After Seoul, Busan and Paris, Gana Art will open its new branch in New York.
The new gallery, located on 564 West 25 Street, will open on March 20 with an exhibition of photographer Bien-U Bae, who has previously had solo shows at Museo de Arte Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and the ISE Foundation in New York.
Following a model currently in place in its Paris branch, and started in Korea where Gana Art opened its first space in 1983, the gallery will promote Korean art in the US through an artist-in-residence program, providing a studio space and a living stipend for six months to a year. At the main branch in Korea, Gana is hosting up to 60 artists per year.
A truly cultural enterprise, Gana Art comprises galleries, a sculpture park, a museum, ateliers and an art academy in Korea and aims to support contemporary Korean art as well as promote international art in Seoul.
Gana Art’s founder Ho-Jae Lee – who is also the man behind the creation of Seoul Auction House – introduced to the Korean audience the work of modern and contemporary art masters such us Georg Baselitz, Georges Braque, Jean Dubuffet, Andreas Gursky, Jasper Jones, Wilfredo Lam, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, Thomas Ruff, Andres Serrano and Tom Wesselmann.
The new Chelsea gallery, a two-story, 2,250 square-meter space, will host exhibitions by leading contemporary Korean artists, becoming part of the recent arrivals in the city which include Arario and Tina Kim Fine Art.
While the first is currently hosting a museum-like survey of the artist HyungKoo Lee, selected to represent Korea at the last Venice Biennale, Tina Kim Fine Art is currently showing the collaboration between Iranian Reza Farkhondeh and leading Egyptian artist Ghada Amer, who both earned their MFA at Villa Arson in Nice. A solo show of Amer, who participated with Farkhondeh in the Singapore Tyler Print Institute residency program, is currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum.
