Net art pioneer Shu Lea Cheang named 2024 LG Guggenheim Award winner

The Taiwan-based artist won the prize under a partnership between LG and the Guggenheim for her digitally-infused art.

Shu Lea Cheang, an awardee of the 2024 LG Guggehnheim Award [LG CORP.]

Shu Lea Cheang was selected as the winner of the 2024 LG Guggenheim Award, LG Corp. announced Tuesday.

Cheang is considered a pioneer in the "net art" realm where art and technology merge. The Taiwan-based artist has more than 30 years of experience in the field, crossing the boundaries of digital art, installation art and film production, utilizing virtual reality and coding technologies.

The LG Guggenheim Award is part of the LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Initiative under which the two parties agreed on a five-year collaboration to research, honor and promote artists working at the intersection of art and technology.

Cheang, the second recipient of the award, will be awarded a $100,000 prize.

Shu Lea Cheang's work titled "Baby Love" [LG CORP.]

"Shu Lea Cheang was one of the first to recognize the liberatory potential of the digital realm," said Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and chief curator at the Guggenheim.

"We celebrate her bold explorations of bodies, and their desires, in our digital and analog worlds, and are thrilled, alongside LG, to recognize her necessary work."

One of Cheang's well-known works include "3x3x6," which was presented at the 2019 Venice Biennale. The artwork hones in on the uncomfortable reality of modern people when they are constantly surveilled by social medias and CCTVs.

"The LG Guggenheim Award revives an honorable tradition of the electronic industry's support for art and technology," Cheang said. "To be recognized by an assembly of diverse jury members grants me tremendous confidence in continuing and expanding my art practice. I thank all my collaborators on every one of my projects."

The international jury for the award was comprised of five artists or curators from museums around the world including Stephanie Dinkins, last year's winner. The jury evaluated the recommended artworks for four months before announcing the winner, LG said.

"LG is delighted to join the Guggenheim in honoring Shu Lea Cheang with the second LG Guggenheim Award," said Park Seol, head of brand management at LG Corp. "Looking through her oeuvre, one can observe many of the themes that recently entered today’s technological discourses, such as data, decentralized networks, and gamification, have long been central to her artistic inquiry."

A celebratory event for Cheang's award will be held at the New York Guggenheim Museum on April 2. In May, there will be a public program where she explains her art pieces at the museum.

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]