Weekly News Roundup: April 12, 2024
By The Editors
(From left to right) Portrait of HAYOUN KWON, JUNGUK YANG, JIYOUNG YOON, and JANE JIN KAISEN. Courtesy the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.
2024 Korea Artist Prize Finalists Announced
On April 9, Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) announced the four finalists of its Korea Artist Prize 2024: multimedia artist Hayoun Kwon, sculptor and installation artist Junguk Yang, Denmark-based visual artist and filmmaker Jane Jin Kaisen, and sculptor Jiyoung Yoon. The prize winner will be announced in February 2025. Finalists will showcase work from a wide range of disciplines, with Kwon producing VR works that create spaces filled with personal memories; Yang examining the daily lives of ordinary people and representing their experiences through kinetic sculptures; Kaisen using video art to explore issues of memory, migration, borders, and translation based on her research of Jeju Island’s history and culture; and Yoon creating sculptures that expose the operative structures of sacrifice and faith underlying society. Co-organized by MMCA and the Korean broadcasting giant SBS Foundation, the second edition of the prize will provide the winner with a total of USD 43,500. The award exhibition will run from October 25, 2024 until March 23, 2025.
Exterior of the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan in 2022. Courtesy the Busan Biennale.
Busan Biennale Reveals Artist List, Theme
The Busan Biennale has announced its list of participating artists as well as the theme for its latest edition. Led by co-artistic directors Vera Mey and Philippe Pirotte, the selected artists include Iranian visual artist duo Golrokh Nafisi and Ahmadali Kadivar; Busan-based mixed-media artist Bang Jeong A; Senegalese multidisciplinary artist Cheikh Ndiaye; Manchuria-born Korean feminist artist Yun Suknam; Vietnamese conceptual artist Nguyễn Phương Linh, with filmmaker and artist Trương Quế Chi; Korean outsider artist Doowon Lee; Tongan multidisciplinary artist John Vea; and Accra-based artist and curator Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson, among others. The theme for this year’s Biennale, “Seeing in the Dark,” encourages artists to reimagine contemporary issues humanity is currently facing through the adoption of unconventional perspectives. The Biennale is scheduled to take place across a variety of venues from August 17 until October 20, 2024, opening a month earlier than usual.
Exterior of the Museum of Modern Art New York’s main entrance on West 53rd Street. Photo by Noah Kalina. Courtesy the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Hyundai Card and New York's MoMA Team Up Again
Korean credit card company Hyundai Card has announced that it will team up with New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) as a way of fostering Korea’s art sector. The institutions have collaborated since 2006, but this new phase, the Curator Exchange Program, will initiate projects focusing on Korean modern art, as well as provide opportunities for international exchange. Hyundai Card will select curators to join the MoMA team in June and curate special exhibitions in both New York and Seoul, “Hyundai Card First Look,” the first of which will feature the works of pioneering Korean abstract artist Lee Seung Jio (1941-1990) and American performance artist Martine Gutierrez. In turn, in 2024 six MoMA curators and staff members will travel to Korea to increase their knowledge and understanding of Korean art, as well as search for emerging talent. Hyundai Card will also collaborate to produce a Korean edition of “Primary Documents,” a series of modern and contemporary art research books published by MoMA.
