PHOTOFAIRS launches new Exposure Award in Shanghai

One experimental gallery working at the cutting-edge of photography will be awarded with a free booth at the Fair’s September 2019 edition.

Deadline for proposals: April 19

March 20, 2019: PHOTOFAIRS | Shanghai today launches the inaugural Exposure Award, a new prize to bring artists and galleries working at the cutting edge of photography to Shanghai.

The PHOTOFAIRS Exposure Award seeks ambitious solo presentations from galleries worldwide that challenge our understanding of the possibilities of photography.

A prominent selection panel will reward one gallery with a complimentary 20sqm stand at the 2019 edition of PHOTOFAIRS | Shanghai, running September 19-22 at the Shanghai Exhibition Center.

PHOTOFAIRS | Shanghai is Asia Pacific’s leading destination for discovering and collecting photo-based works, from modern masterpieces to the contemporary. Since launching in 2014, PHOTOFAIRS has championed artists pushing the boundaries of photography across its public programming and gallery selection, and has proven to be a site of discovery for collectors from around the world.

The financial difficulties of presenting an experimental booth in a new market are inevitable. By offering a space within the fair, the PHOTOFAIRS Exposure Award minimizes these risks to enable galleries, artists and therefore our collectors to truly explore what photography can do.

The inaugural Exposure Award panel includes: Jiyoon Lee, Curator and Founder, SUUM Projects (Seoul); Wang Jun, Collector and Founder, The Light Society (Beijing); Christopher Philips, Independent Curator (New York), and Cao Dan, President, MODERN ART (Shanghai).

Applications will be judged on the innovative nature of the artist’s technique and concept. Submissions are accepted from any gallery worldwide that has not previously shown at the fair. The deadline for applications is April 19.

Georgia Griffiths, PHOTOFAIRS Group Fair Director, comments: “Over the last six years, PHOTOFAIRS has worked with its collectors and audience to nurture and deepen the understanding of photography. The Exposure Award is an exciting moment for PHOTOFAIRS | Shanghai as it embodies our commitment to find and present artists and galleries working at the very edges of what photography can do.”

For further information and images please contact:

● Jill Cotton, PHOTOFAIRS, E: [email protected] T: +44 20 7886 3043

● Follow @PHOTOFAIRS on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook #PHOTOFAIRS or visit www.photofairs.org

To apply to the Exposure Award please send in a proposal with supporting images and completed application form before the 19 April. You can download the application form here: https://www.photofairs.org/exposure-award

Judges biographies

Cao Dan, Senior art journalist, curator, documentary film director. In the early 1990s, she worked as the creative director of Guangdong White Horse Advertising Co., Ltd. From 1998 to 2012, she moved to Paris, France and engaged herself in the fields of art, design, and documentary. From 2012 to 2017, she acted as the publisher of two authoritative art publications, LEAP and The Art Newspaper China. At the beginning of 2018, she founded ARTEMISIA, committed to interdisciplinary collaborations between art, design, art crafts, and technology, with the aim of promoting the connection and interaction between the public, corporations, and art. From February 2019, she was appointed as President of Modern Art (Modern Media Group), Publisher of The Art Newspaper China, LEAP & LIFE.

Jiyoon Lee is an art historian, curator and founding director of global curatorial project office SUUM since 2003 in London. With extensive knowledge and network within international contemporary art ecosystem, her passion is to promote cultural understanding and collaboration between Europe and Asia in a global cultural context. She has curated and delivered more than 50 international exhibitions as an independent curator in Europe. In 2014, she was appointed as deputy director of MMCA(National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art museum) new museum in Seoul Korea until 2016.

She is also an active lecturer/speaker on the creative industries and art management, serving at Yonsei Business school as adjunct professor as well as being a regular contributor to JoongAng national newspaper and Forbes magazine.

Christopher Phillips is an independent curator and critic. From 2000 to 2016 he worked as a curator at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. He has organized many exhibitions that explore modernist photography of the early 20th century as well as contemporary Asian photography and media art. These exhibitions include "Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China" (2004, co-curated with Wu Hung); "Atta Kim: On-Air" (2006); "Shanghai Kaleidoscope" (2008); "Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video from Japan" (with Noriko Fuku, 2008); “Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide” (2011); “Han Youngsoo: Photographs of Seoul 1956-63” (2016); and “Life and Dreams: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Media Art” (2018). His books include The New Vision: Photographs from the Ford Motor Company Collection (with Maria Morris Hambourg, 1989), Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, 1913-1940 (1989), Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China (with Wu Hung, 2004), and Life and Dreams: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Media Art (with Wu Hung, 2018). He is a board member of Asia Art Archive-America, a member of the editorial board of the Trans-Asia Photography Review, and serves on the international advisory committee of the Three Shadows Photography Center in Beijing.

Wang Jun, contemporary art collector; founder of Light-Society Beijing; investor of "Art Nova 100"; foundation council member of Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA)