Han Nefkens Foundation to launch new Buk SeMA Korean Video Art Award

The Han Nefkens Foundation – Buk SeMA Korean Video Art Award 2019 aims to be a tool for increasing contemporary artistic production in the video art field and is directed at emerging artists in Korea who have made a significant contribution to contemporary Korean art.

The Han Nefkens Foundation is a private non-profit organization that was set up in Barcelona in 2009 by Dutch writer and patron, Han Nefkens. It aims to promote art and the artistic process and in turn, connect people through art. 

SeMA, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art opened in 2013 as a branch of Seoul Museum of Art, the municipal museum of Seoul. It aims to serve as cultural center for the local community where art, people and nature come together to promote cultural creativity and interaction.

The proposition of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Buk SeMA Korean Video Art Award 2019 involves the production of a video art work. Any type of film or documentary that does not belong to this artistic discipline is excluded. In order to consolidate the candidates’ career, we will appraise emerging promising artists profiles with an international perspective. The production of the new project will take one year, in which the artists must complete their work. 

The winning artist should be of Korean origin or nationality or an artist of other nationality who has made a significant contribution to contemporary Korean art.

The winning artist will receive $15,000 for the production of a new work. One copy of the final production will be donated by the award-winning artist to the Han Nefkens Foundation which will be included in its permanent collection, and the other copies will be properties of the awardee.

The new work will be presented at the Buk-SeMA Seoul in spring 2020 (dates are yet to be confirmed). At a later stage, the work awarded will be presented at several international centers, which are yet to be confirmed.  

For the selection of artists, we are looking for ten internationally recognized art critics and curators who will carry out the scouting process. Through this, they will expand the selected artist’s network of contacts as well as discover and get closer to lesser known video art works and thus, promote this discipline. 

Currently underway, in the proposed selection procedure:

• The selection of ten scouts/experts, each of which must select three artists and provide reasons for their selections, as well as each candidate’s documentation (name, contact, dossier, 4 to 8 videos per artist, portfolio, updated cv).

• These initial 30 proposals will be reduced to 10that will formally be presented to the award jury. The pre-selection of the 10 finalists will be realised by a Buk SeMA representative and a Han Nefkens Foundation representative. 

• The award jury will comprise of 1 or 2 representatives from the Han Nefkens Foundation, 1 or 2 representatives from the SeMA(Buk-SeMA), 3 external international jury-members (appointed by the Buk-SeMA and by the Han Nefkens Foundation) 

The calendar for the selection process of the artists and presentation of the award is as follows:

• 21st January 2019: deadline – presentation of the information of each proposed artist by the scouts involved in the selection process

• 25th February 2019: deadline – presentation of the 10 pre-selected finalists by a Buk- SeMA representative and a Han Nefkens Foundation representative. 

• April 2019: jury meeting and announcement of the winner of the prize (the jury will meet at the Buk-SeMA in Seoul)

• Spring 2020: presentation of the winning project at the Buk-SeMA Seoul