December 2023
ArtReview Announces 2023 Power 100 List: Kukje Gallery’s Hyun-Sook Lee Ranks 92, Haegue Yang Ranks 71
Hyun-Sook Lee, founder and chairwoman of Kukje Gallery, has been selected as one of ArtReview’s Power 100, ranking 92 on the list of the most influential figures in the art world as announced by the British arts magazine on December 1, 2023. Published since 2002, Power 100 announces an annual roster of the most distinguished figures in the international art scene, selected upon a thorough analysis of their recent activities and impact in the industry. Panelists and collaborators have helped ArtReview construct the list, consisting of artists and artist collectives, collectors, curators, fairs, galleries, museum directors, thinkers, and social movements.
Since Lee’s initial appearance on the list in 2015, in which she has placed 82, this year marks her 9th consecutive year of being named on the Power 100. In acknowledgement of Lee’s exceptional contribution to and influence over the ever-shifting global landscapes of contemporary art, ArtReview published the following statement on their official website.
“Sometimes influence finds you as much as you seek it. Geopolitical shifts far beyond the Kukje Gallery founder’s control have made Seoul a power spot in the Asian artworld. Yet with 40 years under her belt, representing the likes of Lee Ufan (who showed in two of her three Seoul gallery spaces in April), Anish Kapoor (who in August took over all three with his visceral sculptures and paintings) and Haegue Yang (who has long worked with Kukje, showing over the summer at the gallery’s Hanok, a traditional Korean house), Lee is no ingenue. While Park Seo-Bo passed away in October this year, it was Lee who had helped renew interest in his work and the wider Dansaekhwa movement. In Busan, where she has had a gallery since 2018, there were shows for a similar mix of blue-chip names from both the West and East, including Wook-Kyung Choi, Julian Opie, and Byron Kim.”
Along with Hyun-Sook Lee, Haegue Yang has joined this year’s Power 100 roster, ranking 71. ArtReview has cited: “When the international artworld came to Seoul in September, it was natural that Kukje, which represents Yang, would dedicate a show to her – she is one of South Korea’s biggest art stars. Yang, however, is rarely at home. Incorporating Venetian blinds, clothing racks, synthetic straw and other such diverse materials, her sculpture featured in a vertiginous number of exhibitions this year, ranging from Several Reenactments at SMAK Ghent, which became Continuous Reenactments at Helsinki Art Museum; to Quasi-Colloquial, which inaugurated Pinacoteca de São Paulo’s new contemporary museum; and Changing From From To From at the National Gallery of Australia, the Canberra institution buying most of the show for its collection. For the Kochi-Muziris Biennale she showed a work featuring over 100,000 bells, and at Performa in New York she staged the sixth iteration of The Malady of Death (2015–), a rare performance based on the eponymous Marguerite Duras text, while she prepares for a large-scale survey show in the Hayward Gallery, London, in autumn next year; all this while continuing as a professor at Frankfurt’s Städelschule."
Meanwhile, fellow Korean luminaries from this year’s list include Doryun Chong, Chief Curator of M+, Hong Kong, listed at 17, together with the museum’s director, Suhanya Raffel; and the South Korean-born Swiss-German philosopher and academic Byung-Chul Han, who continues his tenure as professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, placed 24. Nan Goldin, the legendary photographer topped the list, while Hito Steyerl, who was already listed as the number one in the 2017 Power 100 List, came second. The rest of the 2023 Power 100 list can be viewed on ArtReview's website (https://artreview.com/power-100/).