American visual artist Joan Jonas wins 2024 Nam June Paik Prize

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American visual artist Joan Jonas wins 2024 Nam June Paik Prize

Published: 04 Nov. 2024, 15:17

SHIN MIN-HEE
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Joan Jonas is the recipient of the eighth Nam June Paik Prize. [NAM JUNE PAIK ART CENTER]

The winner of the eighth Nam June Paik Prize is Joan Jonas, the Nam June Paik Art Center announced Monday.

“Jonas not only played a key role in shaping early video and performance art but continues to explore urgent new terrain, most recently creating immersive installations that explore the themes of ecology, landscape and kinship between humans and nonhuman species at a time of climate breakdown,” Frances Morris, chair of the jury, said in a statement. Morris is a distinguished professor at Ewha Womans University and the former director of Tate Modern in London.

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Jonas specializes in video and performance art and has been active since the late 1960s. The 88-year-old American visual artist’s early works were performative and incorporated portable video cameras and television monitors, considered pioneering at the time, to question the human role in the video age.

Over time, Jonas’ work has continued to deal with anthropocentrism, by exploring the dichotomies of civilization and nature, as well as human and nonhuman entities.

Jonas was the representative artist for the United States Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. She had a solo retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York earlier this year.

Trophy of the 2024 Nam June Paik Prize [NAM JUNE PAIK PRIZE]

Since 2009, the award hosted by the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi, has recognized artists who have “contributed to world peace” and have exhibited “creativity, experimentation and innovation” through their artistic practice.

Until 2021, the award was known as the Nam June Paik Art Center Prize but has since been reorganized and renamed.

The award ceremony will take place on Nov. 28 at the Nam June Paik Art Center. Jonas will receive prize money of 50 million won ($36,500) and a trophy, and will hold her first Korean solo exhibition at the museum in November next year.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [[email protected]]