Collector and gallerist Kim Chang-il began collecting Korean art in the 1970s, but it was a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) in 1981 that sparked his interest in international contemporary art. In 2014, he resurrected a seminal 1970s office building in downtown Seoul to display his private art collection, which ranges from Korean contemporaries to the New Leipzig School to the Young British Artists. The building’s labyrinthine corridors, narrow staircases, and low ceilings house works by Keith Haring, Neo Rauch, Kiki Smith and Barbara Kruger. Kim rotates the pieces regularly—his collection of 5 000 works is one of the largest and most significant in Southeast Asia. There are three additional branches of the Arario Museum, one on Jeju Island. The polymath restaurateur and department-store proprietor also manages to find time to sculpt, draw, and paint—adding his own pieces to his ever-growing collection.

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