Artist Hong Jin-hwon has been selected as the recipient of the 《Korea Artist Prize 2026》, co-presented by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) and the SBS Foundation.
 
The 《Korea Artist Prize》 is a leading contemporary art support and award program in South Korea, jointly organized by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) and the SBS Foundation since 2012.
 
Each year, the program selects four artists or teams, supporting the production of new work and exhibitions, as well as a range of activities, including participation in international projects.
 
The final award recipient, Hong Jin-hwon, explores the social and political power relations embedded in images through various media, including photography, video, and web programming.
 
A former foreign correspondent, he focuses on how the sites of protests and struggles he has witnessed are transformed into images. By juxtaposing different images and sounds, he sheds light on the power relations at work within them.

At 《Korea Artist Prize 2026》, Hong garnered significant attention for a compelling body of new work that pushes the boundaries of still photography and raises questions about visual power and landscapes marked by tragedy.
 
His new work presented in this exhibition, The Highest Form of the Image Is Armed Struggle (2026), juxtaposes the language of past revolutions with contemporary scenes of protest to examine how sites of resistance and struggle are transformed into images that can be predicted and controlled.
 
Exactly Speaking, the Milky Way Is a Phantom (2026) weaves together landscape photographs of places marked by tragedy and the research of Dutch astronomer Anton Pannekoek to explore the relationships between absence and silence, looking and memory.

Juror Charmaine Toh, Acting Head of Curatorial of the Tate Modern, remarked that “Hong’s work reveals the tension between social practice and its representation through images, questioning the visual systems through which we see and understand reality.”
 
Another juror, Emma Enderby, Director of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, remarked, “The way Hong juxtaposes images and records from different periods and contexts is particularly striking, convincingly demonstrating how images not only convey social events but also reshape their meaning.”
 
Taewook Youn, Acting Director of the MMCA, stated that the work “demonstrates that images are not merely tools for documenting reality, but also conditions that shape the meaning and memory of social events, prompting us to reconsider the visual systems and power relations we have long taken for granted.”
 
The final recipient of 《Korea Artist Prize 2026》 was selected through a final closed-door jury deliberation, following public discussions with domestic and international jurors held during the exhibition and the audience-participatory roundtable Artist–Jury Dialogue, which took place on October 27.
 
As the final award recipient, Hong Jin-hwon will receive an additional 10 million KRW in funding. The exhibition remains on view at MMCA Seoul through December 6.

References

• 국립현대미술관 보도자료 (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) Press Release)