South Korean media artist Im Youngzoo (b. 1982) has been selected as the winner of the 3rd Frieze Seoul Artist Award.
 
Her award-winning work, Calming Signal, a three-channel video installation, is a research-based project that captures, through the language of video, the uncanny similarity between instinctive survival behaviors and repetitive collective gestures that emerge more frequently in times of social instability.

Launched in 2023, the Frieze Seoul Artist Award is a commissioning program that offers emerging and mid-career artists based in Korea the opportunity to present new work. Previous award recipients include artists Hannah Woo and Goen Choi.
 
The 2025 edition of the Frieze Artist Award will be presented under the shared theme of “Future Commons” in both Seoul and London, introducing multimedia works that explore experiences of community and shared resources.
 
Im Youngzoo’s winning work Calming Signal will premiere at Frieze Seoul, taking place at COEX from September 3 to 6. This year’s jury included Yeon Shim Chung (Professor, Hongik University), Gabriel Ritter (Director, Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara, USA), Venus Lau (Director, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Indonesia), artist Minouk Lim, and Jaeseok Kim (former editor-in-chief of Monthly Art).

Im Youngzoo observes and reflects on how superstitions, beliefs, and religious faiths emerge and are embraced, translating these phenomena into video, installation, and performance works. She earned her BFA in Painting from Hongik University, where she also completed the master’s program.

Im has been named one of four finalists for the MMCA 《Korea Artist Prize 2025》, and has held solo exhibitions at various institutions including Perigee Gallery (Seoul, 2024), Outsight (Seoul, 2021), and DOOSAN Gallery (New York, 2019).

References

• 프리즈(Frieze), Dogs, Dervishes, Dendrochronology: Im Youngzoo Wins the Frieze Seoul Artist Award
• 중앙일보, 미신과 신념은 어떻게 생기나…프리즈 서울 아티스트 어워드에 임영주, 2025.06.10