Europe's Future Art Prize

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The European Future Art Prize is still a relatively new prize, which from 2003 to 2008 was aimed at young artists from post-communist countries. Since 2009 it has been awarded to artists from all over Europe.

history

The idea of ​​awarding the European Future Art Prize arose in 2003/2004 against the background of the EU enlargement in 2004 , during which numerous countries in Eastern Europe joined the EU. In these states there was usually a quick transition to a different political and social system, with the visual arts having little space or time to develop. In cooperation with the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst in Leipzig , the donors decided to financially support young artists from the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and give them the opportunity to present their work to an international audience as part of the consideration of the role of art in times of upheaval to be able to. The European Future Art Prize was initially awarded in 2003 for a period of five years. In 2009, the direction of the award was revised so that since 2010 the award of the award has crossed the borders of the former Eastern Bloc as well as those of the European Union and refers to a Europe that describes a common cultural and intellectual space and whose borders cannot be clearly drawn .

The price

The first five winners received a pentagonal star cast from glass by the Bulgarian artist Plamen Dejanoff (* 1970 in Sofia, Bulgaria). He justified the decision in favor of the pentagonal star as follows: “For me the star has a double meaning. On the one hand it is a symbol for the socialist past and on the other hand a symbol for the future, for a future without walls and division between the European states. "

With the content and geographic expansion of the 2010 Art Prize (see The Future of the Prize), a new prize was created. The artist, Oliver Kossack (* 1967 in Tel Aviv, Israel), who lives in Leipzig but grew up in different cultural contexts, designed a sculpture called "Formulator". This refers metaphorically and practically to a “glue” that can connect different things. Two elements cast in glass are put together in the sculpture, which start with the painter's pestle and magnifying glass and thus combine both the technical and the conceptual level of artistic work. Kossack says: “'Formulator' combines the futuristic and organic architecture of the sculpture with aspects of material, function and tool and functions in the sense of mediating between idea, process and work as well as between artist, sponsor and mediator. Cast from the raw material glass, executed by human hand, 'Formulator' seems to both absorb the space and work into it. "

The jury, the award procedure and the donors

A changing jury of international nominations, consisting of artistic directors, artists and art theorists from European artistic and scientific institutes, proposes 13 candidates. These artists and their works are then evaluated by a seven-member jury that changes every five years and the winners are determined. From 2003 to 2008 the jury consisted of:

From 2009 to 2013 the jury consisted of:

  • Dietmar Schulz (award sponsor)
  • Matthias Brühl (award donor)
  • Barbara Steiner / since 2012 Franciska Zólyom, director of the Gallery for Contemporary Art, Leipzig
  • Andreas Spiegl (Academy of Fine Arts, author and curator, Vienna)
  • Matthias Wagner K (Director of the Museum of Applied Arts Frankfurt / Main)
  • Elke aus dem Moore (Head of the Art Department of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Stuttgart)
  • Ilina Koralova (curator, Leipzig)

The donors of the award are the entrepreneurs Dietmar Schulz (managing directors of alpha 2000 GmbH) and Matthias Brühl, who are active in the IT industry. Dietmar Schulz explains her commitment as follows: “We both grew up in the GDR and have experienced the transition to another system and the associated transformations ... We have experienced what a country without borders means and how the future can change ... In the knowledge We would like to use some of our success to deal with the difficulties of a new beginning, to give art that is not initially in the foreground a certain visibility. "

The winners

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b European Future Art Prize. Retrieved April 6, 2016 (German).
  2. Art Prize 2004 , kunstpreis-europas-zukunft.de
  3. a b c d e f g h i j k Leon Kahane , arsviva.kulturkreis.eu
  4. Winner , kunstpreis-europas-zukunft.de