Nam June Paik Art Center Prize, an international yearly award, announces its 2010 solo-recipient, Bruno Latour. To promote Nam June Paik’s philosophy and creativity, the international jury and Nam June Paik Art Center Advisory Council have suggested that theoretical dimension of Paik holds urgency to be recognized and supported. Accepting the idea, the Prize opened its doors to internationally renowned researchers, thinkers and organizers of Paik studies and the jury finally selected the recipient among 8 strong nominees from around the world.
International jury for this year’s nomination and selection of the Prize include: Xavier Douroux, Director of Le Consortium, Anne-Marie Duguet, Professor of Univ. Paris 1, Wulf Herzogenrath, Director of Kunsthalle Bremen, Wan-kyung Sung, former Director of Gwangju Biennale. Through a remote discussion held by e-mail relay, juries tried to select a person who will provide a new theoretical framework in tune with Nam June Paik.
Some excerpts from the discussion: “[The recipient] has to be a high mediator to connect Paik’s thinking and action to the actual interests of intellectual and perceptive world,” said Xavier Douroux. According to Anne-Marie Duguet, “I find Latour’s thought very much in tune with Paik’s one. … None has the radical and deep thinking of Latour.” “We are honored to give this year’s Prize to Prof. Bruno Latour, and we are sure that master minds of both Latour and Paik will meet together to open up an unforeseen dimension in the future study of Paik. This will be a historical and strong statement,” said Young Chul Lee, Director of Nam June Paik Art Center.
The selected winner of 2010 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize, Bruno Latour(b. 1947), professor of Science Po Paris and Vice President of Research for the same institution, has been honored for being the forefront thinker who opened new ways of thinking with his theories bridging fields of philosophy, techno-science, scientific visualization, anthropology and politics. He is the author of numerous books dealing with scientific practice and political philosophy of nature, including We Have Never Been Modern, dealing with his theory of “symmetric anthropology,” “Politics of Nature” and “Reassembling the Social.” Based on these thoughts, he has co-curated two important exhibitions with ZKM, Karlsruhe, titled Iconoclash(2002) and Making Things Public(2005). The exhibitions are now regarded as a revolutionary way of linking art and science and they have resulted in the recent creation of a new program in ”political arts” in Sciences Po.
The Nam June Paik Art Center Prize will be endowed to the recipient on 26 November by the Governor of Gyeonggi Province at Nam June Paik Art Center. The Award ceremony will be held together with exhibitions commemorating Paik, including Shuya Abe, the Japanese scientist and co-inventor of video synthesizer with Paik.
The Nam June Paik Art Center is supported by Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation and Gyeonggi Province.
