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SOUTH July 18, 2013 Media Contact: Soleh Choe Total pages: 8 Tel. +82-2-2188-6236 e-mail. [email protected]

2013 KOREA ARTIST PRIZE

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea 313 -ro Gwacheon-si Gyeonggi-do 427-701 PRESS RELEASE

Co-sponsored by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea(MMCA) and SBS Foundation, Korea Artist Prize adopted an award and sponsorship system with the aim to enrich the field of Korean contemporary art. Its first edition last year signaled a successful start, garnering a great deal of attention from media and the public. The second edition will present the works by four candidates of the 2013 award (Sung- Hun Kong, Meekyoung Shin, Haejun Jo, and Yang Ah Ham) at the MMCA Gwacheon for 94 days from July 19 to October 20, 2013. The winner of the prize will be selected through a due evaluation process.

Now in its second year, Korea Artist Prize is a revamped edition of Artist of the Year, an annual exhibition held from the 1990s at the museum. Korea Artist Prize seeks to identify and support talented artists who represent the vast potential and future vision of Korean contemporary art through the works that have significantly contributed to the development and advancement of Korean art. The steering committee of Korea Artist Prize upholds a fair and transparent selection process and aims to provide a practical, meaningful support for its awardees.

For the 2013 Korea Artist Prize, the steering committee received recommendations from the recommendation board composed of ten experts in the local art world. Those recommendations were then carefully reviewed by five judges representing both the domestic and international art community. This process resulted in the selection of four candidates of the prize: Sung-Hun Kong, Meekyoung Shin, Haejun Jo, and Yang Ah Ham. All four artists have been recognized for their devotion to their artistic pursuit and for the lucid logical basis of their oeuvre. (Refer to the attachment for details on each artist.)

The organization of the exhibition is similar to having the space devoted to four solo exhibitions with each exhibition hall reflecting the distinct characteristic and interest of each artist. The five judges concurred that “each artist visualizes a solid logic with room for various interpretations that could be readily graspable to the global audience.”

The issues at stake include the threats of anxiety prevalent in our society, the rift between different cultures and the effects of their contact, generational gap and an attempt to reconnect, and the non-sensical structure of our everyday reality. These artists maintain a keen and genuine observation of the sociopolitical issues in Korea. They have successfully managed to approach the subject in diverse artistic media, which ultimately contributed to diversifying and enriching the field of Korean contemporary art.

Each of the four candidates is awarded an ‘SBS Foundation Subsidy’ equivalent to 40 million KRW. The winner of the prize will be selected after the review of works exhibited and comprehensive interviews held during the exhibition period. The final selection will be announced in September, and the winner will be awarded with the benefit of having a documentary film produced on the artist’s oeuvre.

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea 313 Gwangmyeong-ro Gwacheon-si Gyeonggi-do 427-701 South Korea PRESS RELEASE

As a co-sponsor of Korea Artist Prize, the MMCA hopes that the annual event will encourage and motivate local artists to delve into their creative visions that could be shared globally. The museum intends to play an integral role in helping the artists share their visions in the local region and beyond.

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea 313 Gwangmyeong-ro Gwacheon-si Gyeonggi-do 427-701 South Korea PRESS RELEASE

[Attachment] About the Artists of 2013 Korea Artist Prize

■Sung-Hun Kong: Winter Journey

(left) Gray Hair, 2013, Oil on canvas, 227.3x181.8cm (middle) Stone Skipping, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 227.3x181.8cm (right) A Man Smoking (Cliff), 2013, Oil on canvas, 227.3x181.8cm

Sung-Hun Kong (b. 1965) has a unique academic background: He received a B.S. degree in electronics engineering from National University of Science and Technology while majoring in painting at undergraduate and graduate schools. At the beginning of his creative activities, the artist concentrated on conceptual work that utilized various types of media. Since the second half of the 1990s, Kong, however, has shifted his focus to painting.

Sung-Hun Kong’s paintings of dreary winter scenes are not about the awe of nature nor the sense of sublime beauty that typically resonates from such awe. Instead, his paintings reveal nature at its exhausted state after having been endlessly exploited and ingested by people until it became no more than a prop on a theater stage. Nonetheless, the tempestuous clouds and storms that engulf his landscapes impart the enduring power that will always remain beyond human control. Such attributes might be an intrinsic part of nature or other unknown forces that defy human control. Some easy examples include situational variables like economic crashes or human desire in a constant state of flux. The power could also symbolize immediacy of crises, imminent threats of war and violence, or even the relentless vulgarity of our society itself.

The admiration we feel for the artist’s paintings does not originate from the inherent sublimity of nature represented in the works. In fact, his landscape have an effect more akin to a Pierrot, whose extravagant dress of bright colors and lavish decorations cloak his inherent gloom in a futile attempt. Likewise, Kong’s views of nature initially present an impressive spectacle, but any feelings of veneration or magnificence the viewer might experience immediately vanish upon discovering a human being rendered in miniscule in the corner of the canvas. The sublimity of the presented landscape, hence, exudes from the artist’s control over the canvas rather than the nature itself he so exquisitely depicts. Kong singlehandedly and faithfully transforms a mere spectacle of nature into a painting rich with multiple layers of meaning and emotion.

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea 313 Gwangmyeong-ro Gwacheon-si Gyeonggi-do 427-701 South Korea PRESS RELEASE

■Meekyoung Shin: Translation—An Epic Archive

Written in Soap: A Plinth Project, 2012-2013, Soap, 3x1.7x2m

(left) Translation Series, 2006-2013, Soap, Dimension Variable (right) Translation Venus Project, 2002 (Restored in 2013), Soap, 200x90x90cm

Meekyoung Shin (b. 1967) studied in the United Kingdom after majoring in sculpture at undergraduate and graduate schools in Seoul. Currently, based in Seoul and London, she is recognized as one of the most active Korean artists in the international art scene.

Meekyoung Shin continues to redefine sculpture through the theme of “translation.” Shin’s method of translation involves recreating classic stone or marble sculptures with soap, a very soft and soluble material. Through her translations, our “solid” knowledge of the classic archetype is transformed, replaced by something much softer and more malleable and delicate. Accordingly, we are forced to question the supposed permanence of the values of these classic works. In addition, her translations reflect the dissolving borders and ever- accelerating experiences of life in contemporary society.

The artist’s translations do not always remain faithful to the original. In fact, they sometimes emphasize the

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea 313 Gwangmyeong-ro Gwacheon-si Gyeonggi-do 427-701 South Korea PRESS RELEASE

differences between the original and the reproduction whether through a direct translation or a more creative, flexible translation. In her more direct approaches that emphasize these discrepancies, Shin has added her own face to the body of a classic Greek statue and created a transparent ghost out of the “westernized” version of Chinese ceramics that were made exclusively to meet the Western taste for the sole purpose of export. At other times, more subtle yet fundamental differences emerge. For instance, she often makes use of our olfactory awareness through the scent of soap, thereby deviously reminding us that vision is not the only perception through which we can grasp the essence of our environment. By evoking the various modes of sensory perceptions, Shin’s works expand the boundaries of contemporary art and ultimately our society.

■Haejun Jo: Scenes of Between

(left) Scenes of Between, 2013, Single channel, full HD color video, 28 min. (right) A Memorial Tree, 2003-2013, Wood, objects, mixed media, 300x400x400cm

DPRK: Reflected upon from Without, 2011, Pencil on paper, wood and acrylic frame, 120x290x40cm

The early works of Haejun Jo (b. 1972) largely consisted of his playing around with borrowed elements, such as objects and images with logos and symbols of capitalism. Since 2002, Haejun Jo has collaborated with his father, Donghwan Jo, to produce a diverse series of drawings that offer glimpses of an ordinary person’s life amidst the tumultuous Korean modern history. The collaboration has continuously evolved by expanding its medium of

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea 313 Gwangmyeong-ro Gwacheon-si Gyeonggi-do 427-701 South Korea PRESS RELEASE

expression from drawings to installations, comic books, and films. Sometimes humorous, sometimes prosaic, sometimes tragic, the early drawings were based on the personal accounts of Jo’s father. The series of drawings from the recent years began to encompass the artist’s own stories when the conversation between the father and son approached a territory that remained unknown to the father—the son’s school days. This collaborative process eventually touched upon the life stories of Jo’s relatives and the activists who have participated in Korea’s pro-democracy movement during the 1980s. As visible in the recent drawings that depict the lives of East-European immigrants in Germany, foreign students who have studied abroad in North Korea, and Arab clerics, the artist continues to stretch his horizons outward, into the realm of world history.

Scenes of Between presents the audience with a binding link that connects the gap between two generations, father and son. In the process, Jo offers a record of how other belongings of the in-betweens, such as the realm of the uncanny that lies between reality and fantasy, slices of different lives precariously attached to the cracks and edges of world history, and an humble ordinary’s creation get elevated to the status of contemporary art. Lying amidst these intermediary landscapes is art that mediates, heals, and reconnects the generational gaps by initiating communication.

■Yang Ah Ham: Nonsense Factory

(left) Factory Basement, 2013, Video projection, Dimensions Variable (right) Room for Drawing a Floor Plan for a New Factory, 2013, Video projection, Dimensions Variable

Bird's Eye View, 2008, Video projection, Dimensions Variable

Although a truly versatile artist with works that span from sculpture, installation, and performance, Yang Ah Ham (b. 1968)’s primary medium is video. She has been active in various cities in and out of Korea. At the heart of her various projects, she always comes back to the subject of “life,” and the new project, Nonsense Factory is of no exception.

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea 313 Gwangmyeong-ro Gwacheon-si Gyeonggi-do 427-701 South Korea PRESS RELEASE

According to Yang Ah Ham, Nonsense Factory is a mirror in which we can observe our society, and indeed, the work parodies contemporary life like a theater of the absurd. Based on a short story written by the artist, Nonsense Factory consists of six parts: “First Room: Central Image Box Control Room”; “Second Room: Welfare Policy Making Room”; “Third Room: Coupon Room”; “Fourth Room: Artists’ Room”; “Fifth Room: Factory Basement”; and “Sixth Room: Blue Print Room for Future Factory.” The parts respectively address the following themes of contemporary society: the ubiquity of images; happiness as an institutionalized ideology; capitalism and the monetary economy; the cultural snobbery in the arts; the precarious state of idealistic values; and the endless competition inevitable to a growth-oriented society.

The work represents a grand metaphor of life in the highly industrialized society of the early 21st century, forcing us to re-examine the values that we habitually ingest like air and water. Nonsense Factory forces us to carefully consider the absurdities and complexities hidden in plain sight in our day-to-day existence.

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea 313 Gwangmyeong-ro Gwacheon-si Gyeonggi-do 427-701 South Korea