Korean Wins Silver Lion at Venice Biennale

Published on 2015/05/13 | Source

A Korean artist won the Silver Lion at the 56th International Art Exhibition in Venice on Saturday afternoon.

Lim Heung-soon won for a video installation dedicated to his mother, who spent 40 years working in a sewing factory. It was the highest honor for any Korean artist in the Biennale's history.

"Factory Complex" is a 95-minute film about the lives of female laborers across Asia, mixing interviews with poetic imagery.

The jury said "Factory Complex" is a "moving video work that probes the nature of precarity in relation to the conditions of labor for women across Asia. "Factory Complex" takes the form of a documentary but with a direct, lightly mediated, encounter with his subjects and their working conditions".

Lim won the award, which is usually given to promising young artists under 35, at the ripe age of 46.