Portrait of JaeMyung Noh. Courtesy of the collector.
JaeMyung Noh first started collecting among his classmates in high school. It was there, collecting edition prints and toys with his friends, that he discovered the tangible allure of art, a passion nurtured by his mother from an early age. Despite his initial childhood reluctance, visits to prominent museums like MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother laid the foundation for his enduring love of art.
Today, Noh collects with his wife, SoHyun Park, traveling to art capitals such as Miami, Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo, and New York to peruse and purchase works. “My focus with our collection—my personal collection—is it’s young and international, and it’s young and fresh, so that is our slogan, ‘Young, Fresh, and Classy,’” Noh explained in an interview with Artsy. This mantra is the heart of his latest venture, an art fair inspired by his experience as a collector: Art OnO, meaning “One and Only.”
Interior view of Art OnO at SETEC, 2024. Courtesy of Art OnO.
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Art OnO is Noh’s response to the international attention Seoul’s thriving art scene has garnered, particularly since the inaugural Frieze Seoul three years ago. Motivated to nurture the local art community amid this global buzz, Noh designed a fair that facilitates dialogue between South Korean and international galleries. “I wanted to see the local artists, local galleries, and local art scene grow,” he said. After its VIP preview yesterday, Art OnO opens today through April 21st and welcomes about 40 galleries from 15 countries. featuring major galleries such as Berlin-founded Peres Projects and Hong Kong stalwart Pearl Lam Galleries alongside emerging tastemakers such as Seoul’s CYLINDER and Paris’s cadet capela.
“We mix up everything—we don’t divide sectors, we don’t have sections, so you’ll see everything in just one pot and some big names next to really young talents,” said Noh. Art OnO’s inaugural edition will take place at the SETEC center, located in the southeast corner of Seoul. The venue, which can accommodate up to 100 galleries, will provide ample space for each participating gallery.
Exterior view of Art OnO at SETEC, 2024. Courtesy of Art OnO.
Noh’s vision for Art OnO is tied to his journey as a collector, which began in a convivial, community-oriented environment. This early immersion into art collecting instilled in him a preference for a more approachable and less segmented art world that welcomes dialogue and discovery over exclusivity. Here, with Art OnO, he intends to prioritize the art lover and the relationship between Seoul’s galleries and the international art world.
“The biggest influence was from obviously Art Basel and I really liked Liste—not just the [experimental] works, but the galleries they show,” Noh said. “I wanted to see people just walk around and not so serious. They kind of chill and they talk about art, and that’s what I want to see from my fair. Not just about the value, because nowadays people talk about the value of art, not just the art itself, but they talk about the price. They talk about the brand. They talk about the names. Not that I’m saying that it’s not important. It is important. But I want to hear people talking about art itself rather than the value.”
Portrait of JaeMyung Noh. Courtesy of the collector.
Portrait of JaeMyung Noh. Courtesy of the collector.
Art OnO is designed to be an immersive experience that attracts true art lovers—those drawn not just to the artists but to the stories and the creative process behind each piece. Noh’s curatorial vision for the fair reflects a similar ethos to his personal approach to collecting. He highlights his experiences collecting works by artists such as Simon Fujiwara, whom he encountered at the Istanbul Biennial, and Ryan Schneider, whom he first discovered at a fair in Miami, as examples of artists whom Noh initially took a risk on and have since seen a surge in popularity. Noh has consistently sought to support art that pushes boundaries and challenges conventional tastes. His collection strategy—taking risks on less established artists—echoes Art OnO’s commitment to featuring emerging talents alongside well-known names.
“When people see something really new and something for the first time, then they don’t like it, but they see it for a few times, and then they start thinking it’s unique,” Noh said. “I tell people when you see something really new and you think it’s weird, then you should go for it. Because that’s something that you haven’t seen before.”
Portrait of JaeMyung Noh. Courtesy of the collector.
Art OnO is the latest in a string of alternative fairs, from Basel to New York, that have emerged in recent years, springing from a desire for a complementary, more intimate art experience. Noh is determined to steer Art OnO in a direction that stimulates conversation about new, sometimes shocking art, pushing against the mainstream narrative that often prioritizes market value over artistic merit.
“I wanted to bring that question to our fair so that we show people that there are so many either young or fresh artists that you’ve never seen but show a great quality of works,” Noh said. “We have to go back to the simple question, ‘Is it the quality or the price that makes people think that a certain artist or the work is good?’ Because when we see something expensive, then a lot of people think it’s great, and when people see something cheap, then people don’t really pay much attention to it.”
Portrait of JaeMyung Noh at Art OnO, 2024. Courtesy of Art OnO.
With Art OnO, Noh is channeling his collecting vision into the fair’s foundation. The “Young, Fresh, and Classy” slogan, directly influenced by his and Park’s tastes, drives the curation and presentation of the fair. This approach not only distinguishes Art OnO from more traditional fairs but also gives insight into what Noh values in his personal collection.
Here, he takes us inside his collection, showcasing the inventive and engaging art that the Art OnO founder seeks to champion.
Patrick Eugène, Draped Down for Town, 2022. Courtesy of the collector.
“One of the biggest reasons for owning a work by Patrick Eugène is because it can provide both comfort and joy when hung in my space and seen every day as an artwork. Among my collection, there are also grotesque pieces, but at times, the comfort provided by such works [as Eugène’s] can be substantial.” —JaeMyung Noh
Song Seung-eun, A Boiler Spewing Fiction, 2022. Courtesy of the collector.
“I first encountered Song Seung-eun, one of the Korean emerging artists, and continued to track her works. Over time, I noticed the artist’s maturation in her paintings, which is the reason that I am motivated to start collecting her works. Besides, this artwork, I have been collecting Song Seung-eun’s works consistently since her previous series.” —JN
Rebecca Ackroyd, Direct Lines, 2019. Courtesy of the collector and Peres Projects, Berlin.
“As soon as I saw Rebecca Ackroyd’s work, I felt it would be part of my collection. I had David Altmejd’s work, and I knew I had to have the two in one space. They somehow talk about time, of course, in different ways, and even the results share things in common.
“I called my wife saying we need this work, plus it was shown at a museum exhibition, so even better. The look and the mediums of work are quite intense, but we love the work. Even back then, she was not super popular yet, but I’m happy to see her continue her practice and develop her career as an artist. She will be having a solo exhibition in Venice during the Biennale this year.” —JN
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
