On Wednesday, Hugo Boss and the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) in Shanghai named the finalists for the $44,600 Hugo Boss Asia Art Award for emerging Asian artists: Hao Jingban, Eisa Jocson, Hsu Che-Yu, and Phan Thao Nguyen. An exhibition featuring the artists’ work will be on view at the museum from October 18 through December 15, and the prize winner will be announced in November. 

Larys Frogier, director of RAM; Patrick D. Flores, artistic director of the Singapore Biennale; Gridthiya Gaweewong, artistic director of the Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok; Sunjung Kim, president of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation; Carol Yinghua Lu, director of the Inside-Out Art Museum in Beijing; and artist Cao Fei served on the jury.

Today the M+ museum in Hong Kong also announced its shortlist for the inaugural Sigg Prize, a biennial $63,800 award that recognizes outstanding artistic practices in the Greater China region. Finalists Hu Xiaoyuan, Samson Young, Lin Yilin, Shen Xin, Tao Hui, and Liang Shou will each receive $12,700. They will also present works made in the last two years at the M+ Pavilion, curated by M+ senior curator Pi Li, in December; the winner will be announced in January 2020.

Members of the Sigg Prize jury include Maria Balshaw, director of Tate, London; Bernard Blistène, director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Gong Yan, director of the Power Station of Art, Shanghai; Taipei-based curator Lai Hsiangling; Suhanya Raffel, executive director of M+, Hong Kong; Uli Sigg, founder of the CCAA, Switzerland; and Beijing-based artist Xu Bing.

The Sigg Prize replaces the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA), which was conceived by Uli Sigg in 1997 and has been chaired by Liu Li Anna since 2011. The CCAA, the first award for contemporary art in Mainland China, has been supported by M+ since 2012.