Material world: Frieze Seoul transforms horsehair, clay and mother-of-pearl into high art

“Contemporary art is moving more and more towards material practice,” Cho says of the hands-on process of working with physical substances, while “much of the Korean DNA is about handling different materials.” She adds that internationally acclaimed Korean figures like Lee, Do Ho Suh and Haegue Yang place material engagement at the heart of their practice. “Our additional section comes at a very appropriate time, as the last five years have moved increasingly towards this kind of material practice in the art world.”

The section deliberately challenges historic hierarchies that placed fine art above material disciplines. Selecting participating galleries in cities ranging from Seoul, Hong Kong and Taipei to New York, Sydney and Melbourne, Cho showcases works that rethink heritage—horsehair vessels rooted in Joseon-era hat-weaving traditions, for example, and contemporary moon jars and paper-clay sculptures by Dahye Jeong and Jongjin Park, winners of the 2022 and 2026 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize respectively.

Cho, who believes that traditional craftsmanship has just as much creativity as fine art, says: “Everything—all our resources in terms of ideas—has a base, a root and a history. The word ‘craft’ may not be the correct definition in this context; it’s the root of all creativity going back to prehistoric times.”

In an era dominated by digital art and AI, Cho views this physical, tactile focus as a vital reset for collectors and fairgoers. “The more digitalised we become, the more we miss what was in the past and what used to be,” she says. “I hope this new section brings a breath of fresh air, evokes new ideas and encourages a whole new array of artworks.”

Here, we speak to the gallerists, curators and artists from three galleries exhibiting at Seoul Frieze about what craftsmanship and heritage mean to them today.

Traditional Korean cultural elements are increasingly familiar globally, thanks in no small part to popular culture; in period K-dramas like Dae Jang Geum, for example, ancient food and architecture take centre stage, while the hit movie K-Pop Demon Hunters popularised the gat, a traditional Korean hat.

That was hardly the case before the 2000s. Katherine Jeongin Hong, chairperson of the Arumjigi Foundation—a non-profit cultural institution in Seoul dedicated to promoting Korean heritage—recalls how her mother used to tell her that traditional Korean culture was disappearing at an alarming rate. “We went through rapid globalisation and urbanisation [in the 1990s] and, before that, the Japanese occupation [1910–1945] and the Korean War [1950–1953],” Hong says. “A lot of our traditional heritage was damaged [or lost]. Not many people appreciated or wanted to keep what we used to have, even though our traditional heritage is valuable.”

Hong’s mother, a sociology major, and her father, a news journalist, shared a vision: to keep Korean heritage alive while supporting master artisans. In 2001, they established the Arumjigi Foundation, its mission to “discover the beauty, values and spirit of traditional Korean culture, bring them into contemporary life and share them with the world”. Arumjigi refers to people who preserve and nurture beautiful cultural heritage.

The foundation began with grassroots initiatives, such as encouraging villages across South Korea to replant dangsannamu or sinmok—trees traditionally believed to house a guardian deity who protects the community, secures a bountiful harvest and ensures peace—in their neighbourhoods. It has since expanded its reach to protect architectural and design disciplines, preserving historic landmarks and traditional structural designs. It also works to preserve hanbok, or traditional Korean clothing, collaborating with seamstresses and designers who reinterpret the traditional garments. At the time of writing in late July, the team confirmed a high-profile collaboration with a leading K-pop group later this year.

In 2013, Arumjigi founded its sister organisation, Onjium (meaning “creating in the right way”), a research institute and studio where artisans and chefs research test and apply historical techniques to modern living. “We cannot fully replicate the originals because many recipes were lost to time, so our menu represents a synthesis of rigorous research and culinary imagination,” Hong’s colleague Joanne Koo says.

For Material Practice, the foundation is presenting an immersive installation reflecting Korean lifestyle culture across clothing, food and shelter. “We want to present Korean tradition not merely as a collection of beautiful objects, but as a living body of knowledge shaped by materials, craftsmanship and ways of living,” says Hong.

The fair presentation is accompanied by two concurrent exhibitions elsewhere in Seoul: Arumjigi Foundation’s annual showcase—the theme this year is Within the Folds, exploring traditional Korean skirts; and Onjium’s Sea Bridges 2026: Cha, an exploration of tea rituals, in collaboration with Japanese artisans. “Together,” Hong says, “the three presentations form a single, interconnected conversation around one central question: what should we preserve and carry forward in the way we live?

“Traditional craft is not simply about preserving old techniques; it is about preserving a way of thinking, respecting nature, valuing quality over speed and creating things that can stay with us for a long time.”

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Mirinai Choi visited Soluna Fine Art by chance in 2021 and found the gallery’s focus on contemporary interpretations of traditional craftsmanship a refreshing sight. A keen art collector, she bought an abstract painting by Kim Keun-tai. The work, created by soaking canvas in a mixture of stone powder—a material traditionally used by Korean moon jar ceramicists—and glue, captured a process of contemplation and restraint that left a lasting impression.

“A good work lets you stand in front of it and feel something different even after many years,” Choi says. Kim’s painting, a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional Korean art elements, left her thinking about the definition of “fine art”. When Soluna Fine Art’s founder Rachel Eunju Lee relocated to the US, Choi stepped into the role of director, carrying forward a shared mission to showcase Asian craft and material-driven art on the global stage.

“In South Korea and across Asia, traditional craftsmanship [has long been] seen as something to [either] preserve or use for daily purposes, rather than collectible fine art,” Choi says. “But our gallery’s artists love traditional techniques, study the crafts’ historical foundations, and reinterpret them through their own philosophy. With that dedication and process, their work ceases to be just craft; it becomes fine art.”

The gallery is showcasing eight artists who transform heritage mediums into contemporary sculptural forms. Among them is Jeong, the 2022 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize winner, who has revived a 500-year-old Joseon Dynasty horsehair weaving technique. Originally used to craft hats for the nobility, horsehair was chosen for its lightness and breathability.

Jeong, who first encountered horsehair weaving through a craft revitalisation project in Jeju in 2017, spent years researching museum archives and mastering intricate knotting techniques to build delicate, free-standing 3D vessels. Her work on show, A Time of Sincerity, incorporates a central band patterned after a 16th-century sabanggwan, or “scholar’s hat”, headpiece. “At the time, no one had used the traditional horsehair weaving technique to create contemporary artworks before,” Jeong says. “Rather than feeling daunted by that, it energised me ... Working within a tradition can sometimes mean being weighed down by its rules and history, unable to break from old habits of thinking. But the artisans [from Jeju] encouraged me, and my study gave me the confidence to go my own way.”

Kim Duck-yong, meanwhile, reinterprets the traditional chaekgeori, a still-life painting of books and bookshelves created using ink and colour pigments and often displayed on a paper folding screen. Kim instead combines mother-of-pearl inlays—he describes its iridescence as “a light pointing toward the future”—with centuries-old, weathered wood canvas, which he says bear “a trace of history”, to connect the past and the future.

“In my paintings, these two very different materials come together like a marriage to create something entirely new. We live in the present, between [past and future], but I don’t think of the present as just a single moment—it is the point where past and future overlap, and that overlap is where I ask: where do we come from, and where are we going?

“Through that, I hope to share something deeply [philosophically] Asian in spirit—this sense that people and nature are always changing, always moving in cycles—with an international audience.”

When property investor and developer Kate Shin took on a historic Upper East Side townhouse project in New York, she worked with renowned architect Toshiko Mori to transform the property into a seven-storey architectural landmark known as the Waterfall Mansion.

Intending to sell the property when it was completed four years later, Shin began inviting artists to exhibit within the space while preparing it for the market.

“What I expected to be a temporary activation became something much more meaningful,” she says. “I witnessed artists from around the world finding community, confidence and new opportunities in New York. At that moment, I realised the building had already found its purpose.”

In 2014, she founded Waterfall Gallery to serve as a bridge between Asian talents and international institutions and collectors. Since its founding, the space has presented more than 400 contemporary artists from around the world, introducing many Asian artists to New York for the first time. “Watching their careers develop has been one of the greatest privileges of my life,” says Shin, who is originally from South Korea. Unfortunately, the gallery was a financial victim of the pandemic; it moved out of the mansion in January 2024 and has since existed online and in a private viewing space in New York’s Midtown district.

Shin observes that collectors today are interested in younger generations of artists working across ceramics, textiles, painting, installation, media art and interdisciplinary practices. The collectors “are drawn not only to technical excellence but also to the philosophical depth, material innovation, and cultural narratives that Korean artists bring to contemporary practice”, she says. “Korean contemporary art is [now] an essential voice in shaping the future of global contemporary art.”

The alignment between Korean material philosophy and global contemporary art finds a natural platform in Material Practice. For its booth presentation, Waterfall Foundation chose a solo showcase of South Korean artist Lee Seung Hee. Born in Cheongju in the 1950s, and based in the renowned porcelain capital of Jingdezhen in China since 2008, Lee has spent more than three decades expanding the boundaries of ceramic art.

Lee’s practice centres on transforming traditional Asian porcelain traditions into conceptual relief panels and installations. For Frieze Seoul, he has created ceramic works that visually mimic worn, aged paper.

“What appears to be paper in my work is actually clay,” he says. “This is an attempt to expose the gap between what is visible and what actually exists. Rather than reproducing traditional forms or imagery, I aim to capture the moment when our perception and conceptual understanding of a material are shaken.”

The artist’s labour-intensive technique relies on building thin, translucent ceramic layers through repeated physical application. “For me, ‘material practice’ is a process where time and memory accumulate in the body through the repetitive motion of the hands,” Lee says. “To hear what the material itself is trying to say, I set aside my own thoughts for a moment.”

Shin sees platforms like Frieze Seoul as an opportunity to allow “local narratives to be understood within an international context, while inviting global audiences to appreciate the depth and relevance of Asian artistic practices.

“Traditional craftsmanship is not nostalgia, but a way of being,” she says. “As AI advances, the value of art shifts from production to process and human presence. The future of art is not a competition between technology and tradition, but a recognition of what only human hands—and attentive spirit—can bring into being.”

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