The floor of KIAF 2010

Dealers packed up their booths at KIAF 2010 Monday night after a fair that had seemed at times — in the wry words of one international gallerist — more of "an expo than an art fair." Yes, the booths were often crammed with people — more than 70,000 streamed through over the six days of the fair — but most were sightseers, not buyers. The serious Korean collectors who are the bedrock of the local scene kept a low profile, and even the Taiwanese collectors, who normally aren’t afraid to be seen to gamble, were keeping poker faces. 

As the fair closed there were reports (which proved hard to confirm) of major last-minute sales by leading Korean galleries. Two artists linked to these rumors were Julian Opie, who was showing at Kukje, and Lee Ufan, who was featured at PYO Gallery. Taxation laws in Korea could make local galleries shy of advertising their success, but the spotty performance of international galleries and the generally low mood suggested that this year KIAF was again treading water.

The top confirmed sale of the fair, a Bernar Venet sculpture called "Indeterminate Line" was secured by leading European gallery Forsblom for around €420,000 ($546,000). The Forsblom booth hit one of the highest-end notes of the fair with an array that, in addition to the Venet, included works by modern European masters like Manolo Valdés. The quality of Forsblom’s wares was matched by a number of other galleries: U.K.'s All Visual Arts, for example, offered a seductive riff by Damien Hirst on his cabinet pieces in the form of a chess set entitled "Menial Escapology," keenly priced at $300,000. All this bore out the Korean market's reputation for sophisticated and non-parochial tastes, but this year quality didn't translate into business, and Forsblom was the only exhibitor to report a significant sale.

The alley that housed the U.K., which was the featured country for 2010, was particularly subdued. Even Other Criteria — which sells Hirst prints, thus affording an opportunity for even the rookie collector to get a piece of Asia’s favorite Western contemporary artist — did very slow trade compared to its performances at other fairs.