Korean Eye: Fantastic OrdinaryBringing Korean contemporary art to an international audience As the largest promoter of golf tournaments in Asia, I have been visiting Seoul for many years. Sports promotion is my business and passion, but art is my first love. On my business trips to Seoul, in-between meetings, I started to explore Korean contemporary art galleries and was overwhelmed by the immense talent that I was seeing. The art was vibrant, interesting and complex. Already a collector of Chinese contemporary art, I was amazed that I had not come across its Korean counterpart and was compelled to find out more about these artists. Spending time in bookshops and searching the internet led me nowhere. I was unable to find any information written in English on the topic. The Korean contemporary art that I had become exposed to inspired me, and I knew it would inspire others. This is how Korean Eye was born.  In 2008, Korean Eye was created as an initiative to highlight and introduce Korean contemporary art to an international audience. Increasingly I found that my enthusiasm and passion for this nascent market was shared by those who began to discover Korean contemporary art. Standard Chartered in particular have been an integral part of the development of Korean Eye. None of this would have been possible without Standard Chartered's shared enthusiasm for the project. As a bank, they are extremely committed to the long-term development of the communities in which they operate and as the largest foreign investor in Korea, Korean Eye was a natural fit.  In Seoul last week (May 25th), we announced our latest exhibition, "Korean Eye: Fantastic Ordinary", which is taking place at the Saatchi Gallery in London from July 3rd to July 18th. The pieces in this year's exhibition are incredible - they have to be. Following the huge success of last year's "Korean Eye: Moon Generation", we had a high standard to live up to. Over 250,000 people visited the exhibition last year and the buzz surrounding the works was infectious. The public loved the exhibition; originally the show was scheduled to run for two weeks, but due to tremendous popularity Charles Saatchi asked for the exhibition to be extended for another 3 months. This year we are working directly with the Saatchi Gallery and they are keen to have even greater involvement with Korean Eye in the future. "Korean Eye: Fantastic Ordinary" examines everyday life and presents it as the fantastical. We are featuring approximately 30 works from 12 artists, including Jeon Chae-gang, who won last year's JoongAng Fine Art Prize, and Lee Rim who has been nominated for the Perrier Jouet Award. The exhibition will begin in London, then move to Singapore in October and come in November to Seoul, where the art will be shown in different locations. A couple of works are to be exhibited at the Jeil Building from November 1st-30th, with the rest displayed at the Korea Foundation from the 16th-30th.  The pieces in the "Fantastic Ordinary" exhibition were selected by an international board of art world professionals who are all renowned in their field. Among them is my wife Serenella, who has been involved in art for a number of years. We are both Honorary Fellows of the Royal College of Art and we have awarded prizes at the college for over 20 years. Serenella has also been working incredibly hard on editing a book we have developed on contemporary Korean art. "Korean Eye: Contemporary Korean Art", to be published by SKIRA in July, will be the first book written in English about contemporary Korean art. The aim of the Korean Eye initiative is to promote Korean art globally by staging annual exhibitions. We hope that each year we will be able to show the exhibition in different cities worldwide. However, it is important that the exhibition is also shown in Seoul so we can celebrate this amazing work in the city where it all began.
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