Joan Jonas Wins 2024 Nam June Paik Prize

The Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, South Korea, has named trailblazing video and performance artist Joan Jonas as the winner of its eighthNam June Paik Prize. Jonas will receive KRW 50 million ($35,600) at a ceremony to take place at the art center November 28. The institution will host an exhibition of her work, the artist’s first solo show in Korea, beginning in November 2025.

Born in 1936, Jonas has long been considered an artist’s artist. Beginning in the 1960s, she gained recognition for works integrating video—then a brand-new technology—and performance. Through a practice additionally encompassing sculpture and installation, Jonas investigates the engagement of the human body with its recorded image and, more recently, the natural environment. She represented the United States at the Fifty-Sixth Venice Biennale in 2015 and was the subject of major retrospectives at London’s Tate Modern (2018) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2024).

“Jonas not only played a key role in shaping early video and performance art but continues to explore urgent new terrain, most recently creating immersive installations that explore themes of ecology, landscape and kinship between humans and non-human species at a time of climate breakdown,” said prize jury chair Frances Morris, onetime director of London’s Tate Modern and a professor at Ewha Womans University, Seoul, in a statement.

Established in 2009 and named for the pathbreaking Fluxus artist, the Nam June Paik Prize is funded by the Gyeonggi Provincial Government and presented biannually by the Nam June Paik Art Center to an individual who through their creativity, experimentation, and innovation has promoted and contributed to contemporary art and world peace. Past winners of the honor include Doug Aitken, Ceal Floyer, Bruno Latour, Haroon Mirza, and Trevor Paglen.