The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea (NMOCA) selected and announced the artists MOON Kyungwon and JEON Joonho as winners of the 2012 Korea Artist Prize. MOON Kyungwon and JEON Joonho will have many opportunities to participate in international exhibitions through various assistance programs as well as being given priority to participate in future international special exhibitions hosted by the NMOCA.
The 2012 Korea Artist Prize is a new award organized jointly by the NMOCA and the SBS Foundation. The award is intended to serve as a bridge for Korean artists to step onto the world art stage. The Korea Artist Prize concentrates on discovering and supporting new artists, and serves as a field-centered, practical art assistance system that responds to the needs of the contemporary art world.
For the 2012 Korea Artist Prize, the Steering Committee received a list of promising artists recommended by a recommendation team composed of ten people. The recommended artists were reviewed by the Review Committee, which comprised five local and overseas artists, and four teams were selected as “Artists Sponsored by the SBS Foundation”. The NMOCA held the 2012 Korea Artist Prize exhibition to showcase new works of art by the four teams of selected artists, between August 31 and November 11. The Review Committee conducted in-depth interviews with the artists, as well as analyses of their artworks, and selected the final award winners of the 2012 Korea Artist Prize.
The artwork Voice of Metanoia submitted by MOON Kyungwon and JEON Joonho received good reviews from local and overseas judges for having attempted a serious interpretation of a general theme, namely, “What are the social functions and roles of art?”
Mr. Hans Ulich Obrist, a member of one of the five review committees, said, “I can say that MOON Kyungwon and JEON Joonho are the best artists among the artists who have a broad view. They also have great potential to be recognized in the international art arena. The strong point of these artists is that they have shown the power of art based on a process of many investigations through joint works with other genres.”
The NMOCA will give priority to the selected artists to participate in international special exhibitions and send recommendation letters signed by the director of the NMOCA to the world’s most famous museums. It will also provide other benefits including the joint collaborator’s purchase of their artworks, the publication of catalogues of their work, and the production of a documentary about the selected artists.
By winning the Korea Artist Prize, which it is hoped will continue long into the future, the selected artists will receive additional motivation to create more art in the short term and play an important role in constructing the basic infrastructure for cultural art in the future.