Top Ten Korean Arworks

Another Friday Top. Every other Friday, Artprice posts a theme-based auction ranking. This week, the ten most expensive works of 2015, created by Korean artists. For Korean art is soaring. This was one of the main trends of 2015.

Rising Prices of Dansaekhwa

Prices are soaring above all for Dansaekhwa, literally meaning “monochrome painting”. This abstract trend, which first emerged in the 1970s, is typified by a sober aesthetic approach, minimalist and repetitive, said to spring from a meditative process. While Dansaekhwa exemplifies post-war Korean modernism, international actors on the art market are currently going all out to highlight this movement and its historical legitimacy. Dansaekhwa was the focus of attention on several occasions in 2015, notably at fairs like Frieze Masters in London and Art Basel in Miami Beach, and at an exhibition on the sidelines of the Venice Biennale that brought together the artists Chung Chang-sup, Chung Sang-hwa, Ha Chong-hyun, Kim Whan-ki, Kwon Young-woo, Lee U-fan and Park Seo-bo (at the Palazzo Contarini Polignac, from 8 May to 15 August 2015), as well as other exhibitions in the US and Paris. These events went hand-in-hand with auction prices that were, to say the least, sensational.

The Records of the Year

Four Koreans come out top among those who have achieved more than a few new world records over the past year. Prices have rocketed for Kim Whan Ki, Park Seo-bo, Lee Ufan and Chung Sang-Hwa, especially in Hong Kong (the most international market in Asia) and South Korea, where these artists make the vast majority of their turnover.

Whan-Ki KIM (1913-1974):  Kim Whan Ki is considered a pioneer. He promoted abstract art in Korea, focusing on simple formal elements, mostly dots and lines. He is now the most popular Dansaekhwa artist, with demand for his work having become increasingly international over the last 15 years (65% of sales being in Korea, 29% in Hong Kong, and 7% in the USA). It is to be noted that international recognition of Kim Whan Ki, who spent most of his life outside of Korea, is no new phenomenon. He was particularly productive during his Paris years (1956-1959), before spending time in New York and participating in the Seventh Biennial of São Paulo in 1963. What is new in the market for his works is the regularity with which they have passed the million-dollar mark this year – no fewer than five times. This has meant a doubling of annual sales compared with the previous year (USD 21.5m of works auctioned in 2015 against USD 10.7m in 2014), with one piece going for close to four million dollars, an outright record achieved on October 5. These great performances were all recorded in Seoul and Hong Kong. They have not been followed up, so far, on the Western market, which has been all the more attentive ever since one of the artist’s works broke the million-dollar barrier in New York in 2011.

Seo-Bo PARK (born 1931) :Park Seo-bo is one of the founding members of Dansaekhwa. He gained recognition for his simple gestures, a rudimentary language traced on traditional Korean paper, and loaded with considerable spiritual impact. Park Seo-bo describes his work as “writing”, a term he has used in titling his works and announcing all his exhibitions since 1967. Backed by major Western galleries, including Emmanuel Perrotin and Blum and Poe, he remains bound by 95% to Asia on the auction market (54% of his turnover is made in Hong Kong and nearly 41% in South Korea). Nevertheless, it is possible to find some works on the market in Taiwan, Mainland China, Japan, the United States, and France. The year 2015 was to mark a turning point in his history on the auction market, going beyond the million-dollar mark for the first time in his career with the sale of Writing No. 65-75 for USD 1,212m at Christie’s Hong Kong on November 28. In the course of 2015, his previous record of USD 227,500 – which dated to as recently as December 2014 – was exceeded no fewer than fourteen times. This is a mark of true recognition for the artist, whose annual turnover is up from USD 1.2m to over USD 12m.

Ufan LEE (born 1936) :Lee Ufan, founder of Mono-Ha group, is also a leading figure of Dansaekhwa, and the best known artist of this movement on the international scene (notably having exhibited at the Palace of Versailles in 2014). Represented by such established Western galleries as Kamel Mennour and Thaddaeus Ropac, his works are traded worldwide and at high prices. Lee Ufan is not new on the high-end market, having recorded his first million-plus sale in New York in 2007, before exhibiting at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2011. It was again in New York that he made his best sale of last year, with a 1978 canvas, From Point, No.780163, fetching USD 1.33m. While New York represents almost 19% of his market, it is in France that sales of his work have been greatest since 2000, amounting to 40% of his auction revenue.

Sang-Hwa CHUNG (born 1932) : The fourth artist among this Top Ten is Chung Sang-Hwa, whose works were to be seen exhibited at the Los Angeles gallery of Blum & Poe in 2014 and at the 2015 edition of Frieze New York, on the stand of the Hyundai gallery. The artist now lives in Korea, after several years in Japan (from 1969 to 1976) and France (especially between 1976 and 1992). Sales of his subtle monochromatic modulations have exploded, so much so that Chung Sang-Hwa recorded the eighteen highest auction prices of his career in 2015, including a new record of nearly a million dollars (USD 967,500), during the famous sale organised by Seoul Auction in Hong Kong on 5 October.

These signatures have gained recognition among the world’s leading auction houses and their sales prices have soared thanks to the joint effect of both the primary and secondary markets. Being better known by international art lovers, the cream of Korean artists could continue to climb in price throughout 2016.