The Korea Times records how the Korean Art market is beginning to boom. Perhaps carried on the coat-tails of the ebullient Chinese art market, prices for major Korean artists are edging up. Lee Ufan is one of the hot artists, and also Park Soo-keun, Kim Whanki and Chang Uc-chin. And last year Elton John made a nice return on a Bae Bien-u photograph.
An important indicator of the rise in the Korean Art market is the increasing exposure of contemporary artists in the West. Taking the UK as an example, the current Asia House show is one of the first exhibitions to have invited Korean artists to participate, with works specially commissioned for the show. And 2007 will see no less than 3 invitation shows by Korean artists in the UK: Choi Jeong-wha (Welcome) in Wolverhampton from 21 June this year; Kim Sora (image at top of page) at the Baltic space in Gateshead from Valentines Day for three months, and Kim Kira (A Place Of Mirages) in the Fermoy gallery at King’s Lynn Arts Centre in Norfolk, from 27 January to 24 February.