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Weekly News Roundup: January 12, 2024
By The Editors
YOO HWA-SOO, winner of the SongEun Art Award in Seoul. Courtesy SongEun SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation.
Winner of the 23rd SongEun Art Award
On January 7, installation artist Yoo Hwa-soo was named the recipient of the 23rd SongEun Art Award in Seoul. Along with receiving a grand prize of KRW 20 million (USD 15,200), the artist will have a solo exhibition at the SongEun Art Space in the city’s Gangnam district, in addition to a spot on the Seoul Museum Art’s year-long Nanji Residency program. Yoo won the prize for a work titled Gesture of Cultivation (2023), which fuses organic matter with state-of-the-art technology using trees cut down from residential constructions to sustain the life of nonedible mushrooms through a sophisticated “smart farm” system utilizing infrared light. His concept for a remote-controlled greenhouse harbors the act of having modern-day tech expend its efforts collecting data on seemingly irrelevant life forms. Two of Yoo’s works will become part of the collections of the SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation and the Seoul Museum of Art. As for the 20 shortlisted candidates, their works, along with Yoo’s winning installation, are on display in a group exhibition at SongEun Art Space until February 24. The shortlisted candidates will have a chance to participate in London-based Delfina Foundation’s 12-week residency.
The exterior of the Dhanraj Mahal building in Colaba where Nature Morte will be its first Mumbai gallery.
Nature Morte Gallery Expands to Mumbai
Mumbai will welcome Nature Morte gallery’s new outpost on January 18, an extension of its original base in New Delhi. The gallery represents a large lineup of commercially successful Indian artists including Bharti Kher, Asim Waqif, Ayesha Singh, and Subodh Gupta. The latter will be featured in the inaugural exhibition. Located in the Mumbai art hub of Colaba, Nature Morte Mumbai will be on the third floor of the Dhanraj Mahal heritage building. The gallery was designed by Rajiv Saini Associates and will be smaller than Nature Morte’s main New Delhi space in The Dhan Mill. The gallery’s founding director Peter Nagy explained the decision to expand on India’s west coast, stating: “Since our inception we’ve sold more to clients in Mumbai than in Delhi” due to the less conservative outlook in the city, known as India’s financial capital. The inaugural show of Subodh Gupta, titled “A small village, around the corner, up in the mountain,” will feature new paintings and sculptures. Planned future events include exhibitions of Italian photographer Lorenzo Vitturi and the New Delhi-based duo Thukral and Thagra.
The shortlisted artists of the seventh Future Generations Art Prize.
Shortlisted Artists for Seventh Edition of the Future Generation Art Prize
The PinchukArtCentre, a private Ukrainian arts organization, announced the shortlisted nominees of the seventh edition of the Future Generation Art Prize. The biannual international contemporary art prize was established by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in 2009 with the aim to discover, acknowledge, and give long-term support to a new generation of artists from around the world. Among the shortlisted nominees of this year’s iteration are: Indonesian transdisciplinary artist Julian Abraham 'Togar'; Mongolian clay installation artist Bekhbaatar Enkhtur; Palestinian visual artist Dina Mimi; Iranian artist Tara Abdullah Mohammad Sharif; Pakistani artist and filmmaker Hira Nabi; Indonesian graphic artist Ipeh Nur; Bangladeshi photographer Ashfika Rahman; Taiwanese video artist Zhang Xu Zhan; and Chinese digital artist Ziyang Wu. The artists will receive commissions to produce works for an upcoming exhibition at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv where the jury will determine the winners of the grand prize and special prizes to be awarded at a ceremony later this year in October. First place comes with a prize of USD 100,000, separated into a USD 60,000 cash prize and USD 40,000 investment in their practice. An additional sum of USD 20,000 will be split and awarded to up to five artists for the special category.
