Kate Oh, vice president of the Brand Communication Division at LG Home Entertainment Company (LG OLED)

It takes time when you are striving to change people’s long-standing perceptions. Kate Oh, vice president of the Brand Communication Division at LG Home Entertainment Company, is starting to see progress after years of trying to redefine art with OLED TVs.

LG OLED has collaborated with over 30 globally established artists since 2021, including Anish Kapoor, Barry X Ball, Damien Hirst, Sir John Akomfrah, Kevin McCoy, Kim Whan-ki and Suh Se-ok.

LG OLED joined Frieze Seoul as the official headline partner starting last year, seizing the “perfect opportunity” to herald its art initiative and promote media art created with the company’s technology at the global art fair where art lovers from across the globe gather.

The first project shown at Frieze Seoul last year was a collaboration with the Whanki Foundation to shed light on Korea’s late modern art pioneer Kim Whan-ki, which was a “groundbreaking” project for her that paved the way to expanding Kim’s art world into the digital realm.

“When we offered the foundation that we wanted to reinterpret Kim’s paintings on a digital canvas, it took time to persuade the foundation and get approval to re-create them with the new media,” she said. "The copyright issue for new works was also a sensitive issue."

The exhibition presented 12 of the artist’s original paintings and five media works using LG OLED displays as a digital canvas.

“Thankfully, the foundation agreed to re-create the (works via OLED displays as a) digital canvas and the copyright for the new works is given to the foundation as well as Verseday and Je Baak, who re-created the works,” she said. "It was the first exhibition of this kind for the foundation that gave recognition to media art creators."

An installation view of the exhibition “Suh Se Ok X LG OLED: Reimagined by Suh Do Ho, Shaped by Suh Eul Ho” (LG OLED)

For the third edition of Frieze Seoul this year, the company unveiled the “Suh Se Ok X LG OLED: Reimagined by Suh Do Ho, Shaped by Suh Eul Ho” exhibition in collaboration with late artist Suh Se-ok’s two sons, architect Suh Eul-ho and and artist Suh Do-ho. The exhibition is on view through Saturday at Frieze Seoul at Coex.

What Oh ultimately hopes for is to have an LG OLED art museum dedicated to art created with the displays as a digital canvas.

“I hope the time will come when we see TV screens as a new canvas at a gallery or museum, not just at electronics retail shops,” she said. "And we are seeing more people are becoming more open to digital art."