To See Jeff Koons' Work, Click 'Here'... Hyundai Department Store Drives Art Marketing

2024 Art Marketing Catchphrase 'The Artful Hyundai'
Imprinting a Premium and Trendy Image on the MZ Generation

Hyundai Department Store is accelerating its art marketing efforts with the start of the 2024 Gapjin year.

Jeff Koons' 'Centaur and Lapith Maiden'.

On the 25th, Hyundai Department Store announced that it has selected ‘The Artful HYUNDAI’ as the catchphrase for its 2024 art marketing campaign. The term Artful is a compound of Art, meaning art, and the adjective Full, meaning filled with, expressing the intention to transform department stores and outlets into spaces filled with art to inspire customers in their daily lives.

To realize this catchphrase, Hyundai Department Store plans to create ‘Art Spots’ in all 24 stores nationwide, including 16 department stores and 8 outlets, where world-class artworks will be exhibited and sold. They will also collaborate with domestic and international museums and galleries to hold top-tier exhibitions and expand artainment content.

This initiative is based on the observation that the MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z) increasingly enjoys art. They judged that art is suitable to convey an image of luxury and trendiness to the MZ generation. In fact, at ALT.1, the complex cultural space of The Hyundai Seoul, 71% of visitors from January to November were in their 20s and 30s.

As the first exhibition of the new year, The Hyundai Daegu will display and sell Jeff Koons’ representative work from the Gazing Ball series, ‘Centaur and Lapith Maiden,’ on the first floor at The Square. The exhibition period is from January 2 to March 31, 2024. Jeff Koons, a world-renowned contemporary artist, set a record for the highest price ever for a living artist when his work ‘Rabbit’ was sold for $91,075,000 (approximately 108.3 billion KRW) at Christie’s New York auction in 2019. The exhibited piece is a 2.2-meter-high plaster sculpture depicting the mythological battle between the centaur and the Lapith, which was also well received at the global art fair ‘Frieze Seoul 2023.’ The selling price is approximately 5.2 billion KRW.

At the Pangyo store, from January 12 to February 18, 2024, works by the rising American artist Adam Handler will be exhibited and sold. The exhibition will feature new and unique paintings using oil sticks (stick-shaped oil paints) under the theme ‘What Makes Me Happy,’ which will be shown in Korea for the first time. At D-Cube City, until February 15, 2024, paintings and sculptures by Eva Armisen, known as the ‘artist who paints happiness’ and beloved in Korea, will be sold.

Collaboration with prestigious domestic and international museums, galleries, and art institutions will also be expanded. In partnership with Italy’s National Archaeological Museum of Naples, The Hyundai Seoul will hold the ‘Pompeii Relics Exhibition: You Were There’ at ALT.1 on the 6th floor from January 13 to May 6, 2024. Over 120 relics, including sculptures and frescoes from the museum’s collection, will be showcased.

In March and September next year, large-scale art fairs will be held at the Pangyo and Trade Center stores in collaboration with leading domestic galleries and art institutions. Additionally, negotiations are in the final stages with ‘Louvillant Boena,’ the world’s largest gallery, to hold an exhibition covering everything from 14th-century antiques to contemporary art in the first half of next year.

Yang Myung-sung, Executive Director of Sales Strategy at Hyundai Department Store, said, “Starting with Jeff Koons’ works, we plan to continuously showcase artworks that are difficult to encounter in Korea at department stores and outlets nationwide. Going forward, through various artainment contents, we will provide customers visiting our department stores and outlets with profound and rich artistic experiences, inspiration, and healing.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.