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JEEWI LEE RECEIVES THE GASAG ART PRIZE
We warmly congratulate the artist Jeewi Lee (born 1987 in Seoul) on winning the GASAG Art Prize 2026!
The award, which is presented every two years by GASAG in collaboration with the Berlinische Galerie, honors outstanding artistic positions at the intersection of art, science, and technology every two years.
Jeewi Lee's multidisciplinary practice is thus recognized for her unique engagement with traces, memories, and the phenomena of time.
Capturing Subtle, Intimate Imprints in Our Environment
The artist makes the invisible visible: whether it is worn floors, stripped wallpaper, or coffee stains, her works reveal the subtle, intimate imprints we leave in our environment. She transforms these remnants and residues (such as paint remnants or geological sediments) into poetic, indexical artworks, often in the form of minimalist, site-specific installations, videos, and series of images. With this honor, the jury confirms the relevance of her work, which raises fundamental questions about our perception, memory, and the process of artistic production.
The Korean-German artist, who lives in Berlin, studied painting at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and Hunter College in New York from 2008 to 2014. Her great talent has already been recognized with other significant awards, including the Villa Romana Art Prize (2018), the Kunstpreis Junger Westen (2021), and the Villa Aurora Fellowship (2025).
Exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie during Berlin Art Week
As the award winner, Jeewi Lee will receive a site-specific exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie during the Berlin Art Week 2026, along with an accompanying publication. For those who would like to dive deeper into Jeewi Lee’s fascinating world of "traces" now, the comprehensive monograph published by Hatje Cantz is the ideal companion: Jeewi Lee. Index (2023). The publication offers deep insight into the artist's conceptual working methods over the past ten years and highlights the diversity of her artistic research—from rescued stories to geological imprints. Her site-specific installations and interventions are extensively documented across 352 pages. The book is available as a multilingual edition (English, Korean).
Header: Copyright Ecaterina Rusu
Published on:
03.11.2025
Jeewi Lee
€ 58.00
Jeewi Lee is interested in all the traces-the intimate imprints and distinctive markings-that we leave behind and that inhabit the spaces surrounding us. Abstract compositions of rescued stories, worn-out pavements and stripped down wallpapers, cut out floors, grains of sand that have traveled millions of years around the world, coffee stains or burnt wood. These traces, both human and historical, become vessels of stories and memories, inscribed on various materials, bearing witness to the past, present, and future.
This publication offers a comprehensive exploration of the manifold tracings of the Berlin-based Korean artist over the past decade. It provides insight into her highly conceptual way of working and unveils previously unseen documentation of her deeply personal process of creation.
JEEWI LEE (*1987, Seoul) is a Berlin-based South Korean-German artist. She studied painting at the Berlin University of the Arts and at Hunter College University in New York, graduating in 2014 with a master in fine arts and since 2018 holds an MFA from the postgraduate program Art in Context. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses site-specific installations and interventions, video and image series that predominantly deal with traces that question our visual perception, while also reflecting their own production process.
Photography
