ArtAsiaPacific: Weekly News Roundup: October 25, 2024

Korea Artist Prize Unveils Shortlist

On October 24, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) in Seoul and the SBS Culture Foundation announced the four finalists of the annual Korea Art Prize, which is dedicated to supporting young artists whose work deals with social themes. The shortlist includes multimedia artist Kwon Ha-youn, kinetic sculptor Yang Jung-uk, artist and filmmaker Jane Jin Kaisen, and sculptor Yoon Ji-young, each of whom will receive KRW 50 million (USD 36,000). A selection of the finalists’ works, curated by Lee Joo-yeon of the MMCA, is on view at the museum until March 23, 2025. The winner of the prize is set to be announced in February 2025 and will receive an additional KRW 10 million (USD 7,200).

New Zealand’s Arts Foundation Reveals 2024 Laureates

The Ōtautahi/Christchurch-based Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi has announced the eight winners of its annual Laureate Award, who will each receive a NZD 35,000 (USD 21,000) grant. The recipients include Ngāti kurī ki Ngāi Tahu and Samoan Celtic multidisciplinary artist Lonnie Hutchinson (visual arts); Dunedin-based artist Saskia Leek (visual arts); Chinese poet and novelist Alison Wong (literature); Ngāti Awa/Tūhourangi/Mataatua sculptor and designer Carin Wilson Kahui Whetu Ngā Aho (design/sculpture); Auckland-based composer Claire Cowan (music); Ngāpuhi/Ngāti Porou/Taranaki musician Horomona Horo (Taonga Pūoro/composer); and Ngāti Hine/Ngāpuhi actor Miriama McDowell and Samoan Scottish playwright Victor Rodger ONZM (theater). Now in its 24th year, the award recognizes exceptional artists from Aotearoa New Zealand. The selection panel comprised Karl Chitham, director of Wellington’s Dowse Art Museum; Lucy Hammonds, curator of Dunedin Public Art Gallery; and Zoe Black, deputy director of the Auckland-based Objectspace gallery, among others.

AA Murakami Bubble Installation Heads to Manhattan

British Japanese multidisciplinary artist duo AA Murakami’s large-scale commission for the digital art exhibition “Midnight Moment” is slated to debut later this month at Times Square in New York. The installation, titled Floating World (2024– ) and consisting of giant floating bubbles that symbolize the transient nature of reality, will be displayed in a large-scale video format on screens across Midtown Manhattan. The physical works are currently on view at M+ in Hong Kong in an eponymous exhibition featuring two interwoven installations, The Passage of Ra and Beyond the Horizon (both 2024), which also utilize evanescent materials of fog, bubbles, and mist. The duo appropriately use the term “Ephemeral Tech” to describe these multisensory works, which through their impermanence allow viewers to feel more aware of their present surroundings. “Midnight Moment” is the world’s longest-running digital art exhibition, projecting artworks onto 92 billboards across Times Square every night from 11:57pm to 12:00am. 

Naiza Khan Named Harvard University’s Distinguished Artist Fellow

The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute (Mittal Institute) of Harvard University has granted its second Distinguished Artist Fellowship to renowned Pakistani visual artist Naiza Khan, who will participate in a residency in April 2025. Through her research-based practice, which spans drawing, film, sculpture, and archival material, Khan explores contemporary issues of migration and colonial history by interweaving themes of land, body, and collective memory. In a press release, the artist stated: “I eagerly anticipate my time on the Harvard campus, where I aim to engage in impactful exchanges and share my work with students and the wider Harvard community.” Every year, a selection committee comprising faculty members and curators of modern South Asian art nominates a senior artist from South Asia for the fellowship, providing them with a platform to develop future projects and share artistic endeavors with students and faculty across the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mori Yoshiko to Depart Mori Art Museum

Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum has announced that its current chairperson, Mori Yoshiko, will retire on December 31. Her successor, Mori Kyoko, is a member of the museum’s Board of Trustees and will take up the position on January 1, 2025. Despite the change in leadership, the Mori Art Museum will maintain its dedication to representing contemporary art from Japan and the greater Asia Pacific region. Mori Yoshiko will continue to support the museum as chairperson emirata. Additionally, the museum will uphold its principle of “Art + Life,” which “encourag[es] the realization of an enriched, vibrant, and well-rounded society where art relates to all aspects of life.” Since the museum’s opening in October 2003, it has hosted and curated 64 exhibitions at the top of the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in central Tokyo.

Major Hong Kong and Korean Cultural Institutions to Collaborate

On October 23, Hong Kong’s M+ museum signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Asian Culture Center (ACC) in Gwangju, Korea, demonstrating the cultural institutions’ commitment to fostering an enduring partnership. Forthcoming collaborations include co-commissions of new works, co-organizing exhibitions, collection sharing, joint digitization and film restoration, co-curatorial research, and staff and library exchanges, among other shared projects. The MOU marks the ACC’s first institutional exchange, and its first associated project will be organizing the institution’s 10th anniversary special exhibition. ACC president Lee Kanghyun stated: “Through collaboration and exchange between M+’s high-quality collections, research, and programs and ACC’s focus on Asian studies and art and technology research, these two leading institutions of Asia will be able to promote the development of art in the region.”

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