Korea Artist Prize 2018

'Korea Artist Prize'

올해의 작가상  

I visited the ‘Korea Artist Prize 2018’ which is now being exhibited in Seoul MMCA. 

 Organized and presented since 2002 by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea and SBS foundation, ‘Korea artist Prize’(KAP) is a program whose object is to provide support in terms of exhibition space, finances, and exposure to the domestic and foreign art professionals and the general public. 

 Each year, the main themes of the prize are different. For this year, the question shared by this year’s artists is “Are the conditions, thoughts that are surrounding us innately given or merely learned?” Here are showcased the recent works of these four participants who look into the social issues that they come across. 

This time Minja GU, Run young Jung, Okin Collective, Jaeho Jung were the artists.  

 It was my third time to see the ‘KAP’ and I think 2018 was the best among them for me. It might be because I have grown up, or my interest to the artwork has been deeper, I really liked the works of this year’s artists. Especially, Minja Gu and Jae Ho Jung’s works were very impressive to me. 

 ‘Island of the day before’ 

 Among the works, Minja Gu’s work ‘Island of the day before’ was the most impressive to me. In this artwork, which is a video work, If one spends a day in the west and the next he or she live a day in the east, then he or she loses a day in her entire life. So through this performance, Minja Gu lived a same date twice. And for her friend Soo jung Choi, one day was deleted in her life.

Here, the artist poses the question, “Can one live one day twice?” and look into the irreversibility of time’s passage and the meaning of life. She constantly inquires into the possibility that much of what one believes as true might be man-made and that quite the opposite can be regarded as truth in another culture.

So, the artist ‘Mina Gu’ is answering ‘the question’ of the exhibition’s theme through her perspective and by the source of ‘time’. She didn’t think the time, which is the most common thing that has given to us, as a innately given thing. She concerned about the definition of time, and the man-made civilization.   

 Like Gu did, the four artists really expressed their own thinking about the ‘question’: “Are the conditions, thoughts that are surrounding us innately given or merely learned?” through their works. Very different characters of the artworks make us more concentrate and joyful. The single works were all good and artistic, but for me, appreciating the point of views of individual artists was most interesting. 

 Surprisingly, I didn’t know exactly how this exhibition has been run. I just thought this exhibition is just an assembly of Korean contemporary artists’ works which were chosen by the MMCA. But, it was rather a residency program than an artistic competition. Course, since only one artist is selected as the artist of this year, we could not say that it is not competitive, I came to know that this is more like a cooperation group exhibition. I really liked the point that they are sharing the same theme and question for the exhibition by their own perspectives and art expressions.  

 To be honest, before attending this class and writing this kind of review statement, I didn’t look the information of the exhibition or the guide information of the museum with care. I was just looking at the artworks, thinking about the artist’s skills and concentrated in external elements. From now on, I will try to ‘know’ well, and feel well. As professor said in the field trip, feeling is as important as knowing about the work, I will do the both thing while looking around exhibitions. 

 MMCA Seoul is one of my best museums. I feel great and being refreshed when I go there. The interior is fancy and the area is large enough to concentrate on the artworks. Also, you can be free of the noisy shutter sound. Most interesting element of exhibition was that I could pick one artist for the artist of the year. I recommend you the exhibition that is being held in the best museum.

Who is (or was) your artist of the year?