip worthwhile for international visitors. One of the few truly meteoric hyper-contemporary rises of the past year has been Yu Nishimura, whose imagination and visual vocabulary remain deeply anchored in Japanese culture even as that culture has influenced generations around the world.

This year’s Hana Award went to Soh Souen, a Japanese artist in his thirties whose remarkably mature practice spans performance, video, installation and painting. His work feels truly distinctive within the Japanese art scene today while still linking back to earlier generations of experimental approaches to the body, from Gutai to Yoko Ono and the late Yayoi Kusama‘s earliest work. Souen’s practice enacts something like an ontology of the body, testing the fragile, porous boundaries that govern interpersonal relationships and communication, often perceived as immovable in a society as conservative as Japan remains in many respects.

Soh Souen is presented by AWASE Gallery, a very young space in the heart of Shinjuku that has, in less than a year, distinguished itself through the rigor of its curation and programming. Behind it are architect Riku Matsui and artist Kohei Yamada, who describe a focus on pioneering practices operating at the intersection of visual art, architecture and media culture. The Hana Award provides $10,000 (approximately ¥1.5 million) in cash, along with special recognition during the fair.

Korean gallery Nagoda’s booth is presenting Agnes So’s uniquely magnetic work made from hand-dyed silk, brass nails and thousands of interconnected threads. Created in the 1980s via a labor-intensive process that can exceed 1,000 hours per work, the pieces are only now being presented publicly, after the artist deliberately waited to observe how their materials would evolve over time. The dyed textiles and threads composing these rhythmically intricate geometric structures have shifted in tone and gradient, while the nails holding them together have oxidized, introducing new textures, chromatic movements and mineral elements. Time has essentially become another medium in the works, one that continues to shape compositions that remain in an unstable, ongoing state of transformation. For this reason, none of the large pieces are for sale. The artist might, at most, consider a stewardship arrangement with someone prepared to care for the works as they continue to evolve. The smaller pieces, meanwhile, are priced at $8,000.

Among the international participants, Los Angeles-based Jacob Arthur Gallery returns to Tokyo Gendai for a second time, doubling down amid an intense back-to-back fair schedule with the glittering work of Dan Life. Last year, the gallery sold its largest and most expensive piece within the first two hours, a Yves Klein-inspired blue Nike sculpture priced at $300,000, to a local collector, founder David Dontsis told Observer, making the return trip worthwhile.

This time, the booth centers on a glittering Nike sneaker; four others were sold earlier this year for $120,000 each to a former Nike CEO. But the gallery is also debuting a new artist, Arthell Isom, an American who moved to Japan to study animation in Osaka and became one of the relatively few international artists admitted into the country’s animation studios, later working on productions including Attack on Titan, One Piece and Star Wars: Visions. After visiting his Tokyo studio last year, Dotsis became obsessed with Isom’s never-before-seen watercolors. Several now hang at the fair, priced at $3,000 each, with early interest from Miami clients, although the gallery hoped to sell them on-site. By the end of day one, nine works by Dan Life had sold, with a returning collector from last year breaking the ice by buying a Doraemon-inspired piece and the top sale priced at $45,000. Most buyers were local, with others coming from Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, another Tokyo gallery steadily building a notable roster of younger talents, is presenting Yuki Mori’s delicate works on traditional paper and wood, with minimal pigment, centered on imaginative reinterpretations of people and plants. In some of her most successful compositions, bodies and botanical forms dissolve into surreal, fluid entities, entering a metaphorical state of symbiosis in which people merge with other people, with plants or with the surrounding environment. Priced between $3,000 and $6,000 at the current dollar-yen conversion, Mori is another recently emerging name beginning to circulate internationally, having appeared in exhibitions at Atlas in L.A. and Nina Johnson in Miami.

The gallery pairs her work with Kako Shirahata’s enigmatic paintings, part of a more audacious series in which the artist reinterprets the ancient gesture of anasyrma, a practice in which a woman lifts her garments to expose her genitals, as an act of resistance against the structures of the unidirectional gaze.

Nearby, Kamakura Gallery is presenting another promising talent, Rikako Kawauchi. Her viscerally tactile, expressively gestural handling of the surface recalls Gutai, but she then cuts through that accumulated material with intuitive precision. Figures, flowers and human bodies emerge from the excavation of dense, almost magmatic layers of paint. A large drawing nearby reveals just how resolute and powerfully evocative her line can be as she establishes an intuitive, diaristic narrative across the surface. With prices under $10,000, several works had been placed by evening.

Tokyo-based Nanzuka, meanwhile, is staging a dense group presentation that conceals several genuine discoveries. Among them is the very early-career Liang Yuyue, a Chinese artist currently studying in Japan whose work draws on antique Chinese literature and mythology while absorbing Japanese manga and contemporary visual language. Her gestural strokes dissolve figures into luminous rays of light and kaleidoscopic reflections until bodies and surroundings seem to merge into a single flow of energy and matter.

A similarly cosmic and intergalactic atmosphere permeates the symbolically dense compositions of another promising Chinese artist in the booth, Zigsen Liu. Here, the psychological fluidity of figures caught in continuous metamorphosis emerges from a contemplation of contemporary existence and the increasingly fragmented nature of a self shaped by multiple reflections and fractal projections across digital, physical, psychological and sensory space. Works by both artists reach up to $10,000 but mostly remain in the low thousands.

Also grabbing attention between Hana and Sato is Art of Nature’s presentation, centered on a monumental traditional ink painting on a scroll, transformed into both a poetic installation and a philosophical proposition about the relationship between humans and nature. Chinese artist Qin Feng expands the traditional technique into a more immersive form of storytelling, surrounding the scroll with painted traditional fans from his Pragmatism Philosophy series. Exploring human civilization, history and shifting values through expressive brushwork and ink, the works reach $30,000 for the largest piece and installation. More decorative is Wu Guanzhen’s floral composition, which inventively reintroduces lacquer and gold-and-silver leaf into paintings priced between $30,000 and $50,000.

Japanese gallery Kotaro Nukaga had one of the fair’s most crowded booths, with several large new canvases by internationally rising Japanese artist Keita Morimoto. His Hopperian hyperrealism is animated by a pervasive nostalgia for a Japan that seemed to slip away while the artist spent years abroad, only to appear transformed each time he returned. His works are now priced around $50,000, considerably above the levels at which he first began showing with smaller galleries in the U.S., as Morimoto prepares for a major museum exhibition in Kyoto and a show in Paris with Almine Rech.

By evening, Nukaga reported selling more than 20 works between preview day and presales ahead of the fair’s public opening. Among the top transactions was a large work by Tomokazu Matsuyama, Dearly Beloved Noir, priced at $250,000-300,000, alongside a new José Parlá painting priced at $60,000-100,000 and one of Annie Morris’s highly sought-after stacked-sphere sculptures at $100,000-150,000. Both new Morimoto paintings, priced at $40,000-60,000 each, also sold. Emerging and mid-career works priced under $10,000 likewise attracted strong interest. Both works by Akiko Ueda, whose oscillating fractal abstractions resemble explosions of pixels, found buyers, as did Tomona Matsukawa’s still-life bar scene, a sculptural work by Takeshi Yasura and several paintings by Rei Kizumoto. Both of Michael Rikio Ming Hee Ho’s playfully conceptual paintings sold as the artist introduced Japanese characters and language into his work for the first time. Buyers were predominantly based in Japan, Nukaga noted, although several presales were concluded with overseas collectors who first expressed interest at Frieze Seoul, resulting in a strong Asia-centered response across the gallery’s intense two-week fair circuit.

Another Japanese powerhouse, A Lighthouse called Kanata, sold works by Ayane Mikagi, Shuhei Takahara, Kiyo Hasegawa and Chiko Takei to collections in North America, Europe and Asia.

Among the major international galleries, Pace confirmed its commitment to the fair despite a recent downsizing of its operations, maintaining a prominent Tokyo space since 2024. This time, the gallery is presenting a solo booth of new works by Lauren Quin. The digital quality of her abstractions, combined with the gestural materiality of their surfaces, feels particularly well suited to Japanese audiences. The booth was almost sold out by the evening.

Sadie Coles HQ, meanwhile, could hardly skip Tokyo at this point, given that it represents one of Japan’s brightest rising stars, Yu Nishimura, alongside David Zwirner and Crèvecœur. In the booth, Nishimura’s large new woodland portrait Diffraction (2026) is presented in dialogue with Sarah Lucas’s Bad Bunny. Elsewhere are works by Matthew Barney, abstractions by Uri Aran, a large neon and Ju Li’s more existential sculptures, among others.

More minimal and abstract is Ceysson & Bénétière’s booth, returning for its third year at the fair while the French gallery maintains a permanent space in Tokyo. The presentation includes a beautifully engraved fire extinguisher and a Disney-inspired drawing by Wim Delvoye, who is currently exhibiting at the gallery. Prices range from four to five figures. Particularly popular among local collectors are Lionel Sabatté’s sculptures. His small, clay-like bird, Colombe, priced at around €4,000, was already reserved, though collectors continued to ask about it. Similar works by the artist had sold out at Art Basel Paris last year.

Meanwhile, the sophistication of Japanese taste is also evident in the appreciation for text-based and conceptual work by artists such as Lawrence Weiner and Marcel Broodthaers. The Broodthaers estate is presenting works here with Taro Nasu, as it did in Hong Kong and Seoul, shown in dialogue with the giant black spheres of Ryan Gander’s Can You Be Happy. An additional work by Weiner is installed beside the VIP lounge.

Missing from the fair this year is a Japanese heavyweights as SCAI The Bathhouse, but Kaikai Kiki maintains a prominent presence near the entrance with a group presentation dominated by the gallery’s familiar anime- and manga-inflected aesthetic. Another side of the booth has been transformed by Mr., with his characters spilling across the wallpaper and onto a customized “Yankee Itasha” car. Prices range from around $7,000 for smaller works to $300,000 for the car.

Mr.’s world-building extends beyond the booth into Sato Meadow, where his monumental installation That Day’s Never-Ending “Let’s Spend the Night Together”—Off the Chart (2026) brings together a monumental kawaii student sculpture, customized motorcycles and a vending machine, a constellation of symbols from a Japan that has become intimately familiar to the imagination of an entire generation of Millennials exposed to its visual culture, even from afar.

Directly opposite, Mizuma Art Gallery, which operates in Tokyo and Singapore, offers two sharply contrasting visions of contemporary Japanese fantasy. Ayane Eguchi’s bucolic paintings conjure pastel, unicorn-populated dream worlds, with several selling early for under $5,000. Satoru Aoyama’s TIME (THE END OF HUMANITY) (2026), by contrast, adopts a considerably more apocalyptic register: made from polyester and luminous thread, the embroidered textile work unfolds into a lucid meditation on humanity’s fragility and the archaeological remains through which its story might one day be reconstructed.

Overall, Tokyo Gendai maintained a steady flow of visitors from opening to closing of its VIP day, with numerous executives brought in through banking partner SMBC, soon joined by a younger audience of collectors from Japan and across the broader Asian region. Korean collectors’ attendance, in particular, appeared notably stronger this year, as they were still energized rather than deterred by the art week the week before.

Yet the fair’s generous, spacious booths kept the atmosphere from becoming too hectic and crowded, leaving breathing room between presentations and allowing space for the more ambitious installation-based projects in Sato, as well as a substantial performance program staged throughout the fair among the booths.

Among the installations scattered through Sato Meadow is Tanabe Chikuunsai IV’s woven-bamboo construction, Circulation, a smaller counterpart to the room-filling architectural bamboo work he is currently presenting at Frieze House Seoul with leading Kyoto dealer Yumekoubou Gallery. The second son of the third-generation Chikuunsai, he encountered bamboo from an early age and eventually pushed a craft tradition passed down through generations toward a new form of contemporary expression. Yumekoubou itself embodies a similar generational evolution, extending a family antiques business into the contemporary field.

On the opposite side of the fair, closer to the VIP lounge, TAEX is presenting two large-scale video installations, including a new work produced with Marina Abramović, Slow Walking. The monumental LED wall installation and limited-edition digital artwork premiered as part of “Transforming Energy” at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice during the 61st Venice Biennale, where it formed part of a 30-meter immersive presentation. Now presented by TAEX at Tokyo Gendai, the radically decelerated image transforms walking into a meditation on duration, heightened awareness and the possibilities of digital performance. Additional works by Abramović from the series are presented inside the booth. At its first Tokyo Gendai, the curated digital art platform and marketplace appears confident that Japan could provide fertile ground for this kind of work.

Nearby, another screen presents the digital mythology of Zhang Xu Zhan’s Termite Feeding Show, a two-channel video that interlaces the climate crisis, energy disasters, fantasies of the Anthropocene and a sci-fi fable of insect diets through the perspective of termites. An edition of three of six is priced at $2,000 excluding VAT.

Also in the new digital section, Takuro Someya Contemporary Art is presenting a solo booth devoted to Ryoichi Kurokawa’s multilayered digital practice. Kurokawa constructs a continuum between the pulsing frequencies and rhythmic data visualizations of his audiovisual sculptures and more delicate lightboxes, in which dried flowers are overlaid with intricate linear structures representing the machine’s attempt to map, chart and mathematically redesign the obscure perfection of the natural world. Each is priced at $6,400. Kurokawa was among the earlier Japanese artists to explore the increasingly intertwined digital and physical dimensions of contemporary experience, gaining international institutional recognition from the 2000s onward. His work has been presented at Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Pinakothek der Moderne, ZKM, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, among others. He also participated in the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and won the Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica in 2010 for Digital Musics & Sound Art.

By its fourth edition, Tokyo Gendai has established itself as a fast-maturing international platform capable of catalyzing greater visibility for Japanese artists and galleries within the wider global art ecosystem. Its move to Tokyo should further amplify that role by focusing international attention on a local scene whose momentum is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. “You can really feel that it is happening,” AMA CEO Scott Gray told Observer on opening day, noting that the fair arrived at precisely the moment when Japan appeared ready for it. Still, as with India Art Fair, an important part of its success has been remaining deeply embedded within its local ecosystem.

Tokyo Gendai is, first and foremost, a Japanese international fair built around Japan’s art ecosystem. Its ambition has never been simply to create another Frieze but to establish a platform through which Japanese artists and galleries can gain greater international visibility. Even as some international galleries, including Almine Rech and Perrotin, have dropped out, and their regional rosters often overlap with those of leading local galleries, while sales remain concentrated below six figures and frequently in the low five figures or below, Tokyo Gendai still demonstrates the vibrancy of Japan’s art ecosystem. For international and regional visitors interested in understanding what is happening in the country now, it has become a key point of entry.

More international collectors, especially from within the region, are also making the trip. Among those spotted around the fair were Evan Chow, Tim Tam and Monique Leong. “I wasn’t expecting anything from the fair. But I was surprised by the turnout and saw many international collectors. I’m looking forward to seeing them again next year when they move to Tokyo,” Tam commented as he exited.

More in art fairs, biennials and triennials

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• Frieze Seoul, Kiaf and a Market Moving Past FOMO into Maturity

• Can Seoul Art Week Sustain More Fairs? PAVILION and Design Miami Say Yes.

• The Venice Biennale and Central Asia’s Rise in the Global Art World

It wasn’t until recently that the international art world started paying close attention to Central Asia. Long isolated as part of the Soviet bloc, the “Stans”—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—have only recently begun gaining greater international visibility, announcing landmark museums, launching biennials and attracting a new wave of tourists interested in their uniquely layered cultural heritage, where historical Persian, Arabic and Turkish influences coexist with imposing Soviet modernist architecture.

Uzbekistan, in particular, has stood out for a new wave of investment in its cultural sector, aimed at supporting the creation of a local cultural and creative ecosystem while enhancing the international visibility of its culture, from its centuries-old heritage to today’s talents. A key power player behind this push has been Gayane Umerova, head of the Department of Creative Economy and Tourism of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan and chairperson of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF), a foundation aimed at preserving, promoting and fostering Uzbekistan’s heritage, arts and culture.

ACDF is the entity behind the renovation and development of the Center for Contemporary Arts Tashkent (CCA Tashkent), a new cultural hub for the country and the broader region, which finally opened on September 6. Housed in a 1912 former tram depot transformed by acclaimed French architects Studio KO, the CCA marks the first institution of its kind in Uzbekistan: a permanent center for contemporary art, research and community engagement in the heart of Tashkent, the capital. Its year-round program is led by chief curator Dr. Sara Raza, a global art curator, art historian and scholar who previously served as curator of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative for the Middle East and North Africa. Its inaugural exhibition, “Hikmah,” centers on wisdom, bringing together new commissions and recent works by 10 Uzbek and international artists across the center’s restored spaces.

ACDF is also overseeing the realization of the new National Museum of Uzbekistan, designed by Tadao Ando and set to create another landmark in Tashkent. The foundation also commissioned the inaugural Bukhara Biennial, held in 2025, which welcomed more than 1.8 million visitors to the Silk Road city of Bukhara, with both international and local contemporary artists interacting with and reactivating historical sites.

Additionally, ACDF has been building the country’s presence at international events such as the Venice Biennale while organizing key international happenings and cultural forums inside the country, including the inaugural Aral Culture Summit and the 2025 UNESCO General Conference, which have brought cultural leaders across disciplines to the country to foster intercultural dialogue and exchange.

Ahead of the official opening of the CCA, Observer spoke with Umerova about her and ACDF’s roles and strategies for building long-term cultural infrastructure in Uzbekistan while bringing the nation’s art, artists and cultural heritage into the global spotlight.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan’s cultural scene was weak, while public demand for contemporary culture remained limited, as both the population and the government had other priorities. Things began to change only recently, Umerova tells Observer. “The country was in stagnation for more than 30 years, so there were a lot of gaps in theater, the film industry, concerts, art and craft. We’re really trying to make sure that this mechanism is working again, that it is restored, renovated and functioning.” Under the previous government there was not sufficient financial support for the arts to sustain projects on the scale of a biennial or a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. But, she added, once the government establishes culture as a priority, organizations in the sector feel supported and can plan more ambitiously.

ACDF’s initial strategy was to create a strong cultural offering first, with the expectation that communities and a wider cultural infrastructure would develop around it. Over the past nine years, the foundation has been working to rebuild both the country’s cultural infrastructure and its international visibility.

A key point from the beginning, however, was to strike a balance between driving tourism and raising awareness within the country. There’s ample evidence that investments in the cultural sector can turn a city into a global destination, but avoiding a shortsighted, extractive model requires equally strong engagement with local communities. Only in this way can art and culture truly have a broader impact on local development, not only by generating economic flows but also by building long-term capabilities and development opportunities. Umerova has been well aware of that from the very beginning.

Results on the tourism side are already visible: Uzbekistan’s foreign tourist arrivals rose from 2.7 million in 2017 to nearly 11.7 million in 2025, more than a fourfold increase, while exports of tourism services climbed from $531 million to $4.8 billion, according to Uzbekistan’s government.

Notably, Uzbekistan also has a very young population, with people under 30 making up 52 percent, about 20.3 million, of its roughly 39 million inhabitants. The national average age is 29.5 years, while children under 14 account for 30.5 percent of the population. One of ACDF’s goals from the beginning was to build an audience among younger generations, and through them to develop a local cultural economy capable of supporting opportunities in the creative industries for generations to come.

“Our country was usually predominantly interested in professions like lawyers, engineers and doctors—these classical jobs—and now we can see new jobs emerging,” Umerova says. Art journalism, for instance, was hardly established as a field. “It wasn’t common to write about artists. Now we can see so many articles in the local press. There’s now a new market and new jobs.”

For this reason, Umerova tends to describe the CCA as a form of “social-cultural architecture” that local communities can engage with on multiple levels. “They don’t have to particularly love the art, but they should be comfortable being surrounded by art. It’s about giving them the time to adapt.” Results are evident in audience development. “When we were starting this project, we didn’t really see enough young crowds interested in this. People were more into I.T. or other spheres, like film or music. But now we can see more and more people becoming interested in arts and crafts.”

This has also been the approach behind the Bukhara Biennial, which intentionally embraces an extremely contextual and site-specific model. “It wasn’t only about making sure that tourists or the international art scene were coming. It was also important for us to see that locals were interested and that locals were engaged.”

From the beginning, the strategy has been to use the biennial as a catalyst for local development and urban revitalization, opening new spaces and territories within Bukhara’s historic cultural district. “Bukhara tells us. Bukhara shows us the way,” Umerova asserts. The city already contains layers of history, experience and knowledge; rather than imposing an external framework on it, the curatorial process begins by examining those layers and allowing the city itself to suggest ways to reactivate them. “Basically, it already has everything. It has so many layers of history, experience, wisdom and everything else. You basically dig a little bit, and Bukhara tells you how to embrace it.”

Led by Diana Campbell as artistic director and curator, and Wael Al Awar as creative director of architecture, the inaugural edition in 2025 featured more than 200 artists from 39 countries, including internationally acclaimed names. Importantly, all 70 commissioned works were produced in Uzbekistan through collaborations among Uzbek artisans, Uzbek and Central Asian artists and international participants, further turning the Biennial into a catalyst for local opportunities, valorizing existing knowledge and heritage while fostering intercultural exchange and creative collaboration. International participants included Antony Gormley, Subodh Gupta, Carsten Höller, Delcy Morelos, Tarek Atoui, Slavs and Tatars, Shakuntala Kulkarni and Tavares Strachan, among others. A second edition of the Bukhara Biennial is already planned for September 3 – November 21, 2027, with architect and designer Kulapat Yantrasast appointed artistic director.

The CCA’s inaugural exhibition, “Hikmah,” Uzbek for “wisdom,” explores ideas around insight, intelligence and divine wisdom, staging a dialogue not only between local and international artists but also between cultural heritage and contemporary voices, both international and local. Importantly, the exhibition will feature a series of context-specific works set to respond directly to the building and its architecture, including new commissions by Muhannad Shono, Nari Ward, Shokhrukh Rakhimov and Tarik Kiswanson. The exhibition will also include works by Kimsooja and Ali Cherri, as well as a loaned work by Nadia Kaabi-Linke from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and loaned works from the Savitsky Museum in Nukus by Vladimir Pan, Daribay Saipov and Bakhtiyar Saipov.

Providing visibility to both the country’s historical heritage and today’s talent remains central, Umerova emphasizes, but fostering cultural exchange is equally essential to supporting the growth of local talent and opening it up to the world. With the CCA entering this new chapter and the new building and programming about to be unveiled, Umerova joked that the team is beginning to separate psychologically from the CCA because “the baby is ready, the baby is born.”

While the foundation now focuses on the many museum projects set to be delivered in the coming years, it continues to invest in its visibility on international platforms. Until recently, artists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were presented collectively at the Central Asian Pavilion, but the countries now each have their own national pavilions. Particularly ambitious this year is the Uzbekistan Pavilion at the Arsenale, “The Aural Sea,” which brings together newly commissioned and recent works by local and international artists alike—including Jahongir Bobokulov from Uzbekistan, Zi Kakhramonova from Uzbekistan, Aygul Sarsen from Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, Zulfiya Spowart from Uzbekistan, Xin Liu from China, A.A. Murakami from the U.K. and Japan and Nguyen Phuong Linh from Vietnam—staging a cross-border dialogue between East and West around the disappearance of the Aral Sea and the alternative histories and futures the vanished sea has inspired. Commissioned, as always, by ACDF, which has been behind Uzbekistan’s presence at the Venice Biennale Arte and Architettura since 2021, the pavilion turns to myth, imagination, oral storytelling and elemental memory as ways of confronting collective trauma and shared, era-defining ecological shifts.

Following the country’s presentation at Milan Design Week 2026, the themes of both projects are directly linked to the Aral Culture Summit, which returns this September for a second edition. First launched in April 2025 during the E.U.-Central Asia Climate Forum in Samarkand before continuing in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, the summit aims to bring together artists, architects, scientists, policymakers, activists and local communities every 18 months to confront the ecological disaster together while envisioning alternative solutions.

Umerova describes the Aral Culture Summit and the Aral School emerging from it as one of ACDF’s focuses at the moment. “It’s more about sustainability,” she explains. “We’re trying to navigate it from the farming point of view and from the point of view of new creative materials. We’re trying to make sure that art has a legacy there.”

Umerova was also central to encouraging UNESCO to host the 43rd session of its General Conference in Samarkand that same year. She has also been instrumental in securing Uzbekistan’s participation in Expo 2025 Osaka and is the commissioner and co-curator of “Instruments of the Mind,” a landmark exhibition that brings the pioneering work of Uzbek artist Vyacheslav Akhunov into the spotlight at Palazzo Franchetti, the first official collateral exhibition organized by CCA.

Discussing these initiatives and ACDF’s strategic direction, Umerova acknowledges that the Korean model has been an important reference for them, demonstrating the clear effects of well-planned, sustained investment in the international visibility of Korean culture. “When we started to form our foundation, we were really amazed by their experience and by how it was rising,” she says. “It’s important for us to invest in our artists abroad and ensure they are seen on international platforms.”

The Venice pavilion is central to this effort, but the strategy also extends to participation in World Expo. After Osaka, Uzbekistan will participate in the next Expo in Riyadh, where the foundation again plans to incorporate artists, artisans and other creative elements into their presentation. “We want to make sure that these pavilions aren’t just seen as representations of the country in terms of trade and the market, but that they also showcase artistic and creative talent.”

Beyond these global events, the foundation is also working closely with Delfina Foundation in London to enable a group of Uzbek artists each year to participate in its highly respected residency program. At the same time, the CCA is also building a domestic residency network. Always working with Studio KO, the foundation has developed two residencies in Tashkent and is expanding the program into other cities, including Samarkand, Bukhara and Kokand. Most importantly, this is also about creating jobs and building new infrastructure in cities where there is not yet much cultural infrastructure or broad engagement with the cultural scene.

The underlying principle is decentralization, as Umerova emphasizes; they don’t want Tashkent to become the country’s only cultural center. Instead, their residency network and the various events in the nation should highlight the distinct cultural legacies of cities along the Silk Road.

For instance, already in the planning stages and set to be completed around the same time as the National Museum of Uzbekistan in 2028 is a major Silk Road museum in Samarkand. Meanwhile, the foundation is working on a new museum in Bukhara dedicated to Jadidism, a movement that emerged in Uzbekistan in the early 20th Century, around the 1910s and 1920s. Importantly, Umerova clarifies, all of these projects are about beautiful “sustainable architecture,” while giving new meaning to the region.

Central Asia and countries such as Uzbekistan sit strategically between western China and European markets, maintaining both economic and cultural relations with each, as well as with the Gulf. According to Umerova, there is now a coordinated effort with neighboring countries and the Caucasus, as well as continuous exchange with China and, in particular, the Middle East. “We’re very close. We’re making sure that we engage in each other’s projects,” she says. “We engage there, and they come here. This dialogue is quite important for us.”

Still, to ensure this infrastructure’s longevity, a system primarily funded by government and public money may not be enough. A healthy art ecosystem capable of sustaining its talents also needs a growing private sector and a market that can contribute to artists’ careers and increase their visibility within the international art industry over time. Umerova is well aware of this, but she also sees it as a longer-term process that begins with building a local audience and a local cultural class.

There are already some positive indicators on the market side, she adds. Collectors who encountered artists through the Bukhara Biennial have begun showing greater interest in Uzbekistan’s local scene. Uzbek artists have also begun appearing in contexts such as Art Basel. Most significantly, she said, some artists who participated in the Bukhara Biennial were subsequently signed by private galleries. “For us, this is a beautiful outcome that can really help the artists grow,” she says, noting that these early developments demonstrate how institutional exposure can translate into longer-term professional growth. The eventual goal is an ecosystem in which museums, biennials, galleries, collectors and audiences reinforce one another and secure Uzbekistan a place in the global cultural conversation.

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The artisanal spirit of the bricoleur animates Tom Sachs’s art, alongside a postmodern, deconstructive impulse aimed at interrogating the symbolic and narrative dynamics that establish material value. Large symbolic systems have long nourished his practice of sustained world-building. That was the case with his multi-year NASA project, Space Program (2007-present), through which he reimagined the mythology of the space mission through handcrafted sculptures made from everyday materials like plywood, cardboard, foam core, duct tape and hot glue. Sachs had done something similar earlier with Nutsy’s (2003-2005), which linked the idealistic modernism of Le Corbusier with the commercialized modernism of McDonald’s.

Building on this legacy, the provocative American artist has unveiled his latest endeavor: a homemade and unauthorized Chanel flagship in Chinatown. Notably, the street where it is located, Centre Street, with Maman and Champagnerie on either side, is now called “Little Paris,” as a sign hanging next door suggests, adding an eerie coincidence, an ironic dimension or perhaps simply a synchronicity of chance to an operation that brings Chanel’s historic 31 Rue Cambon boutique in Paris to Chinatown.

“I just like making stuff,” Sachs told Observer when we met for a preview of the project in late August. Entering from the side door, we found his studio far tidier than one might expect from the explosiveness of his creativity—it was almost unnervingly orderly. “Everything is really in the other rooms; you’ll see the chaos. This room is kind of empty because the show is finished,” he was quick to point out. “We just cleared it out, and I’m starting my next thing.”

Sachs’s studio is always in motion, as he’s always making something. “I’m not happy unless I have some little thing to make,” he said, recalling how he used to make rockets from dry-cleaning cardboard and telescoping tampon applicators, improvising with whatever materials were available. Although he was initially forbidden to use his father’s tools, he secretly took them from the basement. “My mother taught me to refinish furniture, paint, decorate and repair things because she was very handy, but I wasn’t allowed to use power tools. I was forbidden to use tools because my father didn’t really know how to use them either. His parents wanted him to become a pianist or a doctor. But we had tools in the basement, and I would sneak them.”

When he went to college, the rule-free sculpture department became a revelation. A girlfriend taught him to weld; after she broke up with him, Sachs threw himself into sculpture and hasn’t stopped making since. In front of us is a strange sculpture in which pieces of a rubber chicken have been pieced together, transforming it into an alien-like assemblage that says a great deal about his unfiltered imagination.

31 Rue Cambon originated out of the same philosophical framework and follows many of the protocols of his long-running Space Program and other series he has pursued in the past. They all operate as expansive Gesamtkunstwerke: systems through which Sachs can pursue his interests in bricolage, research, engineering, ritual and fabrication.

These large symbolic systems provide him with the necessary pretext for sustained world-building. “You need a pretext to begin building a new world, something with enough breadth that I can keep expanding it and understand different things, so I can go really deep into the railings or the tweed,” Sachs explained. The result is a practice that simultaneously celebrates human inventiveness and exposes the dynamics shaping the contemporary myths all of us consume. “When I made Space Program, I focused on the parts of the journey to other worlds that I’m interested in. Similarly, when I take you into my homemade Chanel boutique, it’s not really about fashion; it’s about my interests and obsessions with these things: how they’re made, the stories behind them, why they matter, my desires and ambitions.”

This time the framework is what he calls retail ecstasy. “Men don’t collect cameras to take pictures of people; they collect them to impress their other lonely-guy friends,” Sachs quipped. “I wanted a Chanel suit, not because I was going to wear one—I’m not that kind of guy. I just wanted one to be part of that symbolic universe. And when I made one, I loved it so much I made 20 more.”

Over the past year, Sachs has been studying Coco Chanel’s mythology, and he is particularly fascinated by the house’s métiers, ateliers and artisanal traditions because he sees a relationship to his own obsession with making. At the core of the installation is a critical interrogation of the mythology of luxury through the lens of bootleg culture, exposing the fragile boundaries between authenticity, desire and mass consumption.

Sachs’s fascination with the Chanel brand dates back to 1998, when he created the Chanel guillotine now in the Centre Pompidou collection. With 31 Rue Cambon, Sachs recreates aspects of Chanel’s Parisian mythology while materially undermining them. He has crafted both the exterior and interior of the boutique in painstaking detail, using his own hands (and those of his studio assistants).

Sachs’s version of the chandelier in Coco Chanel’s salon matches the scale of the original but is constructed from meticulously cut bicycle reflectors, fishing weights and UV dental epoxy. It hangs from the ceiling of an almost claustrophobic foyer, where mirrors covering the walls create an illusion of depth while evoking the house’s iconic mirrored staircase, where Coco Chanel herself was famously photographed.

Further in are Sachs’s versions of Chanel’s iconic tweed suits, all rendered in plywood and synthetic polymer with the meticulous attention to detail characteristic of his signature hyperrealistic, deceptive quality. Hanging on racks, they are sacred simulacra of a timeless fashion cult. “My versions are generally the same size as the originals, even when the materials shift,” Sachs said.

Behind each suit are months of research and experimentation devoted to recreating, through acrylic paint, the extraordinary diversity of fabrics and finishes associated with the originals. Sachs and his team reproduced tweed, stitching, buttons, chains and other textile details through elaborate painting and fabrication techniques, while allowing the underlying materials and process to be seen.

Sachs had wanted to make Chanel suits from plywood for more than a decade but did not believe he possessed the technical ability to realize them properly until recently. His experiments painting Picasso compositions helped him reach what he considers the ideal level of virtuosity to create something technically accomplished but still visibly homemade.

Upstairs in his studio, where some of Sachs’s assistants were working on additional suits, the almost obsessive meticulousness and labor behind each piece was laid bare. Only in a few cases were they able to obtain textile samples. Most of the suits are based on photographs, often images of garments worn by celebrities such as Princess Diana, Naomi Campbell or Coco herself—women who became cultural icons of their eras and to whom individual pieces are dedicated. There is even a recreation of the intensely pink suit Marge Simpson wore in the seventh-season episode of The Simpsons, “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield.”

The figures attached to individual suits become part of the project’s wider reflection on cultural memory and fame. Sachs describes their fame as “the sunshine of the dead;” some names will remain widely recognizable while others will become obscure, but he sees the works as a record of who mattered at a particular cultural moment. They are not far from Warhol’s portraits, whose sitters may no longer be familiar to viewers but whose images retain their power. “Americans don’t necessarily know who Romy Schneider is. Outside the art world, many people don’t care about Mary Boone. People know Margot Robbie and Princess Diana. In a few hundred years—and certainly in a thousand years—it’s all dust. But I think this becomes a useful record of who we are now.”

For the Boone work, Sachs photographed a 1987 dress in the art dealer’s own apartment. For other pieces, he had to rely primarily on archival photographs and garments and fabric sections he studied at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fashion Institute collection. The translation from fabric to plywood proceeds through repeated material tests. Sachs and his team paint, comb, scrape, burn, extrude and layer acrylic media until they arrive at a surface that evokes the source textile while remaining unmistakably handmade. One jacket begins with black paint, followed by beige paint combed through while still wet, and then speckled to create the appearance of woven fibers. Another is punctured with a drill to produce a damaged, lace-like surface. Buttons and even chains are made entirely from acrylic paint extruded through medical syringes, peeled from silicone once dry and assembled link by link. For the chains, tiny acrylic links only a few millimeters wide are extruded onto silicone, peeled away once dry, shaped, cut and interlocked..

The research can seem almost forensic, and the studio closer at times to a scientific laboratory than an artist’s space. Sachs’s team consults museum archives, photographs and luxury resale sites, which document garments, labels, hardware and construction details with extraordinary precision. There is, fortuitously, also an incredible amount of information online, Sachs admitted. “Chanel fans are wild. Luxury resale sites document objects in astonishing detail. 1stDibs saved our lives.”

Every detail conceived and crafted by the Chanel atelier becomes an engineering problem in Sachs’s studio. A finished suit may take roughly 10 days to two weeks to execute, according to Sachs, but he emphasized that the experiments leading to the final technique often take much longer. But for him, those experiments are where the real play happens. Once the method is solved, production becomes comparatively straightforward.

Atop a set of shelves in 31 Rue Cambon are whitewashed cardboard versions of Chanel’s classic handbags, replicated down to their interiors. The same space also holds cardboard slingback heels, accompanied by cardboard boxes containing newspapers—a direct homage to On Kawara. Even the dimensions of the boxes reproduce those of Kawara’s originals.

Sachs’s boutique operates as a multisensory total environment. He and studio member Coleman Harshbarger created a soundtrack incorporating horror-movie music, Chanel advertisements, ambient sounds and pop tracks, adopting another mashup approach that freely draws musical material from different sources. The space smells of linseed oil warming in a crockpot. Although the sculptures are actually painted in acrylic, Sachs wants visitors to register the prestige and sensual associations of oil paint.

Framed on the walls and elegantly displayed in a cabinet are versions of Chanel’s iconic brooches, alongside new collections Sachs invented to reflect the technological age we are living in and what comes next. One series, Diamonds Are Forever, includes Maltese crosses and octagonal forms. Another, New Media, incorporates a Star Wars character alongside reflections on surveillance, screens and the attention economy. The historical Chanel jewelry is translated into radically different materials and mixed with extremely different iconography: bicycle reflectors, diamonds, broken Dom Pérignon glass and Lego.

Notably, many of these pieces are made from Lego bricks, a material Sachs sees as encapsulating much of his philosophy: a single plastic brick can generate entire worlds once imagination and making are brought into play. “There’s a great old Lego advertisement with a boy holding a single brick. It says, ‘This is a spaceship because Billy says it’s a spaceship,'” Sachs recalled. “I really believe in free play, where you invent your own thing. It’s much harder.” Sometimes, he added, when he is sad, he goes on eBay and buys vintage free-play sets.

Play remains a fundamental objective in his practice. Sachs describes his greatest challenge as “finding the discipline to be undisciplined,” carving out enough time, despite running a studio and raising a family, to experiment without an immediately productive goal. Then there’s his profound devotion to craftsmanship: the very act of making, and that fundamental, irreplaceable connection between mind and hand that has made human creativity possible and, more broadly, underpinned civilization through the continual interaction of nature and culture. “I want to enjoy the sensuality of touching wood and plastic,” Sachs said. “That’s my greatest pleasure and reward: educating and entertaining myself, and touching materials.”

Visible imperfection is important to him because it brings something undeniably human into the work. “The advantage the artist has over industry is that the artist can show fingerprints. I could never make something as good as an iPhone,” he considered. “I always want them to remain transparent about what they’re made from. You can see the plies. If you look closely, you see the marks from the jigsaw.” For him, the work must never disguise its own making.

Most importantly, he wants to “eliminate fashion” from the equation and ensure that the suits and accessories operate unequivocally as sculpture. “I want to make sure all of the accessories operate in the same way as the suits—that they’re art. This isn’t about fashion.” Fundamental to this operation is the establishment of rules and protocols. “I have lots of rules and guidelines. I’m hugely influenced by Conceptual art.” He cites Lucy Lippard and the dematerialization of the art object, alongside artists including On Kawara, Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono and Chris Burden, as major references within the philosophical and theoretical framework of his practice.

Nor does he deny a direct link to Duchamp’s legacy. “Without Duchamp, you don’t have any of that. He’s the originator,” Sachs acknowledged, though he also jokingly admits that he lacks the confidence simply to select an object and declare it art. He is too invested in making. “I wish I could make readymade work. When I was in college, I was very interested in it. But I don’t have the confidence to simply put a urinal somewhere. My reward and privilege is making the thing.”

The project also required Sachs to formulate what he calls Chanel’s “graphic standards,” including the house’s familiar palette of red, black, white, beige and gold and the geometric logic underlying its visual identity. Yet the abundance of counterfeit and derivative Chanel imagery online creates another problem: how to appropriate a recognizable symbolic system without sliding into kitsch. Sachs is particularly wary of what he sees as generic “Chanel punk,” steampunk aesthetics or oversized-object gimmicks: “I need to find something with an authentic voice that represents who I am. It’s a very fine line: how do you make a genuine fake? Otherwise it becomes kitsch, and that isn’t interesting.” And so strict rules became necessary. Establishing his own protocols, the artist added, has been essential to producing something that still feels authentic to his world. It is precisely here that the discipline of Conceptual art has proved especially useful.

When Observer asked whether the entire piece is best understood as copying, replication or appropriation, Sachs returned to a formative experience he had after moving to New York to explain his thinking around authenticity and originality. “I loved Mondrian. I thought: Okay, I just have to go down to Wall Street, work for 20 years, make a ton of money and then I can buy a Mondrian,” he recalled. On his way downtown, he bought a pair of fake Gucci sunglasses on Canal Street for five dollars, accidentally left them behind after lunch and realized he did not care because they were so inexpensive. “I realized that the $500 sunglasses, the real ones, own you. You don’t own them. The fake Gucci sunglasses are real Gucci sunglasses. They’re unauthorized, they’re made in China and they’re not as nice, but they’re still somehow Gucci sunglasses.”

The incident led Sachs to question what authenticity actually meant. Rather than spending decades accumulating enough capital to possess a Mondrian, he went to MoMA, studied one closely, even examining its reverse, and made his own version using gaffer’s tape. “I realized that it was much more authentic, even though it wasn’t made by Mondrian. I got to spend more time with that Mondrian than Eli Broad did,” he said. “So the desire to possess something is replaced, or sublimated, by the act of making it. Laying the tape, understanding it, building a spaceship or making a Chanel suit—that’s where the sensuality is. It isn’t in buying it with money or stealing it. It’s in making it.”

That distinction is fundamental to his work, though Sachs freely acknowledged that he is “a total pirate,” having entered the symbolic worlds of NASA, Chanel, Japanese tea ceremony and numerous consumer brands despite being neither a rocket scientist nor a couturier or Japanese tea master. But he believes the intensive labor of rebuilding those worlds allows him to find an authentic position within them and within the symbolic fictions that feed their value.

To illustrate the idea further, he turned to the history of Jamaican dub: “Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Bob Marley’s first producer, would listen at night to the AM radio coming from San Antonio in Texas, and then go into the studio the next morning and make a dub version. It was like a copy, but not exactly, because he couldn’t completely remember it.” The result was something recognizably connected to the source but materially transformed in its final form. Sachs also recounts how unsold American records were sometimes melted down and their vinyl reused for new Jamaican pressings, a spontaneous and resourceful practice of appropriation and repurposing that further complicates this history of cultural exchange and circulation. The earlier music became physically embedded in the material substrate of the new record even after its original grooves had disappeared. “Spiritually, James Brown is still in there, inside that plastic, even though you can’t hear it anymore,” Sachs joked.

He thinks of these kinds of invisible continuities as a kind of sympathetic magic. “I believe in the supernatural power of those connections. They’re intangible and difficult to explain or justify, but I believe in them,” he argued, adding that he has experienced this multiple times, as imaginative worlds he built for himself eventually crossed over into reality.

For instance, his homemade space program led to his being invited to work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “I’ve also been offered the opportunity to fly with SpaceX. I did full astronaut training for a space mission, although in the end I decided not to go,” he added. Similarly, a fake Nike advertisement included in an early Space Program installation eventually led to a collaboration with the company. “It happened because I made it out of cardboard.”

The range of collaborations Sachs has participated in over the years point to the timeliness of his practice and the questions it raises around authenticity, originality and value. A handmade Chanel chainsaw or bricolaged spacecraft asks why one object is considered luxurious, technologically sophisticated or culturally authoritative while another is not. Craftsmanship, branding and institutional validation constantly collide.

Those questions feel even more urgent in the age of A.I., when images and ideas appear endlessly reproducible, appropriable and circulable with little effort, and the mechanization of human labor threatens to substitute not only for the hand but supposedly for aspects of the human mind. Yet even if large language models can mimic certain patterns of human reasoning, they cannot simply substitute for human creativity.

Sachs is skeptical about algorithmic taste. A.I.-powered recommendation systems can identify and feed back what someone already likes, he argued, but they rarely challenge taste. Social-media feeds already demonstrate how algorithms can flatten rather than expand aesthetic judgment, producing endless variations on familiar preferences without genuinely introducing new information. “It never gives me truly new information. It gives me what it thinks I want. After the first example, it becomes almost pornographic, like endlessly watching surfing videos. There’s no new information.”

When asked what he believes his art adds to a world already overloaded with objects and oversaturated with images, he once again resisted the language of “replica,” “copy” or “model.” And he was hesitant to claim that his versions necessarily add something objectively new. What they add for him, however, is the sensuality of making. He described his artistic process as a stone dropped into water: the first ring is himself and the studio team; the next includes engaged viewers and interlocutors; subsequent rings encompass people drawn to the work for entirely different reasons, because they love Chanel, hate Chanel, value the object’s expense or simply enjoy its form.

Sachs is comfortable with the divergent reactions his work triggers. “All of those reasons are acceptable to me,” he asserted. “I don’t want to judge someone’s opinion. Outside of that circle, maybe people like it because other people like it. Who knows? But I’m interested in the zone where dialogue happens.”

For Sachs, art’s purpose is modest but essential: it raises questions. It can help people “see the invisible,” or perhaps what is not yet visible. It can reveal mystical truths. “That’s all art can do, and that can help people,” he said, noting that he finds this capacity as often in music and film as in contemporary visual art.

Questions of authenticity, of what still constitutes genuine human expression and what can be considered culture, are perhaps more urgent than ever. We are living in a world where algorithmic feeds, frictionless production and the ambient expectation of optimization increasingly rule our lives, nudging us toward chasing measurable and provable outputs rather than questioning, exploring and generating meaning, as only a curious, inquisitive and playful approach allows.

The Dutch historian and cultural critic Johan Huizinga saw something of this coming almost a century ago. In Homo Ludens (1938), he argued that play is not marginal to civilization but, rather, generative of it. For Huizinga, law, philosophy, poetry and war all emerge from play’s “magic circle,” that space where ordinary rules of professionalization and optimization are suspended and something else becomes possible.

Amid this noise and these increasingly rational bounds, Sachs continues to dismantle the mythology of technological and consumer perfection by rebuilding its own icons through a methodological yet extremely playful, even ironic, approach to human labor dominated by improvisation and rituals of inventive craftsmanship and therefore still anchored in that fundamental generative axis between hand and mind, soul and material world. His work is all about that increasingly rare ability to embrace what the Greeks described as “eutrapelia”: the ability to be spontaneously well-turned, to play well and fully with the possibilities the world offers, and, even within the ordinary, to remain imaginatively and creatively real, a true self.

Sachs’s 31 Rue Cambon demonstrates how, even amid frictionless images and increasingly automated production, meaning can still emerge through the generative reinterpretation of an existing idea and the stubbornly physical act of making something by hand, creatively reinvented through a free wandering of the mind beyond the logic imposed by our society: “Making things well, learning through making them, protecting the sensuality of materials—is really at the center of everything I’m doing.”

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“You Must Change Your Life” is the title of the 16th Gwangju Biennale, which runs through November 15 and asks us to radically reconsider the way we look at our position in the world, considering the possibilities from individual and collective life to the broader ecosystem of relations between human and nonhuman beings, and ultimately to the cosmic ensemble of interdependence and interconnection. Led by artist Ho Tzu Nyen alongside curators Che Kyongfa, Park Gahee and Brian Kuan Wood, as well as assistant curators Lee Yein and Koyuri Sato, the biennial brings together 43 artists—an intentionally contained number compared with other recent exhibitions, giving individual works more space to expand and visitors more time to spend with them. As their names recur on the wall texts mounted through the Gwangju Biennale’s five galleries, the artists gradually become familiar, like traveling companions on a journey toward new levels of awareness.

In contrast with the biennialization phenomenon of recent years, which has often followed a logic of expansion, Ho and his team wanted to explore the intensity of attention, he explained during the opening press conference. The format is an attempt to achieve sustainability, not just ecologically, but also a sustainability of attention. “Rather than moving rapidly from one artist to the next, we wanted to spend more time with practices that have themselves been formed over years, sometimes decades, of sustained artistic attention and repetition,” he explained. “A large exhibition typically turns artists into dots. One artist, one work, one moment of attention, and you move on. We wanted instead to follow lines. A practice is a line through time.”

The biennial takes its title from the final line of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo” (1908), which came to Ho after a particularly intense period. “You must change your life” sounds urgent, even forceful, yet the Gwangju Biennale approaches change not as a destination but as a method. The idea of repetition is central to the exhibition, which moves away from the idea of change as a single dramatic event, crisis, conversion or catastrophe. Much of our lives is shaped by what we do repeatedly: choices that become habits and practices, producing fundamental transformation over time through exercise, discipline, work, reversal, cultivation, attention and repetition. “Change does not exist at one speed,” Ho explained. “We tend to think of change as rupture, and change can certainly be explosive, but it can also be so slow and continuous that we barely perceive it.”

Equally significant is the decision to include nonhuman presences among the artists’ works, further extending both the philosophical and temporal perspective. Groups of volcanic rocks from Jeju appear across the galleries and are positioned almost as participating artists themselves: metaphors for the progressive transformations unfolding in nature, and reminders that creation existed long before human authorship.

Five galleries, five dimensions of change

This curatorial vision translates into an extremely clear exhibition structure: five galleries conceived not simply as five thematic sections but as five different modes, scales, landscapes and atmospheres.

The first is “Molecules and Me,” exploring the individual yet potentially expansive and always dynamic dimension of our existence as molecules and particles. The human presence is at the center: images and sculptures of bodies, of individuals confronting the very physical but intrinsically interdependent dimension of existing and moving through the world. The human figure here reveals itself as dependent upon and acted upon by materials, landscapes, political systems, biological processes and other bodies.

At the entrance we have our first encounter with what becomes a recurring presence through the rooms: the work of Sasaki Ken, here with rippled surfaces suggesting the infinitely expansive, ever-changing nature of the desert, and a nebulous sky that could depict the infinity of the cosmos but also portrays human disaster in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. As we proceed through the rooms, his paintings move from particles to the hyperrealism of daily objects, exploring the different scales through which we can conceive our existence. “There is no single word that tells us what Sasaki Ken’s practice means. Meaning instead accumulates through recurrence. You see something, move away from it, encounter the artist again later,” Ho said.

At the center of the room, Goldin+Senneby’s Resin Pond (2026) spreads nearly two tons of luminous pine resin across the floor, forming a glassy amber pool that is visually seductive but physically obstructive, and potentially poisonous. The work draws from Jakob Senneby’s experience of living with multiple sclerosis, a chronic autoimmune condition in which the body’s defense mechanisms attack the nervous system they are meant to protect. The installation invites us to contemplate the fragile systems by which life protects and sustains itself but can also potentially turn against itself.

Around this toxic pond are Jean Barth’s life-size hybrid sculptures, inspired in part by the casts of victims preserved after the eruption of Vesuvius at Pompeii. Shaped by her transgender experience but extending beyond autobiography, the work approaches the body as something socially, politically and materially unstable. Their sculptural presence hovers between physical and virtual origins, having emerged through 3D modeling, performance capture and printed self-portraits as digital avatars, staging the unstable nature of today’s living experience between the digital and the sensorial.

A sense of loneliness and isolation emerges from Wang Jiajiao’s life-size painted bodies: a contemporary return to social realism with scenes of couples and families interacting, where the subjects are together but already crossed by distance, subtly detached from one another, suspended in the low-level alienation of contemporary life.

On large suspended screens comes our first encounter with Saodat Ismailova, an Uzbek artist we will meet repeatedly through the exhibition. In Zukhra (2013), a life-size sleeping girl appears suspended between dimensions, sleep and wakefulness, life and death. Her heartbeat fills the space, drawing us into dreams and into the blurred historical memories passing through them: forgotten ancestors, the Soviet construction of Uzbekistan as a nation-state and the Hujum campaign, which turned women’s bodies into political terrain.

Also recurring through the show is the narrative of Kiri Dalena, as she confronts the fragility of individual fates as they become interlaced with political and economic systems. In Life Masks (2013-), she photographs activists, cultural workers and families affected by state violence wearing plaster casts of their own faces, often within domestic spaces. The white masks erase identity but create another form of portraiture that allows us to contemplate their shared destinies as victims of the same systems.

There are relatively few paintings in the exhibition. Among them are Rim Dong Sik’s portrayals of humans immersed in landscape, drawing from his performances over the past five decades as he tests ways of extending the body into nature, dissolving the boundary between artist and environment.

Rossella Biscotti similarly treats matter as a living document, expanding the idea of portraiture beyond the represented body. The first works we encounter in Gallery 1 are luminescent imprinted latex sheets evoking women from colonial-era Indonesia. The work draws inspiration from Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Buru Quartet (Tetralogi Buru, 1980-1988), composed orally while the writer was imprisoned on Buru Island under President Suharto’s regime. Their materiality carries history, as the Dutch East Indies became a major site of colonial rubber production.

Screening in an alcove, Maya Watanabe’s Liminal takes us into the aftermath of Peru’s armed conflict, moving between geological scale and anthropogenic violence. Approximately 70,000 people were killed, but Watanabe narrows that abstraction to a fragment of human bone and, behind it, to an individual whose identity may still remain unresolved. The landscape becomes a terrible field of transformation: body into earth, earth into evidence, evidence into identity and, potentially, identity into memory.

Across Gallery 1, boundaries continually lose their stability: body and landscape, self and other, protection and attack, memory and matter. It is about what happens once we stop imagining anything as isolated. The closer we look, the more relations begin to appear.

The second section is “Bodies and Bonds.” Helping the transition is Ryu Hankil’s What the Old Tree Left Behind (2026), installed along the ramp linking different levels of the Biennale Hall. Beginning from the memory of a single site, it unfolds through an arrangement of wooden elements. Hankil uses “sonic thinking” to collapse the distance between composition and perception. For him, sound is not simply something heard but a way of thinking through vibration, rhythm, pressure and duration, in relation to the surroundings and across durations far beyond human perception.

The second gallery further extends the reflection into the interrelational dimension of our experience of the world, focusing on interpersonal relations and social systems shaping our existence. The gallery is structured almost as a playfield, centered on the notion of training and on how repeated practice shapes the body, subjectivity and relationships.

A ping-pong table at the entrance is a work by Julius Koller, an artist who lived and worked in socialist Czechoslovakia after the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, and whose practice the Gwangju Biennale is resurfacing. His works are meant to function as open investigations, keeping reality open to questions and asking how individuals come into relation with one another and with the systems that structure our lives: described as “cultural situations,” his U.F.O. (“Universal Futurological Operations”) created a deliberately open framework for imagining reality otherwise, an invitation to inquiry and critical doubt as a way to resist ideologies. The ping-pong table, with the back-and-forth exchange of the ball, becomes here a metaphor for communication and fair play accompanying our relation with the world.

Sasaki Ken reappears here with paintings of shoes, domestic objects and objects created by various women in his family. Family relations are one of the recurrent themes in the gallery, reappearing also in Amanda Hang’s photographs, where she follows her relationship with her mother across almost 30 years. Through the repeated act of photographing themselves together, subtle shifts emerge in distance, intimacy and the changing structures of care as both women age.

Mona Benyamin also works through family relations, but against a very different political landscape. Borrowing the familiar language and exaggerated rhythms of television drama, she uses humor to examine how occupation and political violence seep into everyday domestic life, and how comedy itself can become a form of refusal, a way of resisting the normalization of that violence. A similarly bittersweet intimacy runs through the photographs of Indian artist Sohrab Hura, where encounters remain close to the skin and the domestic sphere.

Questions of duration and transformation take a more collective form in the presentation by the May Mothers’ House in Gwangju, a community established in 2006 by women whose lives were profoundly shaped by the 1980 uprising. Some lost relatives to state violence; others were themselves injured and have carried that trauma for decades. Since 2022, members have taken part in painting workshops led by artist Joo Hong under themes including “Remembering,” “Finding Myself” and “Solidarity.” The 322 paintings on view move freely between historical trauma and the seemingly ordinary details of life.

Other works in this section explore the relation between time, systems and the body, often through repetitive gestures and self-imposed protocols that attempt to impose structure on the messiness of existence.

In Matthew Barney’s early video SCABACTION (1988), the body already appears as the construction site it would remain throughout his later practice. Mechanical, sexual and sculptural processes collapse into one another: metal is welded, gears turn and, in an extreme close-up, pliers extract an ingrown hair from a male jaw. The body is never stable or given once and for all, but something continually produced through exertion, obstruction, desire and pain.

James Benning’s Data Entry (2014), for instance, turns decoding into an almost obsessive manual ritual. Her hand repeatedly transfers two-digit numbers from a notebook into a computer program built to decipher Ted Kaczynski’s elaborate journal codes. The repetition becomes its own strange choreography, somewhere between archival research, mechanical labor and an attempt to force order onto another person’s internal system.

Tehching Hsieh pushes that logic of discipline to its extreme in his year-long performances, imposing rigid conditions on his own life and following them without interruption. In Time Clock Piece, he punched a time clock every hour, day and night, for an entire year. All boundaries between art and life dissolve, while time ceases to be abstract, registering itself physically through exhaustion, repetition and endurance.

Geumhyung Jeong similarly approaches the body through systems of training and rehabilitation. In Rehab Training (2015), medical equipment, mannequins and therapeutic devices hover somewhere between sculpture and instruments awaiting activation. Rehabilitation here is itself a form of choreography: a process of learning and relearning gesture, in which awareness of the body becomes most acute precisely when its movements can no longer be taken for granted.

That same reasoning informs Rossella Biscotti’s Alfabeto (2018), a series of 12 black-and-white photographs made after months of physiotherapy following an injury. Shot at a neurorehabilitation center in Rome, where patients relearn movement with a robotic exoskeleton, the work treats bodily mechanics almost as a language that must continually be practiced, corrected and reconstructed.

From here, the Gwangju Biennale expands the perspective further to “Landscapes and Learning,” where collective life and knowledge take root and grow through cultivation. The section opens with Suzuki Akio, who brings to Gwangju his seminal work o to da te, mapping the space and establishing directions to navigate and develop an expanded awareness of the self within it. Subtle interventions within and outside the exhibition hall invite us to become more attentive to our surroundings, to notice the systems beneath everyday life and to realize how rarely we perceive them until something breaks.

Next to it, Rossella Biscotti’s The Heads in Question casts the interiors of abandoned portraits of Mussolini and King Vittorio Emanuele III, commissioned for the unrealized 1942 Universal Exhibition in Rome, transforming authoritarian monumentality into colored silicone and resin forms that are pliable, hollow and unstable. Where fascist aesthetics sought to mold people into ideal subjects, Biscotti reverses the operation, leaving us with cavities still haunted by the monsters that shaped them.

Nearby, James T. Hong’s video Apologies compiles official apologies delivered by heads of state and government into a growing archive of political contrition. The work is played inside the gallery and each evening across the Biennale Hall facade, resonating profoundly with the history of a city that once fought to defend the value of democracy.

Nina Canell, meanwhile, brings infrastructure itself back as a kind of revenant. Severed sections of high-voltage and data cables, once buried underground or beneath the sea, lie inert across the floor. Their exposed interiors reveal surprisingly visceral layers of metal, fiber and insulation. No longer transmitting, they become interrupted circuits, dead ends that nevertheless retain the memory, and perhaps the potential, of connection, while making visible those invisible forces, physical and economic, that shape the flux of our existence.

A different negotiation between private life and political forces unfolds in Kiri Dalena and Ben Brix’s two-channel video Walang Maulingan. Moving through the contemporary Philippines in the aftermath of Duterte’s “war on drugs,” the work continually shifts scale: aerial views of cities, billboards, demonstrations and catastrophe give way to long, intimate observations of domestic life. Family and friendship expand outward into collective action and street protest, until the film culminates in a reenactment of the Crucifixion. The individual is never entirely separate from the larger forces acting upon it.

That sense of interdependence also appears through older traditions of cultivation. Uijae Huh Back-ryun understood painting, calligraphy, poetry, tea, agriculture and education not as distinct disciplines but as intertwined ways of shaping the self in relation to a community. After Korea’s liberation, he extended that philosophy into rural education and reconstruction, guided by the idea of love for heaven, land and people. Here, paintings, calligraphy and tea utensils are less relics than evidence of a worldview in which personal cultivation and collective flourishing remain inseparable. Visitors are invited to share a cup of Chunseol-cha while looking out across the surrounding landscape.

Next to them, the works of Nina Canell and Lygia Clark reactivate the curiosity that accompanies a genuine encounter with the world. Clark’s Bichos bring back a physical, both sensorial and emotional, engagement with our surroundings: made from metal plates joined by hinges, they can be folded and unfolded by participants, taking on different forms each time. Canell’s Necromancer could resemble a toy or a river in the rhythmic flow of organic and industrial materials ranging from metals, debris, earplugs and tampons to leaves and stones. This slowed-down machine defies all logics of efficiency, productivity or delivery, seeming instead to reattune itself to the messier, entropic yet generative essence of nature.

The section closes with Christian Nyampeta’s workshops and a growing library developed between New York and Gwangju. Inspired by the Gwangju Citizens’ Art School, a self-organized initiative active from 1983 to 1992 and closely connected to the Minjung movement, his project treats art less as the production of objects than as a way of gathering, learning and producing knowledge.

Preparing the transition to the next dimension of awareness, Sunik Kim fills the corridor with The Light in the Factory (2026), a 496-hour composition that begins with the Gwangju Biennale’s opening and ends only when the exhibition closes. The work draws from a banned musical drama about industrial labor and union repression that circulated clandestinely on cassette through student, worker and church networks, degrading slightly with every copy. Played from the building’s emergency room, the sound seeps through the walls and into the ramp as a ghost, allowing those memories to persist while measuring the passing of time.

At that point, the show finally lands in “Cosmos and Change,” where visitors are invited to embrace the notion of deep time beyond human perspective, moving through the collective subconscious, ancestral memory and planetary cycles.

This gallery is intentionally more cinematic and immersive, dominated by moving image, sound and dance. Across it, ritual becomes a way of exceeding the individual self, through collective movement, ancestral memory or an imagined connection with the cosmos.

There could probably be no better opening to this gallery than Lu Yang’s techno-shamanism. Across four videos, DOKU becomes an avatar moving through states of consciousness, death, transformation and reincarnation, re-enchanting the machine as a tool for spiritual inquiry and a vehicle for new, fluid imaginative possibilities that allow us to embrace temporal and spatial dimensions beyond the self.

The dialogue between the geological nature of the Jeju stones and We Sang brings us back toward ancient rituals and a profound tactile and emotional connection with the earth in moments of creation.

An attempt to restore a sense of ritual recurs throughout the section, from the Ganggangsullae dances as a way of binding bodies to one another, to the earth and to larger cycles of time.

Another work, by Bhenji Ra, originated from her travels to the southern Philippines to reconnect with a distant relative, Sitti Airia Sangkula Askalani-Obeso, and learn pangalay, a traditional Tausug dance. Part travelogue, dance lesson, ritual and dream, the film treats gesture as a language capable of carrying kinship across generations.

On a similar level, Sohrab Hura’s photographs bring that ecstatic dimension into the charged festivities dedicated to Kali on the Tamil Nadu coast, where devotees gather at night by the sea to celebrate the goddess simultaneously associated with destruction and renewal, within an ancestral worldview in which dissolution is never simply an ending.

Drawing from the shifting memory of Al-Muqanna, the enigmatic eighth-century “Veiled One,” remembered across Central Asia as prophet, rebel and revolutionary, Saodat Ismailova’s Melted into the Sun (2024) also stages a mythology of light and renewal, reconnecting with cosmic cycles. The sun becomes both image and force, illumination, destruction, disappearance and renewal, through which history continually dissolves and reforms.

That movement culminates in Rafik Greiss’s video The Longest Sleep (2024), which returns obsessively to the circle, from spinning wonder wheels and amusement park rides to galaxies, solar systems and black holes. Through repetition and collective motion, each circle opens into another, larger one. Single bodies become orbits, briefly escaping their individual limits.

Evoking the 3.2-million-year-old ancestral skeleton, Rossella Biscotti’s Lucy closes this arc by pulling us back toward the only material reality we ultimately possess: the body made of bones, but connected to an entire human and cosmic history. Flesh disappears, the skeleton remains, but life persists precisely through its ability to transform into new matter, as particles recirculate through new cycles of matter and energy.

In a sense, Lu Yang’s DOKU already contains the logic of the entire room. Storytelling and ritual, technology and dance become different means of reaching toward the same unstable truths: that life is inseparable from death, transformation from loss and the individual body from the collective histories, memories and cosmic cycles moving through it.

The epilogue is “Air and Articulation,” embracing and breathing a newly gained awareness of being part of a broader whole. The final gallery turns to breath, rhythm and change, becoming almost a membrane between the exhibition and the world outside. At its center is Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork’s labyrinthine installation Not Exactly BPM (Variation Rrose) (2026), a deconstructed club environment built from air blowers, transparent inflatables and a multi-channel techno composition. The transparent columns evoke both a space and a crowd, while spatial awareness becomes inner awareness, feeling the beat that traverses all things. The pulse of life, the pulse of relentless transformation. Inside and outside, pulse and breath become temporarily impossible to separate, offering a physical experience of the porous essence of our existence, never as single entities but as part of a broader universe of vital relations.

National pavilions and China-Taiwan tensions

With the ambition of becoming the Asian “Venice Biennale,” in 2018 the Gwangju Biennale began introducing national pavilions into its structure. From only three participating international organizations, this year it reached 28 pavilions involving 27 countries, cities and cultural organizations. Given the state of the world today, this outdated structure resulted in rising tensions, with much of the news around the Biennale ending up concentrated on the naming dispute over the Taiwanese presentation, which escalated into a diplomatic controversy.

Organizers had initially agreed to call it the “Taiwan Pavilion” but later changed the designation in official materials to “NTMoFA Pavilion,” after the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, prompting protests from Taiwan’s culture ministry and participating artists, who accused the Biennale of political censorship.

After several days of pressure, the Gwangju Biennale Foundation reversed course on August 25 and restored the name “Taiwan Pavilion.” That decision then triggered objections from China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory under the One China principle. The Chinese curatorial team withdrew from the Biennale and stopped installing its pavilion, while China’s diplomatic representatives formally protested the decision.

Inevitably, the controversy surrounding the Taiwan Pavilion dominated the opening press conference. The first and central question addressed the escalating tensions between Taiwan and China over the pavilion’s renaming, the subsequent Chinese withdrawal and the absence, until then, of a statement from the artistic director.

The initial response from the Foundation did little to clarify what had really happened, leaving room for all manner of speculation. Addressing the question during the conference, the Gwangju Biennale president was similarly vague, if not confused, describing the situation as “very pitiful” and “a shame,” and returning once again to the bureaucratic process behind the original naming decision as the main cause of the mess. Once again, he concluded by asking journalists not to escalate the controversy into a diplomatic conflict.

He admitted that the system for approving and organizing national pavilions may need to be improved in the future, without even questioning whether the national-pavilion model itself might be the real problem to dissolve, being by now structurally outdated, particularly when geopolitical disputes so readily overtake artistic considerations.

Artistic director Ho Tzu Nyen, meanwhile, emphasized the independence of the main exhibition and responded less to the administrative specifics than to the broader tension between art and politics. “Against the world of politics, art sometimes seems weak. The power of art seems weak and powerless,” he said. “But at the same time, I believe otherwise, that art has power, but the power extends over long durations and beyond the narrow focus of our limited attention span.”

Returning to one of the Biennale’s central ideas, the different scales and temporalities through which change occurs, Ho also argued that public attention is inevitably drawn toward rupture, controversy and sudden political events, while art often works more slowly. “If I were to think back about the Greeks, for example, what do I remember of the Greeks? I remember Homer,” he said. “If I think of the Renaissance, I think of the masterpieces of Michelangelo and Raffaello. I think that art transforms humans in a profound, slow, enduring way,” he stated, in an attempt to refocus attention on the core of the event as a cultural platform of human exchange through art.

Ho asked the room to return its attention to the exhibition itself and its 43 artists: “I believe we are all gathered here today for art. I hope we can respect what art is.” Overall, Ho’s was a philosophically consistent answer, while leaving the practical questions raised by the pavilion dispute largely unresolved. Most importantly: yes, art should transcend political tensions and create a space for dialogue, but art, like any human expression, is also inherently political, able to take or suggest a position different from dominant narratives and ideologies, helping us see reality in another way, and to open questions and debate.

This political function of art is practically impossible to ignore or negate on a stage such as the Gwangju Biennale. Founded in 1994 to commemorate the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, the Biennale champions human rights, democracy and community.

Visiting the Taiwan Pavilion, one could feel how the continuous threat of Chinese invasion hangs over life in the country. Titled “Instance Dungeons: Gray Zone,” the exhibition uses the video-game concept of an “instance dungeon,” an isolated environment that can be entered repeatedly, as a metaphor for Taiwan’s geopolitical condition. The menace of war, surveillance, cyberattacks and information manipulation dominates the digital-heavy presentation, featuring works by Su Hui-Yu, Li Yi-Fan, Cheng Hsien-Yu, Hsu Che-Yu & Chen Wan-Yin, Ting-Ting Cheng, Chang Wen-Hsuan, Lin Yu-Liang and Juan Po-Yuan.

Taiwan was not the only pavilion to address anxieties around China’s growing influence in the region. At the Philippines Pavilion, a large mural by Tambisan sa Sining (Dialectical Interaction Through Art), a multidisciplinary activist collective founded in 1979, depicts workers tearing down both the U.S. and Chinese flags. Staged resonantly within the archives of May 18, the pavilion links the Philippines’ own struggle for democracy to the unresolved fragility of democratic systems today.

Historical works by Jose Tence Ruiz, Federico “BoyD” Dominguez and Cap Reyes trace a generation of Social Realists who emerged from the 1970s through the early 1980s, as the country moved from dictatorship toward People Power. More recent works bring that history into the present, confronting enforced disappearances, massacres and other forms of state violence that continue to shape Philippine society.

For Ides Macapanpan, this history is also personal. Her mother, environmental activist Vertudez “Daisy” Macapanpan, was arrested in 2022 after publicly opposing a major hydropower project in Laguna. Her installation turns toward the larger history of the desaparecidos, covering a wall with the names of those forcibly disappeared and invoking the roughly 1,800 people who have vanished since the Marcos dictatorship. Absence becomes overwhelming precisely through accumulation: each name restoring individuality to what can otherwise disappear into the abstraction of a statistic.

Jef Carnay’s performance channels the frustration, anxiety and accumulated pressure of these histories into a ritual of collective release. At its center is a soft, heart-shaped sculpture activated by the audience as a vessel for emotion: feelings are released, recorded and eventually recirculated, deposited into a mural that becomes a testament to student fights and struggles.

Most of the works never made it to Gwangju, reportedly because of problems at customs, organizers said, or perhaps just another sign of the broader climate of censorship and repression facing critical and oppositional voices.

Other pavilions turned instead into platforms of intercultural dialogue and exchange, pairing their national artists with Korean counterparts and encouraging the fertile cross-cultural confrontation that has long shaped and nourished human culture.

Titled “The Look Is A Li(k)e,” the Italian Pavilion at the 16th Gwangju Biennale focuses on shared pressures around appearance, identity and social performance that developed in both countries following similar influences of the American system in the postwar period, amid rapid modernization and increasingly globalized systems of consumption and image-making. Curated by Irene Capolmi, the pavilion explores the relational and political dimension of “looking”: we construct ourselves through the gaze of others, through imported models, local traditions and the constant negotiation between conformity and deviation.

Davide Stucchi’s readymades of mundane objects reenact the performative dimension of identity, reassigning functions to the inanimate world and turning objects into characters, showing how identities change according to context, use and perception. SAGG Napoli explores discipline and self-measurement. In AMEN (2021), archery becomes a ritual of correction, while the drone’s gaze intensifies the unsettling experience of watching oneself from outside. Korean artist Dew Kim turns to queer identity under heteronormative and digital pressure. In Legion, Nowhere Whole (2026), fragmented bodies draw on BDSM aesthetics and Christian iconography, using incompleteness as a refusal of legibility and control.

Meanwhile, Ru Kim shifts the question toward authority. In Tails of Courage, or the Master’s Pirouette (2026), a master abandoned by the pink dog he once dominated gradually begins to imitate it, exposing power as something dependent on the very subject it seeks to control. The pavilion closes with a platform for community and relational exchange by Raffaela Naldi Rossano: with Partenope’s Blind Date Room (2026), she creates an imaginative room between Naples and Korea, combining elements from both countries and creating a stage where identity can take shape through its interrelational essence, proximity, negotiation and physical encounter.

Similarly staging a dialogue between Polish and Korean artists, the Polish Pavilion approaches transformation as a condition shared across cultures. The works on view intersect and meet around rituals of passage, spirituality and memory, exploring how older symbolic systems can still help navigate change in societies where collective rites have largely fragmented.

Park Saengkwang’s vivid colors and spiritual imagery reconnect painting with Korean folk culture and shamanic ritual, entering into dialogue with Urszula Broll’s transcendental drawings, where symbolic landscapes and gateways become spaces for contemplation and passage between different states of being. Working with silk and ceramics, Alicja Bielawska creates a more physical threshold, making transformation something experienced through perception and through the body moving in space. Inside Job’s Ula Lucińska and Michał Knychaus similarly create skeletal, rib-like structures as portals, bringing past infrastructures into contact with imagined futures.

The pavilion closes with a symbolically powerful work by Broll that carries a fundamental invitation, resonating with the entire exhibition: “Let’s go to the other shore.” An invitation to go beyond the self, beyond the limits of our individual, body- and time-bound perspective, to embrace change on a more universal level, conceiving ourselves as a broader, fluid ecosystem of relations to honor and guard.

More from South Korea

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• In Seoul, Pavilion’s Debut, Design Miami’s Return and Frieze’s “Beyond the Canon” Approach

• The Exhibitions Not to Miss in Seoul

• Four Years in, Pat Lee Reflects on Frieze Seoul’s Role in Reshaping the City’s Art Ecosystem

• What’s Behind the ‘Korean Wave’ in U.S. Museums and Galleries

• As South Korea’s Creative Industries Converge, Fine Art Is Riding the Wave

Independent is preparing to host the highly anticipated 2026 edition of Independent 20th Century at the Breuer, the former home of the Whitney Museum and, later, the Met, before it became Sotheby’s U.S. headquarters last year. The September art fair‘s move from the sumptuous Beaux-Arts interiors of Casa Cipriani downtown to the landmark modernist building further anchors it in the history of the 20th Century while also allowing for a more expansive format. This year, 56 exhibitors (versus the 31 that participated in the 2025 edition) will bring work by more than 130 artists to the fair in highly curated presentations spanning solo surveys of canonical and overlooked figures and thematic presentations focused on specific movements and moments.

One of the highlights will be an unprecedented presentation of special editions published by Marian Goodman, first through the Betsy Ross Flag and Banner Company and later under her own imprint, Multiples, Inc., before she founded her legendary gallery. The presentation will include a series of artist-designed banners by figures who were emerging at the time of their production but would become some of the most prominent names of their generation, including Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Gerald Laing, Arman, Helen Frankenthaler, Miriam Schapiro, Marisol, Jim Dine and James Rosenquist.

Between 1963 and 1972, Multiples, Inc. commissioned leading artists to create designs specifically for the banner medium. “Banners represent a new original edition art medium: signed, limited edition, large wall hangings created in felt and vinyl by foremost contemporary artists,” reads a document that accompanied the works’ original release. Each artist conceived the design and selected the materials and colors, overseeing its execution by artisans to ensure that every banner in the edition would remain consistent with the others.

Multiples, Inc. ultimately commissioned 50 different banners, produced in editions of 20 or 30, each signed and numbered by the artist on a label attached to the reverse. The banners were designed to be display-ready, neatly suspended as they were between polished aluminum bars.

It was a clever strategy meant to create an access point to artists who would become established names, thereby laddering offerings across different price tiers and making contemporary art available to a wider audience, including middle-class households. It points to a democratic vision of the art world—more accessible, more personal—something that may have helped Goodman build a loyal audience and collector base by kick-starting relationships that could deepen and grow over time.

Goodman entered the gallery world rather informally in the 1960s, after marrying and having two children. Her first art-dealing endeavor involved organizing a fundraising sale of artists’ prints for the New York school her children attended. The initiative proved so successful that it evolved into a cooperative she founded with four other Upper West Side mothers that offered prints and lithographs by well-known contemporary artists in editions overseen by the artists themselves. That developed into Multiples, Inc., founded in 1965 by five partners, some of whom had already been producing editioned banners with contemporary artists through the Betsy Ross Flag and Banner Company.

Multiples, Inc. opened its first gallery on Madison Avenue, near 74th Street. In 1974, Goodman assumed sole ownership of the company, which continued to operate until 1992, even after she opened her eponymous gallery in 1977. One of its most important projects was Artists & Photographs (1970), a boxed edition bringing together work by 19 American and European artists such as Sol LeWitt, Robert Smithson, Jan Dibbets, Dan Graham, Bruce Nauman and Ed Ruscha. Many were using photography not to make conventional fine art but as a means of documenting conceptual actions, landscapes and ideas. Produced in an edition of 1,200, the project was not commercially successful at the time but would later become highly sought after. (Goodman described it as one of the most exciting publishing projects of her career.)

Through Multiples, Inc., the dealer was also involved in several now-iconic editions, including Andy Warhol’s Mao portfolio, which she co-published with Castelli Graphics in 1972. Goodman took trial proofs of the series to Art Basel that June, several months before the official edition of 250 was released in November, using the fair to introduce the project and secure early buyers.

The banners, conceived as part of the same drive to make contemporary art available in editioned and relatively affordable formats, also appreciated over time. A Roy Lichtenstein banner that originally sold for $500 later sold for $4,200, according to one archival document from the 1969 touring exhibition across New Zealand. Some editions of these banners entered the collections of major museums such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, as well as important corporate and institutional collections including those of Chase Manhattan Bank, Coca-Cola, The World Bank, Allied Chemical, Wells, Rich, Greene and Radcliffe College, alongside numerous private collections. Archival images document banners installed at MoMA.

Independent founder and creative director Elizabeth Dee told Observer that while the gallery has been preserving and digitizing Goodman’s archive for a publication, these banners had not been publicly shown together in decades. When they invited the gallery to develop the presentation, the Breuer immediately felt like the ideal context. Because both the building and the fair are centered on a more concentrated historical period, the venue offers an opportunity to present the Multiples, Inc. material at a meaningful scale while also introducing the associated publication and scholarship.

“Exhibiting the Banners at Independent 20th Century feels serendipitous because Multiples, Inc. opened its first storefront just a block away from the Breuer on Madison Avenue in 1965,” Junette Teng, managing partner at Marian Goodman Gallery, told Observer. “With the gallery celebrating its 50th anniversary next year, the banners, shown together for the first time in decades, mark a full-circle moment, taking us back to our origins.”

Some of the banners presented at Independent embody the quintessence of their respective artists’ aesthetics: Warhol’s signature Campbell’s soup can, Indiana’s interpretation of the American flag with 51 stars rendered in appliquéd felt, Wesselmann’s bold depiction of the female form and Lichtenstein’s Pistol banner, showing a hand cradling a revolver, which counterplays Arman’s Revolvers, an accumulation of silver vinyl guns set against a bright yellow ground.

The gallery will also showcase a screen-printed tableau of a romantic couple in a forest by Marisol, as well as a banner by Schapiro incorporating needlepoint, drawn from her iconic Shrine series. A vibrant orange, olive, black and sky-blue abstract banner by Frankenthaler perfectly captures her understanding of abstraction as emotive landscape and atmospheric climate, while Lichtenstein’s signature printed dots articulate the clouds in his moonlit seascape.

The presentation traces the trajectory of banners as an art form, beginning with their role in representing artists at a particular historical moment—advertising art exhibitions outside buildings in New York in the early 1960s—before becoming art objects in their own right while still maintaining the aura of accessibility. When we spoke to Teng, the gallery was still finalizing prices. (Goodman passed away in January, and the presentation follows Christie’s May sale of the dealer’s own art collection, which included top-tier works by Gerhard Richter that realized $78.8 million, led by Kerze at $35.1 million.)

This part of Goodman’s history is not widely known, Dee pointed out, because the material has not been publicly shown together in decades. But they reveal a lesser-known aspect of her art-dealing practice and point to a broader history of how galleries and artists have used more accessible formats—including prints, multiples and banners—to reach audiences and cultivate collectors. Rather than requiring new buyers to enter the market through expensive one-of-a-kind works, editions and multiples provide a first point of access, allowing relationships with artists and galleries to deepen gradually.

Notably, Goodman brought European artists to New York at a moment when many had little recognition in the United States and were still emerging or relatively little known even in Europe. Artists who are now household names and canonical figures were, at the time, still in the process of building international audiences. Key to the success of Goodman’s model was her willingness to make their work available to broader audiences—a strategy that feels particularly relevant today, as the art world once again tries to understand how to draw new collectors into the market. “I think it’s such an interesting thing to look at today, especially as we’re trying to figure out how to bring people into art,” Dee said.

It’s an idea the luxury industry has explored extensively but which the art world is only now beginning to reconsider—even as artists acting independently look for new ways to engage with potential collectors. One recent example is artist CJ Hendry, whose viral “Pastels” exhibition at Salon 94 and her Phillips drop of Real Monsters trading cards offer a laddered price structure that has something for everyone. The same logic increasingly characterizes the markets of artists such as Takashi Murakami, KAWS, Daniel Arsham and Kasing Lung. Not coincidentally, these artists are especially popular among younger collectors looking not just to acquire art but also to become part of likeminded communities.

More in art fairs, biennials and triennials

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• In Gherdëina, Curating a Biennale Around the Politics of the Garden

• The Venice Biennale and Central Asia’s Rise in the Global Art World

• Global Art Biennials: Renovation, Revelation—or Repetition?

• What the Venice Biennale Reveals About the West’s Cultural Confidence

The fifth edition of Frieze Seoul opened to VIPs on Wednesday, September 2, avoiding, for the first time, the long-criticized overlap with the Armory Show in New York (which is now part of the same portfolio). It runs, as always, alongside Kiaf at COEX, and the two fairs appear to have refined their specific profiles, both in exhibitor selection and offerings, while perfecting a partnership that involves intense collaboration. An expansive program extends through Seoul via Neighborhood Nights across the city’s gallery districts, serving as a spotlight for the city’s rich and continually expanding arts scene.

Frieze this year has a lineup of more than 130 galleries from 30 countries, with some notable departures. International dealers such as Perrotin and MASSIMODECARLO are notably absent from the 2026 edition, while still maintaining their presence in the city via outposts and pop-ups. Paula Cooper is also skipping the fair this year but opened an exhibition at Frieze House ahead of the opening with top artists from its roster, much as it would have done at the fair. But many other exhibitors have returned, anticipating a lucrative art week thanks to Seoul’s strong system of institutions and culture of corporate and private collecting.

The fair’s focus has shifted toward the Asia-Pacific region, with more than 70 percent of exhibitors hailing from the region, demonstrating both the growth and consolidation of South Korea’s market in particular, with galleries and artists rising quickly over the past five years. Flourishing demand for cultural products and experiences, particularly among younger audiences, is evident throughout the country’s galleries and museums, and Seoul’s art week has turned into a widely embraced celebration, which was not necessarily the case in the past.

Yet Frieze Seoul’s fifth edition is taking place in a very different South Korea, and in a different global art market, without the frenetic energy and packed aisles that defined the first two editions. The overall Korean market was down nearly 25 percent to 615 billion won ($433 million) in 2025 from its 2022 peak. Over the last two years, South Korea’s economic and political climate has shifted markedly, and only in recent months has the country achieved a fragile balance. Political normalization following the June 2025 presidential election, fiscal support, a recovery in domestic consumption and exceptionally strong semiconductor exports have helped stabilize the country’s export-driven economy. The OECD now forecasts 2.6 percent growth in 2026, propelled in particular by the semiconductor cycle. Still, renewed buyer confidence might take longer to be felt, particularly as speculative behavior around the A.I. boom continues to trigger sudden market crashes, as seen at the end of July, when the KOSPI plunged 10.84 percent in a single session, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix among the hardest hit.

Market-wise, things have been less dynamic, Bianca Dolfin, an art advisor and former Bonhams specialist who has lived in South Korea for several years, told Observer. “Political instability and the downfall of the Korean Won haven’t helped. This year, Frieze Seoul and Kiaf will be important barometers of the market’s current health and direction.” Still, she sees the Korean art ecosystem as very exciting: in terms of museums and gallery exhibitions, Seoul ranks second in Asia. “Let’s not forget also the two incredible biennales, Gwangju and Busan, a remarkable achievement for such a relatively small peninsula.”

“This year’s Frieze Seoul went beyond a commercial art fair—you could see it extending into and connecting with the museum exhibitions across the city,” Tae Um, a young Korean collector who recently moved back after a few years in New York, told Observer. He pointed to Yoo Young-kuk, a master of Korean modern art, at the Seoul Museum of Art, set against Damien Hirst, a giant of international contemporary art, at the MMCA. He was also encouraged by the striking number of curators and directors from international museums in attendance this year. “It gives me reason to expect Seoul will emerge more prominently as a center of art in Asia.” LACMA and the Saint Louis Art Museum organized special trips, and Frieze owner Ari Emanuel was in town. The fair confirmed that on preview day, he acquired works from both local and international dealers, including a ceramic sculpture by Park Jong-Jin from Soluna Fine Art, a painting by Chase Hall from David Kordansky and a set of 10 Keith Haring drawings from Gladstone.

Frieze’s opening ultimately showed a market that has matured and moved past its bubble, becoming more conscious and selective, more attentive to locally grown talent alongside international names and more focused on building an institutional base of broader recognition rather than chasing trends and blue-chip status. At the same time, international dealers with a longer presence in Seoul have sharpened their sense of what works with local audiences and tailored their booths accordingly.

Lehmann Maupin dedicated its entire booth to a solo presentation of Do Ho Suh, coinciding with his extensive show at MMCA, which follows the blockbuster survey at Tate last year and anticipates his next milestones at the Guggenheim in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and M+ in Asia. The gallery sold three of his more domestic sculptural works and thread drawings on handmade cotton paper in the early hours, with others on hold and under discussion.

“We’ve seen an encouraging response at Frieze Seoul so far,” Rachel Lehmann told Observer, describing how it was particularly meaningful to present a solo booth dedicated to Do Ho Suh, whom they have represented for nearly three decades. “We placed a significant number of works on the preview day, with the majority acquired by Asian clients, reflecting the continued resilience and depth of the market in the region.”

Lehmann Maupin opened in Seoul back in 2022, as Frieze launched, appointing Emma Son as director. In just a few years, Son has built solid relationships with collectors, chaebol and institutions, while also meaningfully expanding the roster of local artists so that Koreans can better perceive the gallery as part of the ecosystem—a key point of success for any gallery operating within a system like Korea’s.

By the evening, Lehmann Maupin had also placed a number of works by other Korean artists from its program, including three works by Kim Yun Shin, each in the $30,000-80,000 range, all sold to collectors based in Seoul, with one going to a prominent museum collection in Korea following Kim’s recent solo museum exhibition at the Hoam Museum of Art in Yongin, South Korea. Additionally, the gallery confirmed two new works by Guimi You sold to Asian collectors for a combined total of $30,000-80,000, right after her solo show in New York. From its international roster, the gallery also said it had placed a new painting by American artist Calida Rawles with a prominent Asian foundation, as it builds momentum for her Seoul solo debut in fall 2027.

A longtime presence at the fair and in the city, where it opened a permanent space in 2021, Thaddaeus Ropac was also satisfied overall with the first day, while realistically acknowledging the different conditions under which the fair is taking place, as well as the growth and maturation of the Korean ecosystem in just five years. “It’s fantastic to see how Seoul Art Week has matured across the city, with the impressive institutional developments and the caliber of museum exhibitions. An astounding offering, which is drawing a critical mass of collectors and art lovers,” Ropac commented. The Sehwa Museum of Art is currently presenting a Georg Baselitz retrospective encompassing the artist’s 60-year trajectory; Ropac has represented Baselitz for a long time and regularly shows his work at the fair. For the gallery, the start of Frieze was marked by swift sales, largely to collectors based in Korea but also spanning Asia between Malaysia, China and Hong Kong, as well as a few works going to European and American collectors.

By evening, Ropac was reporting the day’s top sale, a painting by Adrian Ghenie priced at €1.1 million. Among its early sales, the gallery had also placed three works by Heemin Chung, a young rising Korean artist Ropac began working with early on but gave time to solidly build her practice and positioning in the country before a proper solo, priced at $24,000, $33,000 and $28,000 respectively. Additional sales included a charcoal on paper by Adrian Ghenie for €110,000, an Antony Gormley sculpture for £750,000, a Martha Jungwirth oil on paper on canvas for €170,000 and a study by Alex Katz, Study for Emma (2015), for $150,000. Also placed were a David Salle canvas priced at $220,000 and works by Joan Snyder ($25,000) and Zadie Xa (£80,000).

With a stable presence in South Korea since 2022 and a number of established South Korean and non-Korean artists with solid collector and institutional bases in the country, Gladstone was also having a satisfying first day, placing a lamp by Anicka Yi for $125,000, as well as a lenticular print by the artist for $40,000 that dominated the booth, alongside multiple Keith Haring works on paper for $200,000-275,000 each and a group of Ugo Rondinone sculptures for $110,000 each, as well as paintings for $70,000 each. Renewed momentum is also building around Andro Wekua, whose work sold for €110,000 ($127,000), while great attention was paid to new-to-the-roster New York-based Korean artist Joeun Kim Aatchim, with multiple examples of her delicate paintings on silk selling on day one for between $13,000 and $20,000.

People lined up to take photos with the pink Turrell at Pace, which also savvily tailored its booth to local tastes, reporting multiple sales by the end of the day across its contemporary and historical program. Sold on day one was an early painting from Lee Ufan’s celebrated Winds series, With Winds (1987), alongside a digital drawing by David Hockney and a new painting by Anicka Yi, HLKR£Kþ§†MLJ, priced at $225,000. The gallery also placed works by Marina Perez Simão ($220,000), Robert Longo ($90,000), a Lauren Quin abstraction ($90,000), a large-scale painting by Kenjiro Okazaki ($85,000) and a work by Japanese artist Kohei Nawa from his PixCell series, priced at $80,000.

Linking up with Seoul’s institutional validation, Gagosian is instead staging a solo booth of works by Damien Hirst, including iconic series such as the Pill Cabinets, Spin Paintings, Spot Paintings and Treasures. “Damien has been deeply admired and collected in Korea for decades. His recent retrospective at MMCA, which attracted over 500,000 visitors, only further demonstrates that Damien’s message continues to resonate with new generations. His work is eternal,” Nick Simunovic, Gagosian senior director for Asia, told Observer. By the end of the day, most of the works in the booth had been placed with Asian collections and an important museum within Asia.

Among the big international names that confirmed their presence, White Cube was already reporting a successful first day by the early afternoon, selling mostly institutional-level works. Among them were two later Ecriture works in hanji or newspaper by the late Korean artist Park Seo Bo, sold respectively for $300,000 and £250,000, while Klára Hosnedlová’s The Observer, in cotton thread and silicone resin, was placed for €175,000. Other works sold included pieces by Alia Ahmad ($120,000) and Tesfaye Urgessa (£120,000), and a more challenging Ibrahim Mahama installation priced at €85,000. The gallery also placed Yoko Matsumoto’s watercolor for $5,500, while two works by Salvatore Emblema, both Untitled (1978), in raw pigments on overlaid jute canvases, sold for €40,000 and €26,000 respectively. Gerhard Richter’s Fuji (1996) was also reported among the sales, but the price was not disclosed.

Also returning was David Zwirner, with a booth dominated by a giant Yayoi Kusama sculpture and a large white Infinity Net, in homage to the Japanese artist who passed away just a week before the fair. By the evening, Zwirner was reporting the sale of a 1976 wall-mounted bronze wire sculpture by Ruth Asawa, as well as the series of new paintings by Lucas Arruda hanging at the front, which were acquired by a museum in Asia. The gallery also sold paintings by Luc Tuymans, Michaël Borremans, Alice Neel and Dana Schutz, alongside a 1942 canvas by Giorgio Morandi, who remains a favorite in Asia, and a new work by Walter Price. The gallery’s associate partner James Green was confident that more sales would come as the week progressed.

Playing the long game is key to the way they’ve approached this market, Marc Payot, Hauser & Wirth president, emphasized. On day one, the gallery placed some of the top works by Louise Bourgeois, Lorna Simpson, Jenny Holzer, Jeffrey Gibson and Angel Otero in the booth, mostly with collections in Asia, with prices ranging from $185,000 to $600,000.

Sprüth Magers had a strong showing as well, selling a John Baldessari collage for $75,000, a Rosemarie Trockel for €270,000 and an Oliver Bak painting for €30,000, all to private collectors in Europe. A work by Cyprien Gaillard went instead to an institutional collection in Asia for €200,000; a Gala Porras-Kim to a private collection in North America; and an Arthur Jafa silkscreen on an aluminum panel to a private collection in Asia for $85,000. Salvo’s later, more colorful landscapes also continue to sell well in Korea, with one sold for $215,000 to a private collection.

The appeal of Salvo, as well as the growing appreciation for Italian postwar art that the gallery has been cultivating through its annual exhibition with the embassy, is one reason Mazzoleni keeps returning to the fair, even as other Italian peers have left. The gallery confirmed early interest and ongoing negotiations around several of the historical works on view, particularly by De Chirico and Salvo, while on the contemporary side attention focused on new embroideries by Marinella Senatore, produced with a female textile school in Bombay; works by Rebecca Moccia, who represented the country at the last Gwangju Biennale; and Andrea Francolino, who has works in the annual “Italy at Frieze: The Golden Trace” show at the embassy, in dialogue with Korean artist Yeesookyung.

Leading the show were the local giants, which typically double up, bringing works to both Frieze and Kiaf. On VIP day, Gallery Hyundai sold multiple works from its dual presentation by Seung-taek Lee (priced between $170,000 and $700,000) and signature drip paintings by Kim Tschang-yeul, all priced between $180,000 and $1.1 million following the extensive survey at MMCA last year.

Meanwhile, Korean powerhouse Kukje Gallery sold Ha Chong-Hyun’s mixed-media work ($253,000-303,600) and Park Seo-Bo’s 2022 Ecriture No. 220611 ($250,000-300,000), alongside works by more contemporary artists such as Kibong Rhee ($120,000-144,000), the always in-demand Suki Seokyeong Kang ($100,000-120,000), Julian Opie’s Dance 2 figure 2 step 2 (2022) for £45,000-54,000 ($61,000-73,000) and Gala Porras-Kim’s monumental graphite-on-paper work ($65,000-78,000). By the next day, the gallery also confirmed a $1.6 million sale of a canvas by Yoo Youngkuk, which became the most expensive work sold so far at the fair.

Leeahn Gallery also placed a vibrant canvas by Tomokazu Matsuyama in the early hours for $290,000. (The Japanese artist opened a show at the gallery in Daegu last week.) Also sold were a painting by Lee Kang-So for ₩320,000,000 ($235,000), two works by Lee Jin-Woo in mixed media with hanji on linen for €68,000 and €43,000 respectively and a mixed-media work on canvas by Kim Keun-Tai for $59,000.

Meanwhile, BB&M found buyers for all three works by Lee Bul presented at its booth (priced at $290,000, $275,000 and $195,000) just as the artist prepares to open her debut solo at Hauser & Wirth New York following several years of remarkable institutional achievements.

Given the continuous demand for Lee Bae’s work, Johyun Gallery’s zen-garden-like solo booth also brought several sales: six bronze sculptures sold for between $40,000 and $140,000, alongside two charcoal-on-canvas works for £125,000 and £75,000, plus an acrylic on canvas by Kim Hong Joo for $77,000.

Promoted to the main section, just next to Zwirner and in front of David Kordansky (with a solo by Chase Hall), CYLINDER’s booth unfolds as a multiplication of distinct, contained solo presentations, offering a clear overview of the role the fast-rising gallery has played in just five years since its founding in shaping an entire generation of up-and-coming artists who are now establishing themselves in and outside the country, many of whom were given their first post-graduate show at the gallery. The gallery placed several works by Rim Park, Sunwon Chang, Minseo Kang and Seo Hyun Kim on day one, all priced between $1,000 and $10,000, with other conversations awaiting confirmation.

More Japanese galleries are participating this year as the two countries have begun collaborating more closely despite their troubled history, and as the Japanese government has finally started supporting the art business by funding participation in international fairs, in an effort to catch up with South Korea.

Strong and international was the booth of Kotaro Nukaga, with works ranging from José Parlá abstractions to the Indigenous mythmaking of Rember Yahuarcani, sold in the $50,000-80,000 range; Tomokazu Matsuyama’s vibrant, pop-eclectic shaped canvases, which sold rapidly in the $250,000-300,000 range; and floating paper fish by Japanese-Canadian artist Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, who is currently presenting at the Venice Biennale and will soon unveil an installation at the inaugural Maebashi Biennale. The Matsuyama and Yahuarcani works sold in the pre-preview, but the gallery also received strong interest and reserves for Stefan Brüggemann, Keita Morimoto, Tomona Matsukawa and Kazuhito Kawai. “The buyers have come from across the region, including Korea, Taiwan and Japan, and we have also received a number of encouraging inquiries from collectors based outside these countries,” Nukaga told Observer. “Last year, works from our booth were acquired primarily by collectors from Europe and Southeast Asia, whereas this year we have seen particularly strong purchasing activity from East Asian collectors.”

Meanwhile, right at the entrance, Taro Nasu is presenting, as he did in Hong Kong, a dialogue between the sarcastic hyperrealism of Ryan Gander and Marcel Broodthaers, with a booth featuring a gigantic black ball, while Taka Ishii staged a compelling dialogue between the gestural abstraction of Jadé Fadojutimi and the more muted yet psychologically expansive paintings of young Kyoto-based artist Fu Nagasawa, who will have a solo show with Vacancy in Shanghai next year. Similarly psychologically charged, but also suspended in an eerie, unsettling and inexpressive atmosphere, are the characters of Japanese Berlin-based artist Tenki Hiramatsu, presented by Tokyo-based gallery Kosaku Kanechika, all priced between $4,000 and $20,000, just as attention grows around the artist both internationally and in his home country.

At SCAI The Bathhouse, Kohei Nawa’s smaller works were priced at around $100,000, while the presentation also included Tatsuo Miyajima and aluminum sculptures by younger artists Moon Kyungeon and Jeon John. Next door, Anomaly presented Toshiyuki Konishi’s haunting paintings exploring human relationships, alongside a selection of works by Taeko Tatsuno, one of the most influential figures in Japanese abstraction, spanning different moments in her career, and younger contemporary artist Takuro Tamayama. The audience was larger than expected, Yuka Watanabe told Observer, and they received many inquiries, especially about Toshiyuki Konishi’s piece.

At Kaikai Kiki, the gallery’s familiar manga-inflected visual language surfaced in a more enigmatic register through Zangano’s intriguing faceless avatars, figures that retain the polished immediacy of Japanese pop imagery while replacing expressive features with an unsettling anonymity.

The fair also provided a platform for many galleries from the broader APAC region to build a stronger following in the country. Participating since the first edition, Shanghai-based Vacancy proved well aware that things were not as they had been before, but the gallery remained positive that many conversations would close in the following days. When we spoke in the evening, Lucien Y. Tso, the founder, was pleased to have already placed the largest and most expensive work in the booth, a major piece by Michael Ho priced at $50,000, with a foundation in Singapore.

Meanwhile, the Filipino gallery The Drawing Room, debuted at the fair with a solo booth by young and promising artist Chelsea Theodossis, whose large-scale hyperrealistic paintings depict clay sculptures molded by the artist to embody psychological states and serve as poetic metaphors for the contemporary human condition, with prices between $11,000 and $30,000.

Also returning this year was L.A.-based Make Room, which has strong representation in Asia, with a solid booth dominated by a large new painting by rising Korean artist Sun Woo, accompanied by an entire garden of new bronze sculptures that expanded her dystopian landscape into the space. The booth featured works by names from its roster with which Koreans had likely already become familiar in past editions, except for a work by Xingzi Gu, who, after working with CLEARING and LUBOV, is now preparing a show with Make Room in L.A.

Frieze Seoul gets experimental

But it was the fair’s curated sections that were most rewarding for discovery. Focus, advised this year by Seolhui Lee, remains one of Frieze Seoul’s strongest platforms for emerging talent, bringing together 16 galleries founded in or after 2014, nine of them based in Asia, as the section expanded beyond its former regional focus for the first time.

New York- and Cologne-based Gaa, for instance, made its Seoul debut with a solo presentation of Johanna Seidel, whose psychological figures appear to confront life’s dilemmas while suspended between domestic interiors and unruly landscapes, light and darkness that seem to mirror states of mind more than physical conditions.

Perhaps no medium felt better suited to this younger section in Seoul than a video game. São Paulo gallery Yehudi Hollander-Pappi presented Brazilian artist Gabriel Massan with an immersive installation centered on interactive gameplay projected across a curved 4K screen, accompanied by two bronze sculptures derived from the artist’s digital universe. Drawing from Carl Jung’s writing on dreams, images and the unconscious, the game approaches movement as a process of becoming, shaped by adaptation and shifting relations between selves, systems and territories. Developed in Unreal Engine and operated via a custom-built joystick, it unfolds into a continuous, playable world that visitors can enter and leave at any time. Massan’s virtual ecosystems treat bodies and identities as unstable, mutable forms shaped by technology, history, conflict and systems of control, generating scenarios that include primate-like figures in a speculative world attempting to imagine existential structures without domination. The bronzes, physical descendants of Massan’s digital characters, were offered at $22,000 in editions of three.

Presented by Budapest’s Longtermhandstand, Romanian-born Hungarian artist Botond Keresztesi offered another collision of the digital, mystical and art historical. Seven new paintings revolve around the recurring image of the hourglass, each tied to one of the seven chakras and a corresponding mineral or energetic state. The paintings are presented in custom sculptural frames inspired by the Tank Louis Cartier watch, extending this imagery and meditation on time across dimensions. Last year, X Museum in Beijing staged the largest survey of his work to date, and the artist was recently included in Phaidon’s Vitamin P4: New Perspectives in Painting, a global survey of a new generation of artists experimenting with and expanding the possibilities of painting. The smaller paintings here were priced around $4,600.

At Foundry Seoul, one of the most promising Korean artists, Omyo Cho, transformed the sand-toned booth into a speculative ecosystem populated by biomorphic forms in glass and metal—fantastical hybrid organisms that seemed at once prehistoric and futuristic. Cho often begins her worldbuilding with writing, constructing science-fiction narratives before materializing the imagined lifeforms as sculptures. The result is a speculative scenario that attempts to visualize alternative possibilities for interspecies existence, as plants and non-human entities adapt to climate catastrophe and radically altered environmental conditions. With works priced between approximately $8,000 and $40,000, the gallery was satisfied with the early response.

Debuting in Seoul from Stockholm, Coulisse brought Korean artist Reeha Lim, whose delicate paintings on translucent silk are deeply informed by movement and displacement. Raised Korean in China before returning to Korea and later studying in the United States, Lim uses double-sided surfaces, ghostlike bodies and fragmented spatial perspectives to evoke the instability of relocation and the strange psychic dismemberment that can accompany it. A three-panel folding screen painted on both sides of translucent silk was particularly effective, refusing the possibility of any single, stable viewpoint. Works were priced between roughly $3,500 and $10,000.

More spiritual and archetypal was Lilyjon’s presentation with Shanghai’s Cub_ism_ Artspace. If the artist stood out two years ago in Miami with his symbolically dense paintings, here the poetic mythopoesis extended across media with his Box of Fallacy sculptures arranged on shelves conceived as “everyday altars,” mixing ordinary objects and bodily imagery to collapse distinctions between religion, magic and daily routine. Across the booth, Lilyjon tries to restore this lost sense of ritual while playfully staging and accepting the absurdity of our terrestrial and mundane lives. Between sacred and eerie, reality and illusion, he envisions a universal form of spirituality rooted less in organized belief than in ritual, human connection and an imagined relationship with the cosmos. Prices ranged from around $1,600 to $8,000.

Another materially compelling presentation in the section was that of Mongolian-born Bekhbaatar Enkhtur at Rome’s Matèria. Enkhtur works with deliberately mutable materials, including beeswax and pewter, drawing on traditions in which matter is never entirely fixed but continually transformed. His wall-mounted pewter reliefs reference a Mongolian ritual in which molten metal is poured into water so that its solidified form can reveal and externalize a child’s fears, while beeswax lotus sculptures similarly hover between fragility, ritual object and bodily form. Works here ranged from approximately $6,500 to $12,000 and, while things were slow to close, the gallery said it was pleased with the quality of the conversations it had with curators and major institutions, which showed significant interest in the work.

Meanwhile, Tokyo’s CON_ is presenting Korean artist Minhee Kim, following the sold-out presentation at Tokyo Gendai last year, with paintings in which feminized bodies become glitching cyborg surfaces fractured by digital noise, which the artist renders through the physical, agitated drawing gesture that reconnects hand and mind, here expanding beyond the canvas onto the booth walls. “The response to Minhee’s first solo presentation with us at Frieze has been immediate. Collectors are drawn to the physicality of her surfaces, and the wall drawing she is creating on site lets people witness that energy directly,” Kato Hisatomo, the gallery’s owner, told Observer, noting that for a young Korean painter showing with a Tokyo gallery, Seoul feels like exactly the right place for this conversation to start. The gallery sold several works on day one, all priced under $20,000, to private collections.

Finally, Shanghai gallery Linseed presented South Korean artist Shumu, who trained in woodcut and copperplate printmaking at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts. Her extraordinarily delicate woodcuts turn animals into almost spectral presences, using the grain of the wood and dense accumulations of fine incisions to meditate on life, death and regeneration. Images of crows feeding on carcasses give way to butterflies and other signs of renewed life, locating humanity inside rather than above the cycles of the natural world. Ranging in size, the works were priced from $3,500 to $20,000.

Kiaf comes into its own

If Frieze Seoul has become decidedly more regional, Kiaf, the historic fair organized by the Korean Galleries Association, is becoming increasingly local, functioning as a platform for Korea’s expansive gallery scene. Of this year’s 175 galleries, only 48 were from abroad.

Busan- and New York-based LEE & BAE presented Bongsang Yoo’s dreamlike landscapes: looking like hyperreal photographs or digitally generated images, their surfaces are actually constructed from thousands of tiny headless pins, inserted only halfway and left exposed so that their shadows effectively draw the landscape. Nearby, Minjeong Guem pushed that tension between nature and simulation further with her “video sculptures,” embedding moving images of water, forests and other natural phenomena within sculpted frames.

Among the international galleries at Kiaf, Paris-based Galerie Marguo created a dialogue between two different painting series that emerged from the observation of nature, by artists who both recently had shows at Château La Coste in the South of France. On one side of the booth hung a line of small paintings by Claudia Keep from her recent show there, each depicting in hyper-detailed close-up the relationship between flowers and insects—poetic yet uncanny records of everyday beauty and reminders of ecological fragility. Priced at $7,500 each, several had already sold by the afternoon. Alongside them, the gallery was showing molecular-like watercolors by Chinese artist Ziping Wang, inspired by her time in Menorca, where the gallery has a residency. Floating organic fragments appear encapsulated in transparent containers, allowing pigment, water and chance to partially determine these new fluid forms, as if the landscape itself had to be redesigned and adapted to the available space in the Anthropocene. Prices ranged from $4,000 to $9,000.

As it has become increasingly rare to see Russian galleries at international fairs, an interesting presence this year is St. Petersburg’s Anna Nova Gallery, which brings a solo presentation by Russian-born, New York-based Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov. Staging a dialogue between a body of works that moves fluidly between sculpture and painting within this soft, textile-covered booth, the artist addresses the performance and instability of the self. Faces disappear beneath fabric, bodies become masked or mutated, and fleece, wax and leather operate as surrogate skins. The softness of the booth environment where this narrative takes place is deliberately ambiguous, offering insulation and protection while simultaneously suggesting withdrawal, dissociation and the pressure to adopt an acceptable social identity. Prices ranged from roughly $3,000 to $16,000.

Nearby, first-time exhibitor Jacob Arthur Gallery continued its successful formula with a selection of Dan Life’s shimmering sequin compositions, appropriating and remixing already familiar images from art history and contemporary culture, here cannily localized, with works riffing on Hokusai and Yoshitomo Nara. Judging by the proliferation of red dots by mid-afternoon, the strategy was successful: the gallery sold 11 works by the evening, with two acquired by the Koo House Museum in Seoul.

Making its Kiaf debut, Nino Mier Gallery seemed particularly well calibrated to Korean tastes, balancing the uncanny hyperrealism of Tony Matelli’s meticulously fabricated Weed sculptures with Andrew Dadson’s colorful, heavily worked abstractions, in which layers of paint turn the supposedly flat surface into something almost geological. The gallery also reported particularly strong attention around André Butzer, whose deliberately awkward figures and collisions of German Expressionism and American popular culture have long occupied the unstable border between abstraction and figuration.

There were also some more established names and several expensive gems. Johyun Gallery, meanwhile, effectively maintained a dual presence across the two fairs: a solo presentation of Lee Bae at Frieze and a broader Kiaf booth that brought him together with historical figures from Asian postwar art, such as Kim Taek Sang, Kang Kang Hoon and Kishio Suga, alongside Khairulddin Wahab.

Standing out is the 1983 Subway Drawing by Keith Haring that Tokyo’s SH Gallery is featuring alongside a screenprint. The drawing, priced at $650,000, had been acquired at Sotheby’s Amsterdam in 2005, according to the gallery. Rare in Asia, Haring’s subway drawings are probably among the most foundational bodies of work in his practice, as he began drawing in chalk on the unused black advertising panels of New York subway stations in the early 1980s, turning one of the city’s most ordinary public spaces into his first gallery show.

As usual, some of the best Fernando Boteros at Kiaf could be found at Houston’s Art of the World Gallery, which works closely with artists and estates and brought a concentrated selection ranging from paintings and watercolors to bronze and marble. Among them was the monumental 2016 After Cranach, an oil on canvas measuring 140 by 172 centimeters with a seven-figure asking price, putting the booth among the most expensive propositions at the fair. Korean collectors like Botero, while the more international audience also responds to more than the nudity, confirmed co-owner and advisor Mauricio Sampogna. The recent Botero show, “Fernando Botero: The Triumph of Form,” which closed on August 30 at the Seoul Arts Center, only further contributed to the hype. (More Boteros are on view at Opera Gallery, where the Colombian artist shared the booth with blue-chip crowd-pleasers including a 1996 George Condo, Jean Dubuffet, KAWS, Keith Haring and Manolo Valdés.)

Overall, the opening day suggested just how rapidly the Korean art market has consolidated, finding a new balance between nurturing its local ecosystem and asserting its place within the broader global conversation, as international galleries, dealers and collectors remain willing to bet on its energy.

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While Central Asia has historically been home to several notable cultural hubs, particularly during the Silk Road era, it’s only recently that its countries have attracted the attention of the international art world. Central Asia comprises a group of countries colloquially referred to as the “Stans”—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. All boast incredible cultural heritage and long histories, yet for decades, even after attaining independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, these countries occupied an awkward position in the Western imagination: too Asian to fit neatly into narratives of post-Soviet Europe, too Soviet to be folded easily into broader stories of Asian contemporary art and too internally diverse and distinctly culturally rich to function as a single category. The entire region was reduced to a blind spot that nobody paid much attention to—the prevailing, and prejudiced, assumption being that not much was happening.

Yet, even during the Soviet period, Uzbekistan maintained a remarkably active and flourishing creative and cultural scene, despite remaining largely invisible to distant audiences. “While Europe and North America were not aware of what was happening in Central Asia, it doesn’t mean there was no activity,” former Guggenheim curator Sara Raza explained in a recent interview with Observer, following her appointment as director of the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. “If anything, it was a great moment for the east. East activity, South-South activity—communication within the global south,” she added, pointing to a great deal of exchange and activity with Latin America and Asia during the Cold War, which translated into several festivals and cultural collaborations.

After the war in Iran delayed its opening set for late March, the newly renovated CCA in Tashkent will finally be unveiled on September 6, following a major expansion that aims to reposition it as a new arts and cultural hub for Uzbekistan and the broader region.

The recent rise of Central Asia in the international art system has been driven, in part, by a concentrated wave of institution-building, biennials, cultural diplomacy and private patronage, with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan leading the charge. Last fall, art-world feeds were suddenly flooded with images from the inaugural Bukhara Biennial, which ran through November 20 in the historic Silk Road center of Bukhara, a UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art, featuring more than 70 site-specific commissions by more than 200 artists from 39 countries.

Curated by Diana Campbell, the biennial was commissioned by curator Gayane Umerova, chair of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, a recently created government body advancing the country’s culture-led development strategy, which is also behind the CCA and other exhibitions around the world. According to Umerova, the Bukhara Biennale is part of a broader effort to activate, through art and culture, different cities and parts of the country’s heritage, rather than concentrate it only around the capital. “We’re trying to really spread,” she told Observer. “We don’t want to make Tashkent the only center. It’s important for us to show the legacy of all the cities along the Silk Road.”

A second edition of the Bukhara Biennial is planned for September 3 – November 21, 2027, with architect and designer Kulapat Yantrasast serving as artistic director. At the same time, Uzbekistan is developing a new State Museum of Arts, designed by Tadao Ando. The project is part of a broader effort to modernize the country’s museum infrastructure and connect archaeological, historical, modern and contemporary narratives. Set to open in Tashkent in March 2028, the spectacular 40,038-square-meter building will reflect Ando’s architectural language while integrating references to Uzbekistan’s heritage through geometric structures, natural light and spatial clarity. A major museum in Samarkand connected to the Silk Road is also set to open around the same time.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan’s cultural scene had weakened, public demand for contemporary culture was limited and the government had other priorities. Things started to change only recently, Umerova said. When the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF), the foundation aimed at preserving and promoting Uzbekistan’s heritage, arts and culture, received the building and the project began in 2018, relatively few young people seemed interested in art, with greater attention directed toward fields such as I.T., film and music. The biggest achievement so far, she noted, is a significant shift in the audience, with growing interest in art and craft and a new set of professional opportunities emerging as the country builds its own cultural infrastructure and ecosystem.

To date, ACDF has reached more than 5 million visitors through exhibitions in Uzbekistan and across 17 countries: from the Louvre and the Arab World Institute in Paris to the Uffizi in Florence, the British Museum in London and the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, the Almaty Museum of Arts opened its doors with the vision and support of local megacollector Nurlan Smagulov, anchored by his own collection of more than 700 works assembled over roughly three decades, with a particular focus on Kazakh and Central Asian art alongside selected international artists. The museum positions Almaty as a destination for major international exhibitions: just this month, it opened “Bill Viola: The Space of Time,” the first large-scale Viola exhibition in Central Asia, bringing together 18 works spanning more than three decades. Nor is the Almaty Museum of Arts the only major institution in the country: back in 2018, Kazakh businessman and entrepreneur Kairat Boranbayev founded the country’s first private cultural institution, the Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture.

From an economic viewpoint, the “Stans” represent one of Eurasia’s fastest-growing subregions. The Asian Development Bank estimated growth across the Caucasus and Central Asia at 5.8 percent in 2025, supported by public investment, remittances, domestic demand and relatively stable macroeconomic conditions. Country-level results were even stronger in several Central Asian states: Kazakhstan’s economy grew 6.5 percent, Uzbekistan’s 7.7 percent, Kyrgyzstan’s 11.1 percent and Tajikistan’s 8.4 percent in 2025.

Central Asia sits strategically between western China and European markets, making it increasingly important to rail, road and logistics networks. China has close ties and growing trade with the region, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to promote connectivity and digital cooperation through cross-border trade, energy projects and transport infrastructure.

The E.U. remains the largest source of foreign direct investment in Central Asia, accounting for more than 40 percent of F.D.I. over the past decade, or more than €100 billion, as Europe tries to reduce its dependence on routes through Russia and on Chinese-controlled supply chains. That push accelerated at the first E.U.-Central Asia summit in Samarkand in April 2025, when the E.U. announced a €12 billion Global Gateway investment package. The plan included support for the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor, critical minerals, renewable energy and digital links, anchored by the critical Middle Corridor, which moves goods from China through Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea and through the South Caucasus to Europe, bypassing Russia.

It is by now clear that culture and cultural diplomacy are set to play a key role in these countries’ political agendas for strategic development, helping convert that economic momentum into tourism, international visibility, urban regeneration and longer-term economic diversification.

This year’s Venice Biennale confirmed Central Asia as a growing force. Until recently, artists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were presented collectively at the Central Asian Pavilion; now, the countries each have their own national pavilions.

Particularly ambitious this year is the Uzbekistan Pavilion at the Arsenale, “The Aural Sea,” which brings together newly commissioned and recent works by local and international artists alike—including Jahongir Bobokulov from Uzbekistan, Zi Kakhramonova from Uzbekistan, Aygul Sarsen from Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, Zulfiya Spowart from Uzbekistan, Xin Liu from China, A.A. Murakami from the U.K. and Japan and Nguyen Phuong Linh from Vietnam—staging a cross-border dialogue between East and West around the disappearance of the Aral Sea and the alternative histories and futures the vanished sea has inspired. Also commissioned by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, the pavilion turns to myth, imagination, oral storytelling and elemental memory as ways of confronting collective trauma and shared, era-defining ecological shifts.

Linked to this pavilion as well as to the country’s presentation at Milan Design Week in the spring, the Aral Culture Summit returns this September for a second edition in Nukus, confronting the same themes while expanding the discourse around the Aral basin from a disaster zone into a multispecies home and interconnected social-ecological system.

First launched in April 2025 during the E.U.-Central Asia Climate Forum in Samarkand before continuing in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, the summit aims to bring together artists, architects, scientists, policymakers, activists and local communities every 18 months to confront the ecological disaster together while envisioning alternative solutions.

Meanwhile, at the Museo Storico Navale, the Kazakhstan Pavilion brings together a group of local artists in an articulated multimedia and poetic dialogue between tradition and technology around the notion of qoñyr, one of the key concepts of Kazakh cosmology, which evokes a sonic register, the scent of earth and an attentiveness to barely perceptible vibrations.

Here, too, the pavilion was commissioned and produced by the government through Aida Balayeva, deputy prime minister and minister of culture and information of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In May, speaking about the Creative Industries Development Fund with Qazaq Culture, Balayeva emphasized how the country no longer sees the creative industries as an auxiliary cultural sphere but as a full-fledged area of economic and social development. “President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev consistently emphasizes unlocking human capital, supporting proactive youth, developing entrepreneurship, and fostering new sources of growth,” she stated. “The creative economy is at the intersection of these objectives. It creates jobs, develops digital content, creates new products, enhances the country’s tourism appeal, and helps to express national identity in a modern language.”

Central Asia’s presence in Venice this year, however, extended well beyond the main venues, with several collateral events that included the region’s scene or focused specifically on it. Palazzo Franchetti, in particular, has become an enclave for Central Asian art this year. On the top floor, London-based foundation Parasol unit is relaunching its programming after a few years of absence with “TURANDOT: To the Daughters of the East,” a broad and articulated group exhibition bringing together works by 11 significant women artists from Central Asia and the wider East. Curated by Dr. Ziba Ardalan, the show features iconic works by some of the most established names from the region, repositioning Central Asian narratives within broader geopolitical and historical frameworks.

At the entrance, an alarmingly red illuminated globe by Mona Hatoum immediately sets the tone for countries that have long been at the center of historical conflicts and geopolitical shifts, while video works by Lida Abdul and Tala Madani expose, through different documentary and animated registers, the physical and emotional weight of shared histories shaped by conflict, displacement and erasure.

Among the most affecting works is Kazakh-Tajik artist Nazira Karimi’s Return Policy, a ghostly forest of 40 off-white dresses suspended from unusually tall racks, forming a floating chorus and a silent crowd gathered in protest. The installation refers to chilla, the Tajik tradition that requires brides to wear 40 national dresses over the 40 days following their wedding. Each garment here has been dipped in cement, transforming the dresses into heavy, shrine-like monuments to women constrained by cultural expectations and to the “returned brides” sent back to their families after failed marriages.

Elsewhere, Hera Büyüktaşcıyan’s The Dream of a Falling Star traces stories of apocalypse through the morphology of stone, treating geological matter as an accumulation of time and memory. Meanwhile, haunting projections activate paintings by the late Iranian artist Farideh Lashai, evoking lost truths and innocence, while Madina Joldybek weaves maternal histories into textiles that become threads of resilience, tenderness and remembrance.

Taking over an entire room, Huma Bhabha’s otherworldly, totemic figures, assembled from wheels, cork and fractured forms, appear to function as contemporary memento mori: broken and reassembled bodies mapping the damaged human condition. Next door, Saodat Ismailova’s film 18,000 Worlds, a “video talisman,” draws on archival fragments, Central Asian cultural memory and the Sufi belief that the material world is only one among 18,000 realms, bringing viewers into contact with the region’s rich heritage of layered mythologies, shaped across centuries of encounters and exchanges among Iranian, Indo-European, Bactrian, Turkic, Mongol, shamanistic and Zoroastrian traditions.

In the last room, Afruz Amighi’s Opium House Tears presents itself as a fragile architectural apparition, suspended like the ghost of a column or mausoleum. Chains made from emptied Bic pen casings and crystal drops catch the light, turning vessels once associated with writing—and later used to smoke opium—into a poetic structure of sorrow, purification and transformation. Suspended between sanctuary and ruin, the work suggests a material axis connecting earth and cosmos, light and darkness, remembrance and loss, and is tied to the region’s deep ancestral roots.

Drawing from the mythical heroine whose story is anchored in Persian literature and was later made internationally famous through Puccini’s opera, the show links the figure back to the Persian term Turandokht, or “daughter of Turan,” a historical and geographical region northeast of Iran known today as Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Together with other regions such as Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, Turkey and Iran were once integral parts of the broader Persian cultural sphere. Reframing the etymology and symbolism beyond centuries of European Orientalism, the show unveils the many cultural threads—myths, symbols, traditions, shared historical traumas and current political concerns—that connect the fates of women across this geographical and historical region.

Running alongside on the first floor, the CCA anticipated its programming with its first off-site exhibition in Venice, “Instruments of the Mind,” which aimed to bring the pioneering conceptual art of Uzbek artist Vyacheslav Akhunov to international attention.

Spanning five decades of his career and bringing early works into dialogue with projects realized for the first time, the show is a real gem for anyone hoping to learn something new about the region’s contemporary art history. Akhunov came of age as an artist in the 1970s. He completed his education in Moscow and returned to Uzbekistan, becoming one of the first artists to approach conceptual themes while remaining based in Tashkent; other Uzbek artists were working abroad, but his studio and life remained there.

At the time, the country was still under Soviet control, which isolated it from the world. Akhunov studied in Moscow and connected with nonconformist artists, but conceptual art and contemporary art were not taught, while modernism was officially condemned. Yet reproductions in critical Soviet journals, Polish magazines and books brought by a Finnish friend allowed him to reconstruct developments beyond the Soviet Union, he told Observer through a translator.

In this way, Akhunov managed to develop his own rigorously conceptual practice even after returning to the country, working across drawing, text, installation and collage, with a document-based minimalist aesthetic not far from the research of his colleagues in the U.S.—particularly the institutional critique of Hans Haacke or the more coded strategies of satire and critique first pioneered by Duchamp and Broodthaers. “Much of this work began in the 1970s, in a time when ideas often had to exist quietly, even invisibly,” says the artist in a statement.

When Observer visited the show, Raza, who curated it, described Akhunov as an “anti-chronological artist.” For this reason, she decided not to adopt a conventional chronological format for the survey and instead fluidly combined historical works with newly realized installations based on sketches from the 1970s that had remained hidden for decades in the artist’s studio drawers—many of which are being presented publicly for the first time. The distinction between historical and new work simply collapses: older ideas are not merely revisited but activated in the present. Importantly, we learned that the show also initiated research toward a catalogue raisonné, distinguishing sketches, completed objects and unrealized proposals across an archive of more than 4,000 works.

At its core is Akhunov’s longstanding investigation of slogans as secular “mantras.” Mantras were an important part of his daily artistic and civic life growing up in the Soviet Union, when Uzbekistan was still the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, Raza explained. Beginning in 1974, Akhunov developed repetitive textual interventions on found materials—sewing patterns, newspapers, magazines and books—using writing as both resistance and critical inquiry. Works such as Modeling (1974-84), Crack (1988) and Red Line of the Party (1974-75) show his attempts to reverse-engineer language and expose the absurdity and violence embedded in systems of command.

The first, in particular, originated in a seamstress’s pattern book that Akhunov found abandoned in the street. He filled the negative spaces of standardized clothing patterns with slogans and directives, transforming them into what the curator called “garments for obedience.” Language and ideology are no longer abstract commands but a system of values fitted to and embedded within everyday life.

Letters and diagrams recur throughout the exhibition as architectural forms. Akhunov examined Soviet literacy campaigns, the imposition of the Cyrillic script and the ideological power embedded in typography. Enlarged letters become buildings or monuments, while matchbox installations model political hierarchy. In one work containing roughly 25,000 matches, a single match rises above the collective, visualizing how systems of power elevate one figure through the support of many.

Several of the installations were conceived in the 1970s and 1980s as drawings, diagrams and written instructions but remained unrealized because of limited funding and institutional support. One of these is Triumphal Arch (1979/2026), which functions as a portal to the show. With metal scissors covering the opening, the ceremonial arch critiques grand ribbon-cutting spectacles, a state ritual celebrating the completion of new infrastructure projects.

To defy censorship and circulate his work during the Soviet period, Akhunov created miniature exhibitions in matchboxes that could be carried in a suitcase and installed anywhere. He conceived this portable model in the mid-1970s, creating approximately 5,000 matchbox works, showcased in Venice as a tower. If expanded, the project would extend for approximately one kilometer and contain hundreds of miniature images.

Another work addresses labor migration through photographs carried by people leaving home. A large amount of sand placed between them becomes a powerful symbol of large-scale migration, as Akhunov compares migrants to grains of sand: when the wind of a difficult situation blows, the particles move elsewhere and form another dune, much like economic displacement and the continual re-formation of communities, which disperse individual fates and memories.

His final installation contains a narrow opening. Looking through it, you see light at the end, as though at the end of a road or a life. “I wanted it to conclude the exhibition. After moving through works about memory, ideology and historical experience, the visitor arrives at this final threshold,” Akhunov explained through his translator, revealing how the work can also be read as a symbolic metaphor for his country’s history and its possible future direction.

Throughout the show, Akhunov’s art is traversed by this continuous conversation with memory, humor and spiritual persistence, eventually offering a snapshot of the country’s past sociopolitical and psychological condition while also proving how thought and creativity always survived and thrived within it, even when the Western world remained largely unaware of it.

More from the Venice Biennale

• Su Xiaobai’s Meditative Material Practice Is the Focus of One of the Biennale’s Most Commanding Shows

• Manuel Mathieu’s Venice Biennale Debut Asks How We Carry the Past

• Erwin Wurm Transforms the Fortuny Museum into a Theater of the Absurd

• Koyo Kouoh’s Venice Biennale Looks to Ancient Wisdom to Mend a Fractured Present

• The Venice Biennale’s Most Powerful Pavilions Tune into Shared Consciousness

• The Philippines Pavilion Turns the Country’s Maritime History into an Archive of Universal Longing

The “Korean Wave” is the result of a complex entanglement of private and public forces shaped by unprecedented alignment between strategic government policy and ambitious mega-corporations that began integrating art and culture into their sprawling business ecosystems long before cultural patronage and corporate art became a standard component of ESG frameworks. For decades, South Korea made targeted public investments in its creative industries, across K-music, television and cinema and, increasingly, contemporary art, most often running alongside the promotion of Korean fashion, food, beauty and other consumer industries. Subsequently, Korean culture has become a global phenomenon, with stars such as BTS filling stadiums in the United States and Latin America and museums across the world mounting an expanding number of exhibitions centered on Korean art.

Revenues of the K-Content Industry reached KRW 165 trillion in 2025 (approximately $116.4 billion), up from KRW 151 trillion in 2024. As a result of this global popularity, tourism has also grown, with inbound visitors rising from 17.5 million in 2019 to a record of approximately 18.7 million in 2025. This year, tourism accelerated even further, with foreign arrivals surpassing 10 million by the third week of June and reaching 10.71 million in the first half of the year, up 21 percent year over year. While Seoul still leads the market, visitors are increasingly exploring regional hubs such as Busan and Jeju. Busan, for example, received nearly 1.94 million foreign visitors through May, with major K-pop events further accelerating the momentum as 110,000 people attended BTS’s two June concerts in the city. The K-pop craze remains a major driver of attraction, alongside a massive surge in medical tourism, particularly in dermatology and plastic surgery, and spending tied to the wider K-beauty economy.

South Korea’s postwar economic transformation was built around a developmental-state model in which government policy and a relatively small number of large business groups worked in tandem. The disposal of formerly Japanese-owned enterprises, relief funds, government-controlled foreign-currency allocations, preferential bank financing and U.S. economic assistance all contributed to the environment in which the chaebol developed. But it was also their ability to seek out opportunities arising from the tension and cooperation between state planning and private enterprise that allowed companies such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG and SK to build scale extraordinarily quickly. The ppalli-ppalli ethos served as a behavioral baseline that enabled these firms to build infrastructure rapidly, adapt to shifting international markets and commercialize products at speeds that often outpaced competitors. It is no coincidence that Korea’s development has also been described by the OECD as a “chaebol-led industrialization strategy.”

If public policy helped create the conditions for Korea’s global ascent—combining soft-power investments in cultural industries with duty-free shopping incentives and, most recently, more flexible entry policies, particularly targeting the Chinese market—the country’s corporations did much of the rest and continue to have an outsized impact in sustaining the country’s artistic and cultural infrastructure. These are the chaebol 재벌 (jaebeol), a term that in Korean combines “wealth” and “clan.”

Since the postwar period, the country has undergone extraordinarily rapid modernization and capitalization, following what is commonly described as the ppalli-ppalli (“quick-quick” or “hurry-hurry”) ethos, in which speed became integral to development. The symbiotic relationship between the chaebol and ppalli-ppalli culture served as one of the engines behind South Korea’s transformation from a war-torn nation into a global economic power—the so-called “Miracle on the Han River.”

What was unique about the chaebol model was that these groups typically consist of dozens of legally separate companies spanning unrelated sectors, while effective control has remained concentrated in a founding family, sometimes even when that family now owns only a relatively modest direct stake.

Samsung, for example, expanded far beyond electronics into insurance, construction, hotels, hospitals and other businesses. Hyundai moved across construction, automobiles, shipbuilding and finance. From the start, these Korean conglomerates functioned less as single entities than as entire economic ecosystems. Once a group became favored as an engine of national development, it could repeatedly enter new sectors and build capacity at an enormous scale while exerting a very real impact on society. The OECD has noted that the founding families of Korea’s largest business groups have historically maintained control through networks of affiliate shareholdings even as their direct ownership stakes have declined.

What is particularly interesting is how these families have also turned to art. Seoul today has more than 120 museums, many of them private. The chaebol model produced extraordinary concentrations of wealth and power while also creating dynasties accustomed to thinking institutionally and on an enormous scale. Once Korea’s industrial families entered the cultural sphere, they rarely bought art for social status or pleasure, but rather approached their involvement in art and culture with something resembling the same conglomerate model: they amassed collections, established foundations, commissioned architecture and built museums.

This is why much of the deeper infrastructure of South Korea’s art world still rests on private money—and particularly on the fortunes of the family-controlled conglomerates that have shaped the country’s economy for generations. Through collections, museums, foundations, commissions and international partnerships, families behind companies such as Samsung, LG and Amorepacific have transformed corporate wealth into cultural capital, often blurring the boundaries between philanthropy, dynastic prestige, national ambition and soft power.

One of the clearest examples is Samsung’s Lee family, which progressively transformed private collecting into museum infrastructure and eventually national patrimony through the Samsung Foundation of Culture, Leeum Museum of Art, Ho-Am Art Museum and the Lee Kun-hee Collection.

Since opening in 2004, Leeum, in particular, has rapidly established itself as one of Korea’s leading private museums, hosting ambitious exhibitions by major Korean and international contemporary artists such as Anicka Yi and Lee Bul, alongside its expansive collection spanning traditional Korean art and international modern and contemporary art in a complex of buildings by Mario Botta, Jean Nouvel and Rem Koolhaas/OMA. Meanwhile, following the death of Samsung’s late chairman Lee Kun-hee in October 2020, his family donated more than 23,000 works and cultural objects to museums across the country. The National Museum of Korea received 21,693 pieces of archaeological, historical and traditional cultural heritage, while the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) received 1,488 modern and contemporary works by both Korean and international artists, significantly reshaping the museum’s collection and its ability to represent the course of modern Korean art and its relationship with the world. Another 102 modern and contemporary works went to five regional museums.

Meanwhile, outside the country, the Samsung Foundation of Culture, through the Kun-Hee Lee Fund for Korean Art, supported the 1998 opening of a permanent gallery dedicated to Korean art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and later helped endow a permanent Korean-art curatorial position at the Met, the Korea Foundation and Samsung Foundation of Culture Curatorship for Korean Art. Samsung’s cultural philanthropy abroad has since expanded beyond Korean art and the support of other Korean exhibitions and programs, extending, for instance, to digital cultural education at the British Museum through the Samsung Digital Discovery Center.

Hyundai and the Chung family have similarly been extremely active in supporting Korean art and culture inside and outside the country, although the company has preferred to focus its efforts on major global institutional partnerships that enhance cultural visibility. Since 2015, the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale has been supported by Hyundai Motor, which has now extended that commitment through 2034. Yet Hyundai’s most prominent initiative abroad is arguably the Hyundai Commission for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, presenting both Korean and international artists. The relationship with Tate began in 2014 and has now been extended through 2036, while the Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational has operated since 2019. In 2024, Hyundai also embarked on a 10-year partnership with the Whitney Museum, supporting the Whitney Biennial and the Hyundai Terrace Commission (the current commission by Kelly Akashi is on view through August 23). The company also supports programs, including the VH Award, other artist commissions and research initiatives through Hyundai Artlab.

The Suh family behind Amorepacific, one of the corporations that helped globalize K-beauty, has also been collecting for decades, eventually establishing the Pacific Museum in 1979 to house the collection assembled by the company’s founder, Suh Sung-whan. The museum became the Amorepacific Museum of Art, or APMA, in 2009 and reopened in 2018 with dedicated galleries within the company’s David Chipperfield-designed Yongsan headquarters, hosting major exhibitions by international artists, including Mark Bradford, while also drawing extensively on its own holdings of Korean antiquities and modern and contemporary art. A major Sol LeWitt exhibition, “Open Structure,” opens during Seoul Art Week and runs through February 28, 2027.

Then there is the Shin family behind the mixed commercial, luxury and urban-development ecosystem of the Lotte conglomerate, which incorporates its own LOTTE Museum of Art into the Lotte World Tower and the group’s wider retail developments. The museum has balanced international names with Korean ones and will soon open, in time for Frieze, a major exhibition devoted to Lee Kang So, one of Korea’s foremost contemporary artists, whose practice emerged from the experimental performance, installation and conceptual tendencies of the 1970s. “Lee Kang So: Emergence and Dissolution” opens August 21 and runs through November 1.

Doosan’s Park family also built an entire support ecosystem through the DOOSAN Yonkang Foundation. Their DOOSAN Art Center regularly hosts exhibitions in Seoul and organizes a series of educational programs and awards, including the DOOSAN Yonkang Arts Award, established in 2010 to support artists under 40, and the DOOSAN Curator Workshop, which selects three young curators every year for professional development and exhibition-making. DOOSAN Art Lab offers diverse forms of support for new experiments by artists in the visual arts under 35 and the performing arts under 40. From 2009 to 2021, the group also ran DOOSAN Residency New York, providing overseas experience and solo-exhibition opportunities to 64 artists. Since 2022, the program has moved to a more fluid format, operating through collaborations with established international institutions.

Another Park family is behind the Kumho Cultural Foundation, one of Korea’s longstanding corporate cultural foundations, which supports both visual artists and musicians through institutions such as the Kumho Museum of Art and the Kumho Art Hall. The visual art program began with the opening of the Kumho Gallery in Seoul in 1989; in 1996, it expanded and became the Kumho Museum of Art. The museum has long emphasized the discovery and support of younger artists through programs, including the Kumho Young Artist program, launched in 2005. Its activities extend beyond conventional contemporary-art exhibitions into architecture and design, alongside its permanent collecting and preservation work.

One of the most recent examples of corporate-led art-museum initiatives, however, is Centre Pompidou Hanwha, which opened on June 4 and is operated through the Hanwha Foundation of Culture in partnership with the Centre Pompidou. Occupying more than 10,000 square meters across four levels of Seoul’s landmark 63 Building, redesigned as a “box of light” by French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, it has become part of the Pompidou’s global “Constellation” expansion while its Paris home undergoes a multi-year renovation, also fostering cooperation and cultural exchange between the Korean and French scenes as the two countries celebrate the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations. Behind it is the Kim family’s Hanwha Group, one of South Korea’s major chaebol, whose industrial roots trace back to Korea Explosives, founded in the early 1950s. The group has since expanded across defense, aerospace, energy, finance and retail. That background has also exposed the Pompidou partnership to criticism and accusations of artwashing connected to the conglomerate’s defense business. Last year, the Hanwha Foundation of Culture also opened Space ZeroOne in New York to support emerging and underrecognized artists, including Korean and Korean diasporic practitioners, and increase their international visibility.

Yet another recent addition to this complex, corporate-led art ecosystem is Paradise City, which shows how Korean corporations understand the benefits of integrating art into their business models at different levels. The hospitality and gaming group controlled by the Chun family has combined its passion for collecting into an experience-driven strategy in a multipurpose cultural-hospitality environment. Paradise Group is now led by Phillip Chun, the son of founder Chun Rak-won and himself a prominent collector. Paradise City, the sprawling resort complex that opened near Incheon International Airport in 2017, today features around 3,000 works of art across its hotels, restaurants and public spaces, with Korean and international artists represented throughout the complex. Paradise Art Space operates as its dedicated exhibition venue, while Paradise Art Night has become part of the Frieze-week calendar, bringing collectors, artists and art professionals to the Incheon complex despite the distance from central Seoul. From the beginning, Paradise City explicitly described itself as an “art-tainment” resort, embedding collecting and exhibition-making directly into hospitality and entertainment.

Meanwhile, LG is one of Korea’s “Big Four,” with roots in Lucky Chemical, founded by Koo In-hwoi in 1947 and initially associated with products such as the famous Lucky Cream before expanding into electronics, chemicals and, eventually, battery technology, under the control of the founding Koo family. Nonetheless, from early on, the Koo family was much less focused on building a canonical private collection and museum and much more invested in the corporate-sponsorship side, supporting existing cultural infrastructure and the performing arts, and then progressively focusing on art-and-technology partnerships more closely aligned with the company’s brand identity.

LG has its own LG Arts Center Seoul, a nonprofit performing arts center operated by the LG Yonam Cultural Foundation. The original LG Arts Center opened in Gangnam in 2000 before moving in 2022 into a major new complex in Magok designed by Tadao Ando.

Today, the company is increasingly focused on technology-driven institutional partnerships. Inside Korea, probably the most ambitious recent example is the MMCA×LG OLED Series, a long-term annual commission at MMCA Seoul devoted to artists working at the intersection of digital technology and contemporary art, which launched in 2025 with Korean artist TZUSOO. The series selects one artist each year to produce a new site-specific work for MMCA Seoul’s central Seoul Box space, with LG providing sponsorship and technological support.

Internationally, since 2022, the company has supported the LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Initiative, a five-year partnership dedicated specifically to artists working at the intersection of art and technology. Expanding beyond exhibition sponsorship, the initiative includes the LG Guggenheim Award, with the selected artist receiving an unrestricted honorarium of $100,000, alongside a dedicated curatorial position, research and public programming. Its latest awardee is Trevor Paglen, preceded by Ayoung Kim in 2025, Shu Lea Cheang in 2024 and Stephanie Dinkins in 2023. As part of the initiative, LG also sponsors the Guggenheim’s YCC Party through 2027, with LG OLED technology incorporated into artists’ activations of the Guggenheim’s landmark building during parties and events.

The overall dependence of the Korean art system on these corporate dynasties has arguably become more visible as that speculative energy that swept through the Korean art market during and immediately after the pandemic has disappeared. The influx of younger collectors that accompanied the boom—and helped create the conditions for Frieze Seoul’s arrival—has given way to a more calibrated market.

This follows a genuinely difficult stretch for the country in 2024-25, beginning with the political crisis triggered when President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on December 3, 2024, followed by his impeachment, removal from office and, in February 2026, conviction for insurrection and a sentence of life imprisonment. The turmoil coincided with a sharp economic slowdown: South Korea’s GDP expanded only 1.0 percent in 2025, according to the OECD. Only recently has the Korean economy begun to recover, with political normalization following the June 2025 presidential election, fiscal support, recovering consumption and exceptionally strong semiconductor exports helping stabilize the export-driven economy.

At Frieze, dealers will be hoping to see that recovery translate into renewed confidence among a broader group of buyers, even if many already know that returning to Korea is worthwhile thanks to its institutions and the families behind them. If the art world initially came to Seoul to tap into a growing market, what has continued to give the Korean cultural industry its resilience and breadth is the strength of its museums and art spaces—many of which were underwritten by dynastic corporate capital and by families whose conglomerates are also helping drive the country’s economic rebound and shaping its next chapter.

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What followed was a short-lived bubble. The buying frenzy that helped fuel Frieze Seoul’s first two editions, alongside an influx of international galleries into the city, had begun to deflate by the fair’s third year. When Frieze held its fourth edition last year, South Korea had just entered a very different economic and political climate. The deeper infrastructure, however, was strong and continues to underpin a Korean art market that is embarking on this year’s Seoul Art Week in a period of recalibration. Political normalization following the June 2025 presidential election, fiscal support, a recovery in domestic consumption and exceptionally strong semiconductor exports have helped stabilize the country’s export-driven economy. The OECD now forecasts 2.6 percent growth in 2026, propelled in particular by the semiconductor cycle.

But if anyone needs further proof that Seoul’s art ecosystem is still very much alive, the city is providing it in abundance. This year, major institutions, long-established galleries and fast-rising younger spaces are mounting an unusually ambitious slate of exhibitions, many devoted to formidable Korean talents. What follows are 13 shows Frieze-goers should absolutely make time for. (Consider, too, a side trip to Gwangju and Busan, as both cities are hosting internationally watched biennials this year.)
 

“KOO JEONG A: OUSSSMOS”

• Leeum Museum
• Through December 27, 2026

This is Koo Jeong A’s largest exhibition to date and the third chapter of her ongoing OUSSS exhibition cycle. The show brings together works spanning three decades of Koo’s practice, with a newly commissioned monumental installation, MOBIOUSSS, alongside immersive works involving phosphorescence, skateparks, scents and magnets. Known for ephemeral environments, sculptures and drawings that examine the poetics of everyday life, Koo engages in an imaginative exercise in worldbuilding, incorporating objects, still and moving images, sound and scent to expose the essence of a reality in continuous transformation. At the core of her practice is an interest in the minute details of our earthly environments and their possible relationship to cosmic phenomena that simultaneously connect and expand them.

“Do Ho Suh”

• MMCA (National Museum Of Contemporary Art of Korea)
• Through February 9, 2027

Spanning early works, major pieces and ongoing projects, this large-scale survey of star Korean artist Do Ho Suh marks an important homecoming following his widely acclaimed 2025 survey at Tate Modern. Do Ho Suh’s itinerant life between Seoul, the United States and London has shaped his ongoing investigation into the very notion of home, explored through memory, migration, identity and belonging. He is best known for his life-size architectural replicas in translucent fabric, meticulously recreating corridors, staircases, doors and domestic fixtures. Their weightlessness transforms solid architecture into something ghostlike—a kind of spatial memory suspended between presence and absence, sensory and mental experience, past and present. Across sculpture, drawing, rubbing, video and installation, Suh examines the relationship between the individual body and collective space, and how displacement alters our understanding of where and what “home” is.

“Muyeong Kim: Pig”

• Art Sonje
• Through October 4, 2026

Following Adrián Villar Rojas’s memorable site-specific exhibition last year, Art Sonje is presenting new photographs and sculptures by Muyeong Kim alongside a site-specific intervention that exposes the theatrical space itself as an “apparatus”—a mechanical device for constructing worlds and producing meaning. The first museum exhibition for the 30-something artist, it will feature new photographs made on Sorok Island, as well as a black-and-white photographic series taken at Seodaemun Prison History Hall. In a distinctly Foucauldian vein, the works further expose the social apparatuses and dynamics of power embodied by such institutions while reflecting on their histories as sites shaped by the Japanese Empire during the colonial period. The exhibition title, “Pig,” refers to the pig iron counterweights used backstage to support stage machinery. Throughout his practice, Kim has focused on revealing the complex interplay of historical, material and symbolic conditions through which social apparatuses govern lives.

“Sol Lewitt: Open Structure”

• Amorepacific Museum of Art
• Through February 28, 2027

The Amorepacific Museum of Art, housed within the headquarters of the family-run South Korean cosmetics conglomerate, is staging a major exhibition focused on the revolutionary conceptual and minimalist practice of Sol LeWitt. Organized by the museum in cooperation with the artist’s estate and in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, the show expands on a curatorial framework originally conceived in that city. As LeWitt’s first major solo exhibition in South Korea, the show offers a broad overview of his practice, encompassing wall drawings, structures, works on paper and artists’ books.

“WOODS LANDS MEADOWS”

• Frieze House
• Through Sept 19, 2026

As Sol LeWitt gains renewed momentum in Korea this season, legendary dealer Paula Cooper—who has long represented his work—chose an opportune moment to establish a temporary foothold in the capital. Taking over Frieze House Seoul, the Korean counterpart to 9 Cork Street that Frieze launched last year to give galleries a year-round platform for temporary exhibitions, Cooper is presenting “WOODS LANDS MEADOWS,” a group show exploring contemporary approaches to landscape and the ways natural and built environments are reencountered through image, language and material. Taking its title from Carl Andre’s 1972 poem, the exhibition brings together works by some of the gallery’s most significant artists, including Terry Adkins, Carl Andre, Tauba Auerbach, Jennifer Bartlett, Jane Benson, Cecily Brown, Sarah Charlesworth, Mark di Suvero, Hans Haacke, Cynthia Hawkins, Sol LeWitt, Walid Raad, Veronica Ryan and Meg Webster.

Kaws, “Friends and Neighbors”

• Space K
• Through December 17, 2026

KAWS’s sprawling exhibition “Friends and Neighbors” has landed at Seoul’s Space K—the artist’s first institutional exhibition in Korea. Bringing together 20 new works, including large-scale paintings and sculptures featuring his signature characters, the show looks beyond KAWS’s instantly recognizable imagery to probe the complexity of contemporary relationships, moving between intimacy and discomfort, connection and disconnection, while offering a more anthropological observation of a society increasingly shaped by mediated experience. Beginning with graffiti and advertising interventions on the streets of New Jersey and New York in the early-to-mid 1990s, KAWS has built a singular visual language that collapses the boundaries between fine art and popular culture, the street and the museum, image and merchandise, while reflecting the media-driven symbols and mythologies of our time.

“Park Seo-Bo & Huong Dodinh: Emptiness, Fullness”

• Park Seo Bo Museum
• Through January 3, 2027

The Park Seo-Bo Museum’s inaugural exhibition, “Park Seo-Bo & Huong Dodinh: Emptiness, Fullness,” pairs the artist’s work with that of Vietnamese-French abstract painter Huong Dodinh, staging a dialogue that explores the expansive possibilities of painting across different cultural backgrounds and generations. Moving to Paris in 1953 after the outbreak of the First Indochina War, Dodinh encountered the European avant-gardes but remained largely independent of the dominant trends of the period, developing a highly personal language of abstraction—much as Park Seo-Bo forged his own path despite his periods abroad. Both engage deeply with the physical, almost elemental qualities of pigment and surface, finding within the canvas a sense of transcendence. Through absorption, reflection and meditative reduction in Dodinh’s work and through Park Seo-Bo’s repeated painterly gestures, lines and layered surfaces, they arrive at ethereal minimalist fields that seem to move beyond the materiality of painting itself, connecting the fleeting rhythms of human experience to something more expansive.

Genesis Kai,
“The Crimson Hour”

• ACEL ART COMPANY
• Through October 2, 2026

In terms of digital practices born out of new technologies, Genesis Kai is one of the most interesting emerging artists in the region. Not a real person, Genesis is a chiral twin and A.I.-infused alter ego created by Ming Shiu, a new media artist who explores memory and identity while reconnecting with culture and heritage through a transhumanist lens. Approaching contemporary technologies through East Asian cultural and philosophical traditions, her work occupies an intriguing space between the physical and the virtual, opening up new ways of thinking about memory, desire and cultural transmission. As a virtual artist with no flesh-and-blood existence, Genesis generates new meta-mythologies that unfold fluidly across both physical and digital media, shaping a new kind of cultural imagination. The work attempts to confront some of the defining questions of our time while looking back to ancestral knowledge for ways of navigating rupture and disruption.

Kim Taek Sang, “As It Is”

• Johyun Gallery Seoul, Johyun Gallery, Dalmaji, and Johyun Gallery Haeundae
• Through November 8, 2026

Fast-rising and increasingly sought-after Korean artist Kim Taek Sang has, for more than three decades, explored the diffusion, sedimentation and layering of color through the medium of water. Delicate accumulations of pigment on canvas create subtle hues and chromatic shifts that scatter light and give the surface a remarkable sense of depth and density, evoking water caught between states, at times like ice or glass in its reflective qualities, at others like a pond in the way it captures and holds light through vibration and oscillation. Kim describes these works as dàamhwa (淡畵—dàam painting), where dàam carries meanings of clear, delicate, faint or thin in tint. The exhibition features works from Kim’s signature series—Breathing, Flows and Resonance—which embody the temporality of spring, summer and autumn, respectively. Ice Blossom, a new body of work that extends his artistic language into winter, will be unveiled.

Park Seo Bo, “Changing Unchanging”

• Kukje Gallery
• Through October 18, 2026

For Seoul Art Week, Kukje is celebrating the late Dansaekhwa master Park Seo-Bo with an extensive exhibition spread across two of its spaces. “Changing Unchanging” examines Park’s lifelong, repetition-based painting process and the conceptual framework of his abstraction, moving between personal rumination and more philosophical meditations on the nature and materiality of reality. Centered on one of the most important ideas in his artistic universe—the philosophy of change—the exhibition considers what change means and how it became a driving force in his continual rethinking of the very nature of art. Kukje also anchors the dense concentration of blue-chip galleries in Samcheong, which gets its own spotlight on Thursday during Samcheong Night, when the gallery hosts its customary celebration with street food and drinks.

“TORQUE”

• CYLINDER
• Through September 27, 2026

In just five years of operation, CYLINDER has established itself as the place to discover the most interesting South Korean artists. This year, the gallery is devoting prime space during Seoul Art Week to young talent selected through its annual program “TORQUE,” which finds the best names from degree shows at domestic art universities and presents their work. Each edition has a subtitle drawn from automotive terminology, from “TORQUE 1 / GEAR SHIFT” to “TORQUE 6 / RESTOMOD,” CYLINDER has featured 18 young, promising artists. True to its name, TORQUE supplies momentum, helping artists launch their careers with real force.  Artists previously presented in the program will be featured by CYLINDER at this year’s edition of Frieze Seoul, including Jonghwan Lee, Rim Park, Sunwon Chang, Seo Hyun Kim, Minseo Kang, Dobin Kim and Kyungwon Yoon. “The gear-shaped booth embodies the essence of TORQUE, existing within it in the most CYLINDER-like way. Having started from Bongcheon-dong and run together for five years, we mark our first milestone here and continue accelerating toward the next horizon,” founder Dooyong Ro told Observer. “CYLINDER is TORQUE, and TORQUE is CYLINDER.”

Yulia Iosilzon, “Zero Gravity”

• FOUNDRY SEOUL
• Through October 3, 2026

Among the most interesting young galleries in the city, FOUNDRY has established itself on the international circuit with a program that balances championing experimental local talent with presenting rising international names. For Seoul Art Week, the gallery is presenting a solo exhibition of London-based artist Yulia Iosilzon, after her work was introduced to Korean audiences last year in a well-received solo booth by Carvalho at Frieze. Inspired by botanical life and natural rhythms, Iosilzon creates painterly ecosystems that envision the harmonious integration of different species, sky, earth and water. Comprising translucent paintings, ceramic mosaics and newly introduced fabric sculptures, the exhibition transforms the gallery space into a living, ever-evolving “active system,” where she stages a narrative of relentless “metamorphosis” that invites viewers to embrace a fluid, creative and generative interdependence between beings.

 Choi Yoonhee, “Presences Adrift”

• G Gallery
• Through October 4, 2026

Waves and water are some of the best metaphors for time and space, translating as they do the fluidity of matter. They also evoke the movement of thoughts and memories and our relationship to space and time itself. With works ranging from watercolor drawings to large-scale paintings, Choi Yoonhee’s exhibition presents the artist’s recent investigations into perception, the body and space through wave-like forms that animate the surfaces of each work, blurring boundaries between the geological and the marine and between inner and outer space.

(Editor’s note: This article was originally published in September 2024.) Gambling is illegal in South Korea, a country that strives to curb socially dangerous addictions. However, as with most places with such prohibitions, there are exceptions. Here, that exception is Paradise City, a unique complex just outside Seoul near Incheon Airport, where only foreigners can gamble but many South Koreans nonetheless visit to enjoy the mega mall, a 5-star luxury hotel, restaurants and the unique on-site collection of contemporary art.

That art is seamlessly integrated throughout the complex in a design scheme often described as “art-tainment.” As a testament to the strength of the connection between Paradise City and South Korea’s cultural and artistic scene, the complex has, since Frieze Seoul’s inaugural edition, hosted a mega party, Paradise Art Night, which celebrates the fair and kicks off a week of cultural events. Attendees have included K-celebrities and international stars, who are invited—or in some cases paid—to attend.

Observer explored this unusual “paradise” during Seoul Art Week 2024, taking a tour of the complex and its art collection before the festivities began. This year’s Art Week event was co-hosted by music producer Pharrell Williams, who promoted his latest venture, the auction platform JOOPITER, unveiling G-Dragon’s collection, now available for sale. Titled “Nothing but a ‘G’ Thang: The Art & Archive of G-Dragon,” the sale features a selection of G-Dragon’s fashion items, contemporary artworks, design objects and memorabilia, as well as specially commissioned art for the event.

G-Dragon, one of the most popular K-pop stars and a former member of the iconic band BIGBANG, is known for his deep passion for the arts. He was one of the first K-pop celebrities to publicly share his art collection, helping make art collecting “trendy” in South Korea.

That same night, Paradise Art Night celebrated Josh Sperling’s exhibition Wonder—the artist’s first show in South Korea. Organized by Perrotin, the show features pieces from Sperling’s signature colorful “Spiral” series and several of his “Squiggle” benches, creating a kaleidoscopic environment that overstimulates the senses and hypnotically draws visitors into the rhythm of the forms and color gradients that dominate the space.

Pharrell Williams, in a large light blue hat, showed up early to visit the exhibition accompanied by a sizeable entourage. With him was G-Dragon, who attracted a large assemblage of excited Korean teens who descended upon Paradise City’s indoor plaza hoping to take a picture of their idol. Both celebrities ultimately disappointed many of the event’s attendees, who were hoping to see performances at the night’s festivities. Instead, Williams and G-Dragon disappeared shortly after the gala dinner for an exclusive group of VIP guests.

After the show’s opening and auction preview, most of the crowd headed to Chroma Club for the afterparty. Designed by Amsterdam-based firm MVDRV, the club features futuristic architecture resembling a massive art installation inspired by the idea of a melting sun. In this psychedelic atmosphere, guests enjoyed a strange mix of cakes, hot dogs and fried panzerotti, along with unending drinks. K-rapper Simon Dominic and American rapper Pusha-T took the stage, eventually drawing the Korean crowd onto the dancefloor. Among the attendees, Observer spotted artist Daniel Arsham and the Perrotin team, along with numerous Korean celebrities and influencers.

The couple behind Paradise City and its art

Paradise City is the product of a joint venture between Korea’s Paradise Group, which is owned by art collector Phillip Chun, and Japan’s Sega Sammy, a corporation focused on entertainment and gaming. The luxury complex opened in 2017 following an initial investment of $1.7 billion. Its museum-worthy art collection, which features over 3,000 artworks with 280 of those displayed in public areas and the rest in private rooms, reflects Phillip Chun and his wife Elizabeth Chun’s decades-long passion for collecting art. Ranked among ArtNews’ top 200 collectors worldwide, they reportedly have one of South Korea’s most notable collections of contemporary and modern art. Chun has described Paradise Art Space—the complex’s expansive exhibition gallery—as “a hub of new Asian modern and contemporary art where Korean and global cultures are brought together.” Indeed, the couple can afford to spare no expense in acquiring and commissioning artwork for the complex, as Forbes estimates that Phillip Chun’s net worth is roughly $765 million.

Among the collection’s highlights are unique commissions by blue-chip artists created specifically for Paradise City. These include a stunning series of gold and silver prison-cell-inspired canvases by Peter Halley that dominate the hotel’s reception area, a gold-and-flesh horse by Damien Hirst at the entrance and an iconic Yayoi Kusama pumpkin leading the way into the casino. Guests strolling through the hotel’s corridors will also see works by prominent Korean artists such as Lee Bae, Park Seo-Bo, Kim Hodeuk and Kim Tschang-Yeul, reflecting the Chun’s commitment to promoting both the Korean art scene and contemporary art history.

In the spacious indoor plaza surrounded by restaurants, there are several impressive sculptures, including Jeff Koons’ Hercules with his signature Gazing Ball, a monumental piece by KAWS and a gold canvas by Damien Hirst. Monumental sculptural works also populate the complex’s outdoor greenspaces—there are Subodh Gupta’s towering stainless-steel utensil installation, Ugo Rondinone’s colorful neon sign Dog Days Are Over and Anish Kapoor’s polished metal curvilinear C-Curve. Since 2018, Paradise Art Space has regularly hosted exhibitions curated by notable figures like Seoul-based fashion designer and director Jung Kuho. It is currently showing the aforementioned Josh Sperling exhibition.

The only potentially controversial feature of this otherwise exceptional art experience is the “Paradise Walk.” Described on the complex’s website as “an exceptional experience that stimulates the visual and auditory senses at all times, with the traditional Korean five-color light,” the installation by the collective Wonder Medium bears a striking resemblance to James Turrell’s works, leaving some to wonder if it is an homage—or simply a poor imitation. Otherwise, Paradise City really does stand out as a successful example of an “art-tainment” destination that can stand on its own in an increasingly crowded cultural landscape.

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