Today Frieze revealed that South Korean artist Choi Goen has won the 2024 Artist Award at Frieze Seoul supported for the second year by Bvlgari.
The award enables an emerging or mid-career artist to realize an ambitious new body of work that will then debut at the fair, which runs September 4th–7th, 2024 at COEX. In its sophomore year, the award will build on the success of the inaugural Artist Award at Frieze Seoul received by Woo Hannah, who presented her sculptural installation The Great Ballroom to international acclaim.
A jury of leading industry figures selected Choi’s proposal, with members including Sungah Serena Choo
(Curator, Leeum Museum of Art), Jeon Joonho (Artist), Kim Sung woo (Curator and Director, Primary
Practice) and Yung Ma (Senior Curator, Hayward Gallery).
I am delighted that the Artist Award at Frieze Seoul remains a cornerstone of our programming for a second year. We extend our gratitude to all the artists who submitted proposals and offer special thanks to the jury for their valuable insights. With the Frieze Artist Awards in both Seoul and London spotlighting advanced technologies this year, it will be fascinating to see how two artists interpret this concept differently. Our heartfelt congratulations to Choi Goen, a highly respected figure in Korea’s art scene. We are privileged to showcase artists of Goen’s caliber at Frieze Seoul, and eagerly anticipate our audience discovering more about her remarkable work.
Patrick Lee (Director, Frieze Seoul)
Choi’s winning commission will take the form of two large-scale sculptures, White Home Wall: Welcome
and Gloria, transforming discarded industrial elements so that they create a dialogue on the materiality of
technology. The repurposed materials – exhaust pipes and air-conditioning units – will serve not just as a
manifestation of the hidden infrastructure behind our copious digital connections, but also as a reminder
of the complex physical materials that silently permeate our urban environment.
Presented alongside the gallery booths, Choi’s installation at Frieze Seoul 2024 will consider the fair
venue as a vast technological medium. For the duration of the fair, the work will relay the constant
movement and change that is constantly taking place in COEX and beyond, creating a work that is akin to a performative experience. Through its dynamic interplay of positions, angles and rhythms, Choi’s work will highlight the ever-evolving relationship between art, technology and the urban landscape.
About the artist
Choi Goen (b. 1985, South Korea) gathers common objects such as furniture, home appliances, and pipes from our daily lives and presents them as sculptures or installation works that interact with the exhibition space. For the artist, the newly created home appliances and furniture, reborn from their rearrangements, are the birthplace of the processes through which they were produced, distributed, discarded, and recycled into other resources. They testify to the systems of contemporary industrial society and the networks called ‘cities’ that make it all possible. Previous exhibitions include Art Sonje (2023), Amado Art Space (2022), Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (2022) and P21 Gallery (2021).
