in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró
Musquiqui Chihying is the winner of the Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona Video Art Production Award 2019, in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró, recognising his geopolitical perspective which utilizes the historical past to examine contemporary politics in an increasingly illiberal world, attempting to connect world histories together. He does so in a distinctive style that celebrates complex narratives delivered through a dead-pan sense of humor. The jury therefore believes that he would benefit most from the Award at this moment in his career. Established by the Han Nefkens Foundation in collaboration with Loop Barcelona and the Fundació Joan Miró in 2018, the annual award aims to increase contemporary artistic production in the video art field by supporting artists of Asian origin or nationality.
Musquiqui Chihying receives USD 15,000 funding for the production of a new work which will be presented at the Fundació Joan Miró in November 2020 to coincide with Loop Barcelona 2020. At a later stage, the work awarded will be presented also at Art Sonje Center in Seoul, South Korea; at Inside-Out Art Museum in Beijing, China; at the MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art of Tapei, Taiwan and at Ilham in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The winner has been selected by a judging panel chaired by Han Nefkens, and joined by Emilio Alvarez, Founding co-director of LOOP Barcelona; Marko Daniel, Director of the Fundació Joan Miró; Anita Huang, curator at the MOCA Taipei; Haeju Kim, Deputy Director aof the Art Sonje Center, Seoul; Carol Yinghua Lu, director of the Inside Out Art Museum, Beijing; Dirk Snauwaert, Director of WIELS, Brussels; and Valentine Willie and Rahel Joseph, Creative Director and Gallery Director of Ilham, Kuala Lumpur, in the presence of Hilde Teerlinck, Director of the Han Nefkens Foundation, Alessandra Biscaro, Award Program coordinator for the Han Nefkens Foundation and Zoë Gray, Senior Curator of WIELS.
Musquiqui Chihying (*1985 Taipei), who recieved Meisterschüler from University of Art Berlin in 2015, is a visual artist based in Berlin and Taipei. He is apt at deploying different media including film, photography and installation to explore the relationships formed by people and objects with public space, as well as the changes that capital has wrought on human life. In recent work he has used historical research to unearth the postcolonial and post-immigrant elements buried in pop culture, using this perspective to investigate contemporary global society. His newest researches combine film and installation art to examine the evolution of economic and cultural exchange between Asia and Africa after the non-aligned ideals since the 1955 Bandung Conference. Besides, Chihying regularly publishes articles in art publications and is also a member of the Taiwanese art group Fuxinghen Studio.
Featuring artists from all over Asia, the eight shortlisted artists for the Han Nefkens Foundation - Loop Barcelona Video Art Award 2019 were: Kray Chen (1987, Singapore), Rui An Ho (1990, Singapore), Hayoun Kwon (1981, South Korea), Kai Chun Lee (1985, Hong Kong), Li Ran (1986, China), Wasif Munem (1983, Bangladesh), Chihying Musquiqui (1985, Taiwan) and Tzu-An Wu (1985, Taiwan).
The artist long-list for the Han Nefkens Foundation – LOOP Barcelona Video Art Production Award 2019, in collaboration with Fundació Miró, was proposed by: Ms. Zoe Butt (Australia), Mr. Cosmin Costinas (Romania), Mr. Mario D’Souza (India), Mr. Patrick Flores (Philippines), Ms. Alexie Glass Kantor (Australia), Ms. Fang-Tze Hsu (Taiwan), Mr. Chien Hung Huang (Taiwan), Ms. Yukie Kamiya (Japan), Ms. Bae Myungji (South Korea), Ms. Arlette Quynh Anh Tran (Vietnam), Ms. Anca Rujoiu (Romania), Ms. Su Wei (China).
The recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – LOOP Barcelona Video Art Production Award 2018 was Vietnamese artist Thao Nguyen Phan. Her resulting solo exhibition Becoming Alluvium opens at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona on November 19th 2019 (coinciding with the LOOP at fair) and in 2020 will travel to the WIELS Contemporary Arts Centre in Brussels and then to the Chisenhale Gallery in London.
