Yim Dai-shik is a painter and curator who has been running a small gallery in the back street of Yeonhui-dong in Seoul since 2014. His only interest has been the popularization of art. He had majored in painting and even won second prize in the western painting category at a renowned art competition when he was a junior in college. But he gave up painting after realizing how unfair and corrupt the art marketing system was. Dreaming of an alternative art market, he went over to the United States and worked as a curator for 10 years. That’s when he learned about running a gallery strictly for artists.



An artist focuses on creation, a curator on discovering talented artists and organizing a show, and dealers on traveling to art markets to purchase artworks. They each have a distinct role to play so that an artist’s livelihood is guaranteed while curators are free to concentrate on planning shows, not selling artworks. Yim Dai-shik wanted to recreate that kind of system in Korea as well. And he's about to realize his dream through Salon Artetain.