Ayoung Kim has been named the recipient of the 2025 LG Guggenheim Award, becoming the first Korean artist to receive this prestigious honor. The award is a central component of the LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Initiative, a five-year collaboration between LG and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, established to celebrate and support artists working at the intersection of contemporary art and technology. Kim is the third artist to be recognized through the program and will receive an unrestricted prize of $100,000.


 “At its core, Ayoung Kim’s pathbreaking work invites viewers not only to marvel at her technical mastery but also to engage with deep questions about time and the human experience in an accelerating digital age,” said Naomi Beckwith, Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator at the Guggenheim. “Her visionary work illuminates the convergence of machines and humanity, and I am honored that Kim is recognized as a leading voice through this award.”
 



Constructing Speculative Realities through Technology and Narrative
 
Kim is best known for her acclaimed Delivery Dancer series, a speculative video work inspired by the global pandemic. Through the imagined movements of female delivery workers in a futuristic cityscape, the project explores urgent questions of labor, mobility, and algorithmic infrastructures. The series earned Kim the Golden Nica Award at Ars Electronica in 2023 and the inaugural ACC Future Prize in 2024, securing her position as one of the leading voices in global media art.

Trained in motion graphics and lens-based media, Kim's practice combines emerging technologies such as motion capture, game engines, AI-generated imagery, and animation software with complex narrative structures. Her works weave together Korean subcultural aesthetics, including Webtoons and GL (Girls’ Love), with firsthand field research, speculative cosmologies, and mythological references. Drawing from particle science, quantum theory, and multiple-world ontologies, Kim constructs immersive environments that challenge how technology mediates human experience.


“As technology advances, human life inevitably becomes more intricate. What artists can do is explore the uncertainties it conceals and deploy it in the most intuitive way. I’ve never been a techno-determinist or techno-pessimist—I’ve always sought to use technology to reflect upon the society we live in,” said Kim in her acceptance remarks.




“AI May Be a Powerful Tool, But It’s Not Yet Art”

Alongside her recognition, Kim offered a clear and critical stance on the artistic legitimacy of generative AI. “Just as photography in the late 19th century disrupted painting’s role in representation and led to the birth of modern art, generative AI will inevitably transform how we conceive and produce art,” she explained.

However, she warned against prematurely equating AI-generated outputs with art. “AI can be an excellent tool for creation,” Kim stated, “but it lacks the core conditions of artistic practice: the artist’s intention, the pain and labor of the process, and the conceptual depth that comes from within.”
 
As a juror for the Ars Electronica festival, she reviewed numerous works entirely generated by AI. While many were visually stunning, she emphasized that “technical fluency alone cannot define a great work—what truly matters is the depth of thought embedded within it.”


 
Jury Statement
 
The 2025 jury—comprised of Mohamed Almusibli (Kunsthalle Basel), Doryun Chong (M+, Hong Kong), Sabine Himmelsbach (HEK, Basel), Alfredo Jaar, and Noam Segal (Guggenheim)—issued the following statement:
 
“Ayoung Kim’s work represents a paradigm shift in how artists can engage with emerging technologies, fusing traditional cinematic and graphic tropes with innovative image-making methods. Her integration of performance, virtual environments, gaming engines, and printmaking reveals a capacity to build cohesive, thought-provoking systems across disparate mediums. By embedding cultural narratives and historical inquiry within technologically advanced frameworks, Kim redefines the artist’s role as a connector of social legacies and speculative futures.”
 
“Her exploration of the human condition—framed within algorithmic systems—asks essential ethical and emotional questions about living in a technology-driven world. Her artistic voice balances precision with experimentation, enabling her work to resonate across disciplines and audiences. The jury recognizes Kim as a pioneering, trailblazing artist of her generation.”

The 2025 LG Guggenheim Award was announced at the annual Young Collectors Council (YCC) Party on May 8, sponsored by LG Display. The evening featured an immersive installation in the Guggenheim rotunda by artist and technologist LaJuné McMillian. Two more LG Guggenheim Award recipients will be named by 2027.
 
The Young Collectors Council (YCC) is a dynamic group of young professionals ages 21–40 who seek to further their understanding of contemporary art through a dedicated calendar of curator-led programs and special events such as curator-led tours, artist interactions, private collection visits, and more. Members convene for the unique opportunity to participate in a biannual meeting to further the YCC’s mission of acquiring emerging, contemporary art for the museum’s permanent collection and supporting our groundbreaking exhibitions and education initiatives.


 
International Recognition and Future Projects

Born in Seoul in 1979, Kim has exhibited extensively at major international institutions. Her recent exhibitions include Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2025), ACMI (Melbourne, 2024), M+ (Hong Kong, 2024), the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 2024), HEK (Basel, 2023), and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, 2023). She has also participated in the Sharjah Biennial (2023), Gwangju Biennale (2018), and Venice Biennale (2015).
 
Her works are held in public collections including Tate (London), Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul), Frac Lorraine (France), the National Museum of Art (Osaka), and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Korea).
 
To commemorate her LG Guggenheim Award, LG is broadcasting a special video featuring scenes from Delivery Dancer on its Times Square billboard in New York through May 25.


 
About the LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Initiative
 
The LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Initiative is a five-year commitment to supporting artists who redefine how technology can be used as a creative medium. Unique in its scale and approach, the initiative enables the Guggenheim to deepen its curatorial research, develop public programming, and amplify new artistic languages at the intersection of art and innovation.
 
Noam Segal joined the Guggenheim in 2023 as LG Electronics Associate Curator, leading research efforts and developing scholarship around technology-based practices.