About

If I had to define myself in one sentence, I’d say I’m an unconventional arts professional. Defining my personal passion and animus is easier: art of all sorts, from the most ancient Mesopotamian traditions to hyper-contemporary NFTs and Web3 art practice. I was born in Seoul, South Korea, and did most of my living and schooling on the East Coast USA and Paris, France. When I entered my undergraduate at The College of William and Mary in Virginia, I started off my academic journey as a Pre-Med/Neuroscience major thinking that my future lies solely in the pursuit of M.D./Ph.D. degrees from a medical school no less than Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, but my thirst for language and art made me spend an awful lot of time reading Proust, Lacan, Foucault, Winckelmann, and Heidegger, and I think I switched my undergraduate major 10 times (or perhaps more). I took a hiatus from academia and worked at the biggest corporate and IP law firm in Seoul for a couple of years, only to find myself before long living in Paris where I double majored in Archaeology and Art History at Sorbonne Université-Paris IV. The French academic world made me thirsty for the money-driven art market, thus I followed my strong instinct to be where the action was, naturally relocating to Manhattan, where I received my Master’s degree in Art Law and Art Business from Christie’s Education New York. Having delved into both primary and secondary art markets in Paris, NYC, and Seoul, I’m USPAP compliant through the AAA (Appraisers Association of America). When I left New York, just like everyone else I thought I’d « be right back »  but on one hot summer, the most unlikely life event occurred which afterwards changed the course of my narrative. While my next city is yet to be known, I’m based in Hong Kong since 2021 where I work in a contemporary art gallery with four brick-and-mortar exhibition spaces across Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Bangkok, and Paris. 

My first book, which I’m working on now, explores the theme of art and everything that revolves around it. I once had an ambition to write a grandiose survey on history of discipline and methodology of art history and its meaning within modernity and contemporaneity in the 21st-century art industry, encompassing a broad swath of studies of Riegl, Strzygowski, Warburg, Panofsky, Pächt, Gombrich, and Baxandall; however who will be my readers but the jury members of Ph.D. dissertation in the art history department? I wrote my Master’s thesis titled Investing in the Future Sublime: Exploring the Potentials and Challenges of Distribution of Digital Art in the Art Market, examining Web3 in art and its implications for collectors and professionals in the art industry and the application of blockchain in the art world. I now write short essays and diaries mostly in Korean and English, occasionally in French. I haven’t found the publisher for my first book yet but it will be published soon, I promise… hopefully not too many years from today.