2018 Korea Artist Prize winner siren eun young jung

South Korean artist siren eun young jung, winner of the 2018 Korea Artist Prize, talks about her practice in an SBS Foundation short documentary dedicated to the Prize. The artist is representing Korea at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019.

Korea Artist Prize was established by SBS Foundation in partnership with MMCA, Korea to promote contemporary art. This award follows in the footsteps of MMCA’s Artist of the Year exhibitions, which were held from 1995 to 2010. The Prize re-establishes the exhibition series’ mission to discover and sponsor outstanding Korean artists, thus providing an avenue for the advancement of Korean contemporary art.

Korea Artist Prize selects a maximum of four artists (or teams of artists) as ‘SBS Foundation sponsored Artists’ with latent potential through the first-round evaluation process. These exhibiting artists will receive 40 million won as exhibition support to participate in the Korea Artist Prize exhibition held at MMCA, Korea. In the second-round evaluation, a final winner will be announced based on the exhibition. Additionally, SBS will air documentaries to illuminate the oeuvres of the participating artists.

ASIA | Art Spectacle International Asia is an independent online magazine covering contemporary art from Asia-Pacific to the Middle East.

Founder and Editor C. A. Xuân Mai Ardia is a Vietnamese-Italian from Padova, Italy. She currently resides near Venice, Italy, but she has lived around the world for more than 20 years. London was her home throughout university and her first forays in the art world and gallery work, until she moved to Shanghai in 2006 where she worked for Pearl Lam Galleries (then Contrasts Gallery) until 2009. She has lived between Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Padova, Italy in 2009-2016, where she worked at Galerie Qyunh, Craig Thomas Gallery and contributed to Art Radar.

Mai holds a BA in Chinese | History of Art and Archaeology and an MA in Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK, as well as an MSc in Development Studies | Conservation of Cultural Heritage from the School of Development, Innovation and Change (SDIC), University of Bologna, Italy. She has worked in the conservation of world cultural heritage in Rome and in contemporary art galleries in London, Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City. Her articles have been published in Art Review Asia, Art Radar, The Culture Trip and CoBo Social.

Mai joined the Art Radar team as Copy Editor in May 2013, and became Staff Writer in November of the same year. Continuing to contribute her writing to Art Radar, she took up the role of Managing Editor from November 2015 to December 2018, when Art Radar ceased publication.

To continue on and contribute to the dissemination of contemporary art ideas and practices from Asia, Mai founded ASIA in Spring 2019.