On 27 March 2019, the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) and HUGO BOSS announced the launch of the 2019 edition of the HUGO BOSS ASIA ART Award for Emerging Asian Artist and its four finalists. Continuing on the success of its previous editions, the Award maintains its focus on emerging artists from Greater China and Southeast Asia. The biannual award is one of the most reconised contemporary art prizes in Asia, and since its foundation in 2013 “champions the diversity of emerging art in Asia on an aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural level, and moreover supports and promotes innovative artistic practices and thoughts, thereby offering artists further visibility”.
Hao Jingban. Image courtesy the artist. Hsu Che-Yu. Image courtesy the artist. Eisa Jocson. Photo: Gelo Concepcion. Phan Thao Nguyen. Image courtesy the artist.
Artists are nominated and selected by a committee of leading figures in the Asian art scene. This year’s jury included Larys Frogier, Director, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai and Chair of the HUGO BOSS ASIA ART Jury; Beijing artist Cao Fei; Manila-based Patrick D. Flores, art historian, curator and Artistic Director, Singapore Biennale; Gridthiya Gaweewong, Artistic Director, Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok; Sunjung Kim, President, Gwangju Bienniale Foundation, Seoul; and Carol Yinghua Lu, Director, Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing. Among the nominators in 2019 were Nikita Choi, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Times Museum, Guangzhou; Dinh Q. Lê, artist, Ho Chi Minh City; Seng Yujin, Senior Curator, The National Gallery Singapore; and Hong Kong-based independent curator Chantal Wong.
The four 2019 finalists are Chinese artist Hao Jingban, winner of this year’s Han Nefkens Foundation – ARCOmadrid Video Art Production Award, Taiwanese Hsu Che-Yu, Filipino artist Eisa Jocson and Vietnam’s Phan Thảo Nguyên, winner of the 2018 Han Nefkens Foundation – Loop Barcelona Video Art Award. The exhibition of the finalist artists will run at RAM from 18 October to 15 December 2019, curated by Billy Tang, Senior Curator of Rockbund Art Museum. The show will feature selected representative works as well as new commissions. The final winner of the Award, who will receive a RMB300,000 prize to support his practice and development, will be announced in November 2019.
Hao Jingban (b. 1985, Shanxi, China) uses a wide range of found footage, recordings, archival material, interviews and voiceovers to engages with complex historical narratives and social movements by exploring the structures of experimental, documentary and essay film. Taipei-based artist Hsu Che-Yu (b. 1985) primarily works in animation, video and installation to explore the relationship between media and memories. His main concerns lie in the tracing of historical events through media, as well as the construction and visualisation of memories.
Manila artist Eisa Jocson (b. 1986), originally trained as a visual artist, is a choreographer and dancer with a background in ballet. She investigates the labour and representation of the dancing body in the service industry, from pole dancing to hostess work. Vietnamese multimedia artist Phan Thảo Nguyên (b. 1987) works with painting, video and installation. Through literature, philosophy and daily life, she observes the ambiguities of social convention, history and tradition.
Larys Frogier, the Director of the Rockbund Art Museum and the Chair of the Jury for the HUGO BOSS ASIA ART, commented:
Thanks to the great expertise and open-mindedness of our jury members, the finalist artists brilliantly contribute to the qualitative diversity of contemporary art practices in Asia, revisiting the formats of performance and choreography to question social codes and gender identities, embracing video, painting and installation to remake historical and current narratives. While they engage local contexts in their artworks, it is to remake histories, to dig out philosophical, social, cultural and universal perspectives that are at the opposite of any form of regionalism and conservatism. With its fourth edition, HUGO BOSS ASIA ARThas also built a solid network in South East Asia and Greater China in order to enrich mutual knowledge in favor of artistic and curatorial development.