[Interview] The Man Who Walks Through Europe’s Museums: Journalist Seulki Kim

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Aug 3
5 min read

In September 2024, I happened to cross paths with a Korean man at a gallery in central London. It felt like one of those fleeting encounters you forget as quickly as it happens — and yet, here we are, sitting together on a summer afternoon, deep in conversation. That man was Seulki Kim, a cultural journalist from South Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper.

Officially, Kim was in London for a year as part of a fellowship at UCL’s SOAS. But in truth, his purpose went deeper — he had come to study contemporary art. Although he holds a MA degree in contemporary art, Kim is not a formally trained art major, and his thirst for understanding the contemporary scene led him straight into the heart of Europe’s art world. Using London as his base, he had already visited 99 museums across 32 cities and expected to exceed 110 by the end of his stay. Not galleries, he clarified only museums made the list.

After working for 17 years as a culture reporter in Korea, what new perspectives was he gaining through this intense immersion into the art scenes of London and Europe? I asked him just that when we met — briefly borrowing time from his packed schedule — at the National Portrait Gallery.

In a Country Where Criticism Lives

Kim believes in one fundamental principle: “You learn by looking”. As a journalist, he benefited from press access that granted him free entry into most European institutions, and he took full advantage of it. There were times he boarded a flight to Rome or Naples just to see a single painting. He even changed his travel plans to attend a private ceiling mural viewing, which was granted after he sent a cold email to the collector. For him, seeing art wasn’t a passive experience; it was a methodical and, at times, obsessive act of fieldwork.

One striking trend he observed was the renewed spotlight on women artists. These ranged from the Tudor queens exhibition at London’s National Portrait Gallery and retrospectives of British female painters at Tate Britain to Artemisia Gentileschi’s blockbuster show in Paris and exhibitions of overlooked Nordic women painters. The message, he explained, was clear: “This is about rewriting art history.” To him, this was not simply a fashionable nod to feminism but a structural recalibration taking place within Europe’s major art institutions.

Kim also highlighted the strong interconnectedness of European exhibitions. He noted how the work of a single artist might travel between national museums, and how London’s geographic position made it especially well-placed to absorb and reflect wider continental trends in real time.

Two Worlds Apart: British and Korean Journalism

Kim was particularly struck by the robustness of the UK’s cultural journalism, especially its unapologetic tradition of critical reviewing. In British media, the art review stands as a distinct genre. Critics like Jonathan Jones are known to give even blockbuster exhibitions a one-star rating, offering rigorous and fearless appraisals. For Kim, this level of frank critique felt liberating, though he found it entirely unattainable in Korea.

He pointed out that many of the world’s leading art publications are based in London, with full-time staff contributing to global discourse directly from within the city. In contrast, Korea’s art criticism ecosystem is relatively fragile. Prices in the Korean art market tend to be influenced more by media exposure than by critical consensus. The few art magazines that still exist mainly serve an academic audience, while accessible, public-facing criticism is almost non-existent. What does exist, Kim explained, often resembles what he called "wedding speech criticism" — filled with polite praise but lacking analytical depth.

Even so, Kim remains optimistic. Korea’s art scene is evolving rapidly. The country is home to a growing pool of highly educated and internationally fluent professionals. With events like Frieze Seoul now firmly established and foreign galleries increasingly investing in the Korean market, Seoul is quickly emerging as a major hub for contemporary art, both in Asia and beyond.

Hence, despite the challenges, Kim remains optimistic about the future of Korean art. Yes, the country lacks a mature criticism ecosystem, and yes, institutional structures still need work. Even so, he sees enormous potential. Korea’s art world is moving quickly, absorbing global trends with striking agility. In his words, Korea is on the way, and what it needs now is time, support, and structural calibration.

Somewhere Between Journalist and Critic

Kim said he wants his journalism to lean towards criticism, but it isn’t easy. Space in Korean newspapers is limited, and even positive coverage of exhibitions often struggles to make it into print. There is hardly enough room to highlight what is good, let alone to offer critical perspectives on what is not.

In response, he launched his own independent newsletter. It became a way to break free from editorial constraints and simply express his honest impressions. If a show moved him, he would say so. If it felt dull or uninspired, he would say that too. The contents of this newsletter will soon be compiled into two books.

One of the central themes of his writing is the shifting terrain of Ultra Contemporary Art. This term refers to emerging artists, mainly in their twenties and thirties, who became overnight auction stars during the art market boom of 2022, only to see that bubble begin to deflate just as suddenly. Kim has followed this dramatic cycle with the curiosity of a journalist and the sense of responsibility of a historian.

To publish his book, he negotiated image rights directly with artists and galleries, exchanging hundreds of emails in the process. It was far from easy — each step required patience, diplomacy, and persistence. Many young artists asked to revise his drafts, particularly when it came to mentioning auction prices, and he often agreed. These experiences, especially the tension between openness and image control, offered him a clearer understanding of how editorial practices differ between Western and Korean contexts.

In the end, he was doing more than just writing. He was documenting, interpreting, and actively shaping the narrative of a significant moment in art history.

Two hours was not nearly enough to capture all the stories from Seulki Kim’s year in Europe. Had we had more time, we might have talked through the night, speaking about museums in obscure towns, about trends he spotted before anyone else, and about what Korean art could become.

Thankfully, that story will continue in the books he is soon to publish in Korea. In those pages, readers will find what this article could not contain — unseen museum encounters, deeper reflections on market trends, and a kind of honesty that emerges only when a writer steps outside the boundaries of conventional journalism.

Seulki Kim is not simply a journalist assigned to the arts. He is a careful observer and a dedicated chronicler of Korea’s art scene. Now, he is also a traveller who has walked through Europe’s museums with eyes wide open. His journey was not just a personal pilgrimage. It has become, and will continue to be, a gift of perspective for the next chapter of Korean art.

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