Korea Artist Prize 2026

About the exhibition

Expect painting, photography, video, installation and archive material from four artists. Newsis reports about 100 works in all. MMCA and the SBS Foundation have run this prize since 2012: each year four artists receive support to make and show new work, and one is named winner.

Lee Hai Min Sun's Outside is acrylic on photographic paper, and Newsis describes an interest in the traces time leaves on objects and surroundings. Lee Jungwoo's The Left Handed Gun is a six-channel video with AI-generated images and sound. Newsis also reports a work that uses AI to restore the 1946 film Jayu Manse, showing that technology cannot fully recover history. Jeon Hyunsun's Even Rabbits Dig a Second Burrow is watercolor on canvas, and Newsis reports 30 canvases, each 2 by 2 meters, joined into one installation.

The Korea Times reports that Hong Jin-hwon won the 2026 prize and calls Hong a former journalist. Hong's video The Highest Form of the Image is Armed Struggle questions how rallies and protest sites become images.