post-seoul fair recap (extremely abridged)
Wed, Sep 17, 2025 | 4:45 PM
hi all. long time no newsletter. i’m happy to report that i have survived back-to-back art fairs in seoul & tokyo. this is not much of an accomplishment since i wasn’t an exhibitor this year, but i am personally quite proud of myself for pulling through three straight weeks of socializing and travel despite the growing toll age is taking on my body (and also being an INTJ).
the post-fair reports are already aplenty and i’m sure no one is interested in mine, since i have no Market Insights and spent most of my time in seoul
- doubled over in lower back pain and dodging acquaintances (lest my grimaces of suffering come across as angry glares)
- panicking over my unmanageable (self-inflicted) workload and then miserably attempting to tackle said workload at 2~5am
- trapped in my hotel room pretending not to be hungover on video calls
followed by a stint at tokyo gendai being a glamourized receptionist/leech of the one percent (aka VIP relations)– a truly despicable and delicious job which involved sending a few emails a day and then getting paid to go on an onsen retreat.
but, as an ex-gallerist, i am now experiencing such an uncanny feeling of freedom (no deinstall? no invoices? no shipping?) that i feel compelled to actually reflect on what i saw and heard. i’m finally doing it……… a Post-Fair Recap!
1. at around 9pm on september 3rd i found myself in a public park crouching behind a bush. red light glittered over the hard dirt, the waxy leaves. through a small hole in the foliage i watched two figures slowly tackle each other in a boxing ring. on top of the second figure’s body, a head had been replaced by a grotesque, fleshy mass, vaguely seahorse-y in shape and punctured with piercings. the bodiless voice of a chirpy young female television host broadcasted a constant stream of friendly, cryptic korean over the speakers. murmurs and laughter filled the air between a thrumming bass, a steady nnnts nnnts that vibrated through the leaves, the ground, merging us all together into one humid heartbeat. a staggered half moon of spectators drifted around the ring, phones raised, eyes glued to their screens until their elbows retired and they lost interest, wandering away to resume chatting with a friend; another person would wander into their place, and the process would repeat.
the phones irritated me immensely. i am normally jaded enough to laugh at myself when i have pretentious thoughts like this. maybe it was the sticky heat. i felt a longing for collective attunement, some sort of tranced out rave experience i’ve never had— or maybe i have, somewhere down at the end of that long, dark hallway of memories, there must be a fuzzy record of it, the cultish euphoria, because how else could i desire it so bitterly? like, hey, what if we all just like, shared a moment? not a phone in sight? to allay the annoyance i looked over my shoulder, beyond the giant shadowy speakers hovering over my shoulder, at the empty park behind me. in the distance, beyond the red haze, a child ran through a small clearing of glowing aqua trees, swatting at a stream of little rainbow bubbles.
later on, in a dark corner of the park littered with backpacks and water bottles, a human head emerged from under the fleshy seahorse. the rent in seoul is so high that people are still looking for places to live after they die and become ghosts, they said. i smiled and nodded, unsurprised.
yagwang, raw proof @ dosan park
2. tomo curated a booth a kiaf, so i went to see it the next day. the featured artist was sen takahashi, who i met the night before: we were at the weird public park performance together, where i told him his shoulder tattoo was cool after it emerged from under his sleeves, which he had rolled up while we were sweating on the curb together trying to figure out what to do for dinner. he informed me it (the tattoo) was actually a part of his artwork at kiaf. here it is:
the photo was taken by his taxi driver. Sick.
on the other side of the freestanding booth, painted onto the outward facing wall, was a gray square. the caption told me it was scented, so i spent thirty seconds feeling stupid inhaling a wall and feeling the eyes of passerby on me as i did so. of all the things i at the fair, this may just have been the most memorable. i consumed over 10,000 images and only 1 scent, after all.
3. my 3rd uber of the day twisted through a hilly winding street and spat me out on a ridiculously steep incline in front of a quaint garden and its attachment, a sort of soft modernist rendition of a miniature white castle. inside was a 4-person show where i knew 50% of the artists, sophie varin and antoine carbonne. they greeted me warmly and gave me a tour as i lowkey staved off a dehydration panic attack (wtf even is that btw? i have to drink an insane amount of water nowadays or i feel like my organs are shutting down. medical advice appreciated).
anyway, look at sophie’s works!!!! tiny, soft, glowy, dreamy— how i wish everything in the world could be…….. also, i have a theory about the relationship between size=power=patriarchy/imperialism, so i am a big fan of tiny things. confession: i actually also make tiny paintings (this was before i met sophie, i didn’t copy! i swear!)
i don’t know how much i’m allowed to reveal but she will be doing something in japan soon which i am involved in, and i’m very excited!
for now, check out the show at ranee seoul.
4. down the road i found a gs25 and got a spicy chicken onigiri, which i ate on the step of the abandoned ex-VSF (rip?!!!). a handful of half-empty pet bottles littered the bench outside, and an ugly, crinkled, red and yellow real estate sign printed on copy paper was pasted haphazardly onto the window. it was quite desolate. i mean, at least remove the gallery logo…
5. september 4, approx 11pm, itaewon: another cab, this one winding through rainbow lights and throngs of happy drunkards. a wordless, suspiciously phallic neon sign hanging daintily on a 4th floor window prefaced the art that greeted us after we entered, an extremely large line drawing of a cock entering an asshole (framed). ran into a disproportionate amount of acquaintances from tokyo here, including:
- hiroki san, who just opened up a new pizza slice in seoul. i couldn’t make it to the opening cos i had to catch my flight, but this PSA is my contribution. he makes a good NY style pizza. put it in ur bookmarks!
@pizzaslice.seoul - taiki yokote, who unveiled an ambitious solo booth at frieze, and was already several drinks in by the time we met by the looks of his slightly crossed eyes– well deserved☆ also, bff kana wrote the statement!
- kenji sakai, who i never recognize every time i see him because he always looks extremely different, and i’m already face blind in the first place (sorry!). he is? was? the director of anagra/matter, where i first met him 4 or so years ago, coincidentally at yokote san’s first show! i still remember that exhibition clearly because i started following yokote san then. a fun realization and a testament to their growth☆
- a jaded chito, bandana over his eyes as per usual (how does he see?), mumbling about how all this shit is the same shit. ah, the struggle of the international hype life☆
celebrity sighting of the night: hunter schafer. she was in line behind me for drinks and i didn’t even notice. perhaps we may have even accidentally bumped elbows? if we did, nothing more came of it. alas. destiny decided my night would consist of talking to straight men in a gay bar, AGAIN (why?!!!).
6. lee bul at leeum museum. this was my first time at the museum, and i ended up being too distracted by the luxurious architecture and the power that emanated from it to get into the artworks. these days i often think back to this comment by eddy frankel from this plaster article:
“For me, a big part of [art criticism] is holding the powerful to account. We should always ask ‘did you get the funding for this?’ ‘Why is this funded?’ ‘Why is it taking the place of better art?’”
of course, this is the question we should ask of all museums and art institutions, all the time.
if i was a proper arts journalist this is where i would have an answer for you re: this specific show, but i’m not, and i have to head off to my first fashion show in an hour (gaultier! which obviously i do not own any of, i have no idea what to wear, pls help) so i’m cutting off here for now. don’t hold your breath for part 2 since writer’s block is my default state and i can only write once every 4 months
until next time x