Jaewook Lee, Jeamin Cha, and Onejoon Che:
2014 winners
Sindoh Foundation
Sindoh Co. Ltd. 277-22
2ga, Sungsu-dong
Sungdong-gu
Seoul 133-705
Korea
Artists Jaewook Lee, Jeamin Cha, and Onejoon Che have been selected as winners of the 2014 Sindoh Artist Support Program (SINAP).
Sindoh Artist Support Program (SINAP) was created in 2011, following the efforts and passion of Gaheon Sindoh Foundation, and led to promotion for highly innovative and critical artistic projects by contemporary Korean artists. The year of 2014 marks SINAP’s fourth anniversary, continuing its efforts provide young and contemporary artists in South Korea with fertile grounds to extend their artistic experimentations on a global scale. The winning artists Jaewook Lee, Onejoon Che, and Jeamin Cha have demonstrated their conceptual frameworks and levels of execution that would be compatible to what is conceived as the most innovative and interesting artistic fronts in international art world. To introduce previous winners of SINAP, Joonho Jeon and Kyungwon Moon (Media Art and Film), Sookyung Yee (Installation and Media Art), and Inwhan Oh (Installation Art) were selected in 2011; Young-In Hong (Installation and Feminist Art), Junebum Park (Media Art), and Jaebum Kim (Photography) in 2012; and Bona Park (Media Art and Film), Heaven Baek (Participatory Artistic Practice), and Jihyun Jung (Installation Art) in 2013.
Every year, the panel of an international judge and a Korean judge researches and reviews South Korean artists whose projects have great potentials in international art world. The jury then selects three finalists based on their presentations and interviews. Dongyeon Koh (art critic) served as the SINAP jury in Korea from 2011 to 2014. Hans Ulrich Obrist, who is an International Director of Serpentine Gallery, and Beatrix Ruf, the Director of Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum (previously the Director of Kunsthall at Zurich), have served as the international jury from 2011 to 2012 and 2013 to 2014, respectively.
In 2014, 20 artists were initially selected based upon the research proceed by the staff of SINAP; then the critic Dongyeon Koh, who served as a Korean judge, conducted in-depth interviews with artists. Through the earlier stage of reviewing process, nine candidates were selected, considering their artistic sophistications and potentials to expand a horizon of Korean contemporary art in international art world. After artist’s presentation that was held on September 13, in front of domestic and international jury the three winners, Jaewook Lee, Jeamin Cha, and Onejoon Che, selected as the recipients of 2014 SINAP. Their show will take place in the years of 2015 and 2016 at the Sindoh Cultural Space in Seoul.
2014 SINAP artists
Jaewook Lee graduated from the Department of Visual Arts at the Korea National University of Arts and earned a Master’s in Art Practice from the School of Visual Arts. He is currently enrolled in a Master’s program where he is majoring in Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. He is active in various artistic disciplines, such as planning exhibitions, performance art, and object transformation. He makes his knowledge and skills in a range of artistic and non-artistic realm, including music, theories in science and philosophy integral to his artistic projects. Lee’s prior interest rests on political and ideological issues in South Korea, but recently the artist has shifted his interest in the co-existence between nature and humans, as well as on conceptual thoughts on the notion of “something.”
Jeamin Cha graduated from the Department of Visual arts at the Korea National University of Arts and acquired a Master’s in Fine Arts from the Chelsea College of Arts. Her major interest is in social issues, such as the problems of redevelopment and day laborers in Seoul. Cha has researched controversial issues of criminal investigations and their records in South Korea throughout the last year. She is currently pursuing a novel method of expressing these socially critically themes in a more abstract and visually stimulating way, using her installation mixed with media arts and documentary films. In her most recent media works, which is comprised of the specialized lighting that detects the blood stains of human being, bring up the issue of criminal justice and our dissatisfaction with our current legal system.
Onejoon Che has been participating in various exhibitions in Korea and abroad. His documentary films and photographs depict historical incidents and architectures that became almost forgotten in the history of military and ideological conflicts between South and North Korea. Che, who has recently shown at the Korean Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, continued to work on his own documentary projects that uncover architectural structures and monuments built by North Korean engineers and governments in Africa throughout the 1970s and 1980s; such awkward structures symbolize complicated and sometimes intertwined issues of ideological conflicts of South and North Korea, colonialism, nationalism, and dictatorship in Africa. Che is currently working on his documentary based upon the novel written by the adopted daughter of Ilsung Kim, founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and notorious dictator in North Korea for 46 years until his death in 1994.
*Images, clockwise from left: Jaewook Lee, Thing and Thing, 2014. Books, natural minerals, geometric-shaped objects, approximately 10 x 10 x 1 feet. © the artist. Courtesy the artist. Jaewook Lee, I am A Stone and Lonely Traveler, 2014. A meteorite-shaped object made out of a book about meteorites, approximately 2 x 2 x 2 feet. © the artist. Courtesy the artist. Jeamin Cha, Hysterics, 2014. HD video, color, sound, 7 minutes, 6 seconds. © the artist. Courtesy the artist and Work on Work Production (Seoul). Jeamin Cha, Hysterics, 2014. HD video, color, sound, 7 minutes, 6 seconds. © the artist. Courtesy the artist and Work on Work Production (Seoul). Onejoon Che, Mansudae Master Class, African Renaissance monument in Dakar, Sénégal, 2013. Digital C-print, 51 x 66 cm. Photographic series of Mansudae Master Class commissioned by Musée du quai Branly.
