A show of new work by the artist Derrick Adams inspired by the window displays of beauty-supply stores will be unveiled by Gagosian in September in Seoul, marking both the gallery and the artist’s first exhibition in South Korea.
Derrick Adams: The Strip will run from 3 September until 12 October inside the museum located in the Seoul headquarters of Amorepacific, the Korean beauty conglomerate that owns brands like Sulwhasoo, Laneige and Innisfree. The museum is on the ground floor of the David Chipperfield-designed building in Yongsan.
Gagosian’s debut exhibition in South Korea was organised thanks in large part to the work of Jiyoung Lee, whom the gallery hired last year to lead operations in South Korea. She came with extensive relationships within the Korean market, and previously worked on the Andreas Gursky exhibition that was organised at the Amorepacific Museum of Art in 2022.
For this new series, Adams drew on the display windows of beauty-supply stores, from near his studio in Brooklyn to other countries he has travelled to, according to Gagosian. The paintings show mannequin heads wearing colourful wigs, surrounded by bricks, sidewalks and other nods to city life.
“He’s never had an exhibition in Korea, and we thought it would be unexpected,” Gagosian senior director Nick Simunovic told The Art Newspaper. “We’re treating the art community and our client base in Korea with enormous respect, because we are demonstrating our commitment to Korea by showcasing the very best of what we do in the West there in Seoul.”
South Korea is the tenth largest economy in the world. Seoul is also gaining traction as a hub for the Asian art market because of increasing censorship from China in Hong Kong and strict Covid-19 lockdowns during the peak of the pandemic. South Korea, home to a young base of art collectors, has hosted Frieze Seoul since 2022.
Gagosian has had operations in Asia for nearly two decades, according to Simunovic.
“Gagosian’s strategy, simply put, is to provide our artists—which are the lifeblood of the gallery—with a platform to be seen and understood and appreciated in Asia,” Simunovic says. “This exhibition is keeping with the strategy that we initiated 17 years ago.”