The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA, Director Youn Bummo) is hosting Korea Artist Prize 2021, co-organized with the SBS Foundation, from Wednesday, 20 October 2021 to Sunday, 20 March, 2022, at MMCA Seoul.
Marking its tenth year, Korea Artist Prize 2021 is Korea's representative art award program co-organized by MMCA and SBS Foundation. The members of the evaluation committee, which includes competent visual art experts who deal with diverse issues in the contemporary aesthetics and social realms select four finalists who are sponsored for production of new works. Among them, one final winner is selected through an in-depth screening process.
This year, Kim Sangjin, Bang Jeong-A, Oh Min, and Choi Chan Sook have been selected as four finalists, following recommendation and screening by art professionals from home and abroad. They have been actively producing works in their respective fields - sculpture, installation, painting, and video. In this exhibition, Kim Sangjin and Choi Chan Sook provide a chance for audiences to be immersed into the work through their sound and video installations that awaken their synesthesia. Under the theme of "Now, here," Oh Min and Bang Jeong-A intend to newly awaken the property of time by spotting the moments and spaces of different daily lives.
Kim Sangjin has worked with various medium and forms to address the contemporary perspectives on the world and human beings as well as the changes they go through. In this exhibition, Kim unveils his new work titled Lamp in video game use real electricity, through which the artist sheds light on the impact of people's experience in virtual reality platforms including social media, cryptocurrency, and metaverse on the real world as well as the phenomena that stem from such effects. The video and sound installation work that takes use of the entire gallery space presents a space of organic experience to the audiences, thereby displaying the paradoxical side of human beings who exist in the boundary between the real and virtual worlds.
Bang Jeong-A has been showchasing paintings that are closely connected with the spaces of her daily life and work. Taking an incident that had been hidden underneath her daily life as the medium, Bang introduces Heumul-heumul in this exhibition. Bang perceives the gallery as two different spaces - "Korea's political landscape" that exhibits the country's robust power structure and "plastic ecosystem" that reflects the natural ecosystem. Here, her work suggests audiences to take a moment to look at "Now, here" by acting as a medium that enables the implicit movement of immense power to encounter our daily lives.
In this exhibition, Oh Min introduces her work titled Heterophony. The word 'heterophony,' in music, refers to multiple individuals simultaneously performing a single melody to create melodic variations that coexist and synchronize. The installation work that involves five monitors and dimensional sound presents audiences with a synaesthetic experience of the contemporary moment involving not only images and sound but also light and physical aspects. Oh detects how audiences' movement within the gallery space and their experience with images affect them, while questioning what materials and forms are in visual art.
Using various media, Choi Chan Sook has been dealing with the perspectives and stories of her long migration experience. As Choi has been exploring the stories of people who had to be pushed out from certain places as well as issues of property ownership, the artist also focuses on land and body that constitute one's memory and history. qbit to adam, a 4-channel video and sound installation, sheds light on the history of human's labor and land ownership from mining of the past to today's cryptocurrency mining, putting to the surface the irony that exists between the two. The artist questions how the reality's virtual space and digital system brings about physical sense when encountered with the conventional and immense narrative, as well as the creation of new senses and existences within such space.
The final winner of the Korea Artist Prize 2021 will be announced in the first half of 2022, following the second round of screening to be held during the exhibition period. The winner will be named as the "2021 Artist of the Year," and awarded an additional grant of KRW 10 million along with a gold plate plaque. In addition, SBS will produce and air a documentary on contemporary art that sheds light on the four artists including the final winner.
Director Youn Bummo of MMCA describes Korea Artist Prize 2021, which MMCA is co-organizing with SBS Foundation for the tenth year as "Korea's representative award program that selects a Korean artist who can garner global attention," and added that "this year's exhibition will be filled with a high level of diversity as the artists will be showcasing art works utilizing various media to address contemporary issues."
KOREA ARTIST PRIZE (2012~)
Launched in 2012, Korea Artist Prize, is a representative award program co-organized by MMCA and SBS Foundation to support, promote and sponsor artists who present new possibilities, visions and alternatives for Korean contemporary art. Garnering interest annually, Korea Artist Prize has played a role in suggesting new discourse and direction for the Korean art scene.
In order to reflect diverse perspectives amid the changing art environment and to encourage continued global interest for Korean art, the members of the recommendation committee and judging committee are newly selected each year, which also includes international art professionals. There are a total of five members on the judging committee for Korea Artist Prize 2021: Park So-hyun (professor at Seoul National University of Science and Technology), Choi Eun-ju (director of Daegu Art Museum), Eugene Tan (director of National Art Gallery, Singapore), Defne Ayas and Natasha Ginwala (artistic directors of Gwangju Biennale 2021), Youn Bummo (director of MMCA, ex officio).
This year’s selected artists will each receive a KRW 40 million grant provided by the SBS Foundation for production of new works. The final winner, selected through a second-round evaluation process to take place during the exhibition period, will be named “2021 Artist of the Year” and awarded an additional grant of KRW 10 million.
Moreover, the MMCA and the SBS Foundation also manage the Korea Artist Prize Promotion Fund to support overseas projects of the artists selected through Korea Artist Prize. This program has sponsored numerous artists including Koo Donghee’s exhibition at the Sharjah Biennale 13 (2017), Yee Sookyung’s main exhibition at the 57thVenice Biennale (2017), Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho’s solo exhibitions at Tate Liverpool in 2018, as well as other overseas projects by Kira Kim, Gim Hong-sok, Na Hyun, Mixrice, Oh Inhwan, Chang Jia, Jo Haejun, Ham Kyungah, and Ham Yang Ah. In 2019, the Korea Artist Prize Promotion Fundsponsored artist siren eun young jung's exhibition at the Korea Pavilion of the 2019 Venice Biennale, while in 2020, it sponsored artist Rhii Jewyo's solo exhibition at New Castle, UK.
