The Artist © Kim Taedong

Yoon Ji Seon (37) was selected for the publication category and Kim Taedong (34) for the exhibition category as the “Featured Artist of the Year” at the 4th Ilwoo Photography Award.
 
Organized by the Ilwoo Foundation under Hanjin Group, the award has been selecting two to three artists annually since 2009 to discover and support promising photographers with talent and passion. In particular, winners of the publication category are given the opportunity to publish a monograph with the renowned German art book publisher Hatje Cantz, supporting their entry into the global art scene.
 
Yoon Ji Seon, selected for the publication category, expands the conventional concept of photography through bold and innovative methods using thread and needle. Her works, which simultaneously possess qualities of painting and installation, allow viewers to experience tactility and spatiotemporality alongside photographic images. She received high praise from the jury for both the completeness of her work and her potential for further development.
 
Kim Taedong, selected for the exhibition category, presents contrasts between massive urban architectural structures and geometric compositions and the restrained expressions of individuals as minimal presences within them. His perspective, which combines traditional compositional methods with a detached gaze and a delicate rendering of inner expression, was evaluated as strongly representative of contemporary art.
 
The jury of the Ilwoo Photography Award consists of five domestic and international experts. This year’s panel included Tan Boon Hui, Director of the Singapore Art Museum; Britt Salvensen, Senior Curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Shin Soo Jin, photography psychologist and professor at Yonsei University; veteran photographer Joo Myung Duck; and Young Min Moon, professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
 
For the publication category, Markus Hartmann, Program Director at the German publisher Hatje Cantz, also directly participated in the judging process.
 
The jury provides guidance as “mentors in creative practice” through one-on-one interviews with applicants. This year, 24 candidates selected in the first round were each evaluated through individual 20-minute interviews.
 
Meanwhile, the winners of the Ilwoo Photography Award are exhibited annually at Ilwoo Space, located on the first floor of the Korean Air Building in Seosomun, Seoul. Currently, a solo exhibition by Choi Youngman, the winner of the 3rd award, is on view through the 26th.

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