Korean Auction Houses Kick Off Year with Blue-Chip Art Sales
Creatrip Team
7 months ago
Seoul Auction and K Auction begin major January auctions in Seoul, focusing on blue-chip Korean and international artists. Seoul Auction’s Jan. 27 sale at its Gangnam center offers 117 works (about 5 billion KRW) including Park Soo-keun’s small textured painting “Hat and Two Women” (estimated 480–800 million KRW), Yayoi Kusama’s polka-dot pumpkin (7.3–9 billion KRW), and Ugo Rondinone’s stacked-stone “Mountain” series. K Auction’s Jan. 28 sale lists 94 lots (about 9.8 billion KRW) featuring Kim Chang-yeol’s early Waterdrops piece (est. 900 million–1.4 billion KRW), Kusama’s net-pattern dresses and pumpkin/butterfly series, and a large work by Lee Ufan from his Dialogue series (est. 890 million–1.4 billion KRW). Both houses emphasize market testing with reliable “blue-chip” artists; Seoul Auction hopes an early January sale will help spark the art market following recent strong sales. (Blue-chip: established, highly valued artists)
