Weekly News Roundup: July 8, 2022

Abbas Zahedi Wins Frieze Artist Award 2022 

Abbas Zahedi has been named winner of the Frieze Artist Award 2022. He will debut his winning installation Waiting With {Sonic Support} (2022), a wooden structure resembling a bus station designed in a modernist style, at Frieze London 2022 in the coming October. Throughout the five-day fair, a series of “live activations” will be presented within this installation, and broadcasted online and within the fair itself via a handmade radio. In compliance with the Award’s guidelines, Zahedi aims to reduce any negative impact it can create on the site of the installation and utilize sustainable materials that can be reused for his work. According to a statement released by Frieze, the work “builds upon Zahedi’s long-standing interest in borders, thresholds and how things can move within systems or networks.” Founded in 2013, the Frieze Artist Award supports emerging artists by providing them with a platform to premiere a new commission. Previous winners include interdisciplinary artists Himali Singh Soin and Kiluanji Kia Henda, as well as Sung Tieu, who is one of the jury members of this year’s Award.

Seoul’s Autumn Fairs Reveal Gallery Lineup 

The inaugural edition of Frieze Seoul, scheduled to run from September 2 to 5, will feature more than 110 galleries at Seoul’s Convention and Exhibition Center (COEX), including 15 first-timers to Frieze. Alongside the main section, the edition will include Focus Asia, which spotlights ten solo presentations from Asia-based galleries opened in or after 2010, and Frieze Masters, which features masterpieces from Old Masters to the late 20th Century. Led by director Patrick Lee, Frieze Seoul will be co-hosted with the 20-year-old Korea International Art Fair (Kiaf), which has also announced the lineup of 164 galleries. A scale comparable to pre-pandemic standard, Kiaf will also welcome 37 new exhibitors, such as Berlin’s Galerie Thomas Schulte and Hong Kong’s Ora-Ora. Local big-names such as Kukje Gallery, Gallery Hyundai, and PKM Gallery, as well as international bluechips such as Perrotin and Axel Vervoordt, will participate in both fairs, as the fairs will continue with their independent operation and branding. All visitors will be able to enter both fairs with a single ticket. 

Korean Horsehair Basket Recognized at Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 

South Korean artist Dahye Jeong won the EUR 50,000 (USD 52,000) Loewe Foundation Craft Prize with A Time of Sincerity (2021), a 30 centimeter-high horsehair basket. Jeong incorporated and referenced traditional weaving techniques of men’s headwear from the Joseon dynasty (14th to the early 20th century), which honors the cultural heritage of woven fiber in Korea. Jonathan Anderson, Loewe’s creative director who launched the prize in 2016, said in an interview with The Art Newspaper, “What's amazing about this work is that it's made out of a translucent horse hair that looks like wire or glass. The material has a huge amount of tensile strength and so the piece has this wonderfully nervous quality.” The jury also chose South African artist Andile Dyalvane’s glazed stoneware Cornish Wall (2019) and German jewellery maker Julia Obermaier’s Verborgen (2021), a series of structures combined with crystals and resin, for special mentions. All works of the 35 finalists are currently on view at the Seoul Museum of Craft Art until July 30.

Social Practice Artist Receives Korean-American Art Award

The Korea Arts Foundation of America (KAFA) selected artist kate-hers RHEE as the winner of the 2022 KAFA Award. Along with a cash prize of USD 20,000, RHEE will hold an exhibition at the Korean Cultural Center in Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, in 2023, organized by KAFA. Born in South Korea but abandoned due to gender bias, RHEE has lived between the United States, South Korea, and Germany. Her experience of constantly adapting to different cultures guides her creative pursuits with a focus on sharing transcultural auto-ethnographic narratives and object histories that tackle issues related to class, race, and gender. She incorporates artifacts and readymade sculptures in her work as a means of engaging with social issues and decolonizing museum practices. The KAFA juror committee of 2022 noted that RHEE is particularly outstanding for her complex layering of motifs found in historical Korean art with contemporary conceptual sensibilities.