Seoul-based artist collective Yagwang has been named as the winner of the 2026 Frieze Seoul Artist Award.
 
Supported by Bvlgari for the fourth consecutive year, the award spotlights and supports Korea’s talents at a pivotal stage in their careers. The winner is invited to realize an ambitious new commission on-site at Frieze Seoul, which takes place this year at COEX, 2 – 5 September 2026.
 
Yagwang follows previous recipients Im Youngzoo (2025), Goen Choi (2024) and Hannah Woo (2023).
 
Formed by artists Terri Kim and In Jeon, Yagwang works across sculpture, video, installation and performance, addressing gender, human rights and labour, and their connection with subcultures, queerness and identity.
 
The collective took part in last year’s Frieze LIVE programme at the fair, and this award reflects Frieze Seoul’s ongoing curatorial investment in exciting and challenging artists.

Yagwang’s commission for Frieze Seoul, Facade Zone (2026), is a site-specific sculptural installation in which the collective dismantles the walls of a fair stand and reconstructs them as a wooden framework, referencing photography and film backdrops while exposing mechanisms and sites of display.
 
Within this structure will be latex sculptures based on guardian figures in Korean Buddhist iconography, depicting the garments, chains and ornamental armour of these guardian figures. As light from a specially designed rig passes through the semi-transparent materials, it will diffuse and fracture, casting shifting shadows across the floor and walls, as surfaces appear and dissolve.

Patrick Lee, Director of Frieze Seoul, commented, “Yagwang is a collective I have admired for some time, from its Frieze LIVE performances last year to this ambitious new commission for the fair. For this commission as well, they propose a new experience for audiences by using the exhibition space itself as a material for the work.”
 
He added, “Their work tackles gender, the body and labour with rigour and ambition, and we are proud to present it to a global audience.”
 
This year’s Frieze Artists Award jury comprised Patrick Lee, director, Frieze Seoul; Laurencina Farrant-Lee, artistic director, SONGEUN Art and Cultural Foundation; Juli Yoon, chief curator, Ilmin Museum of Art; Jeyun Moon, independent curator; and Andy St. Louis, director, Frieze House Seoul.

References

• 프리즈 서울 보도자료 (Frieze Seoul Press Release)