 |
A PRIMER
Eyes on the PrizesBy DOUGLAS HEINGARTNER
Published: April 3,
2005
.gif) |
|
|
 |
|
1. |
|
|
2. |
|
|
3. |
|
|
4. |
|
|
5. |
|
|
|
|
| |
 With so many new art prizes being
established every year - and so many jurors serving on the same
committees, and artists winning multiple awards - it's almost
impossible to keep up. Below, a handy primer to the whos and whys of
some of the new generation of art awards, starting with the Turner,
the glossy prize that inspired the rest.
Turner Prize
Host: Tate Britain.
Established: 1984.
Frequency: annual.
Amount: £25,000
($47,000) plus £5,000 ($9,300) to each of the three runners-up.
Most recent winner: Jeremy Deller, 2005.
Past winners:
Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, Gilbert & George
Star juror: Nicholas Serota, Tate director
Reputation:
serves as a mother lode of art-prize controversies, even post-facto:
in 1999, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York City called for an
end to city financing for the Brooklyn Museum when it displayed "The
Holy Virgin Mary," an elephant-dung-based painting by the 1998
Turner winner, Chris Ofili.
Star juror: Thomas Krens, director
of the Guggenheim.
Web
site
Artes Mundi Prize
Host: National Museum
and Gallery, Cardiff, Wales.
Established: 2004.
Amount:
£40,000 ($75,000).
Stated theme: "The human form, human
condition and humanity."
Most recent winner: the printmaker Xu
Bing, 2004. His inaugural winning entry, "Where does the dust
collect itself?," involved blanketing the gallery floor with dust
that the artist collected in New York in the aftermath of the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks.
Star juror: Issey Miyake, the designer.
Web site
Baloise Art Prize
Host: Art Basel fair,
Switzerland.
Established: 1999, after a study commissioned by
the Swiss financial concern Baloise advised that an eponymous art
prize could advance corporate objectives.
Amount: 25,000 Swiss
francs ($21,000).
Most recent winners: Aleksandra Mir and Tino
Sehgal, 2004.
Past winner: Saskia Olde Wolbers in 2003, who went
on to win the Beck's Futures prize the following year.
Beck's Futures
Sponsored by and named
for the beer giant. The prize's Web site calls support of
contemporary art "core to Becks U.K. marketing since 1985."
Host: Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.
Established:
2000.
Amount: £24,000 ($45,000). The Web site boasts of the
sponsor's "willingness to outstrip financially other awards of a
similar nature."
Most recent winner: the video artist Saskia
Olde Wolbers, 2004. Her winning work, "Interloper," consists of a
comatose man's mental journey. Her prize was presented by Yoko Ono.
BlueOrange Prize
Host:
Martin-Gropius-Bau, sponsored by the BVR banking association in
Germany and held in the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum in Berlin.
Established: 2004
Amount: 77,000 euros ($100,000)
Most
recent winner: the multimedia artist Francis Alÿs, 2004. Mr. Alÿs,
the inaugural winner, donated his prize money to aMexican foundation
that helps street children.
Hugo Boss Prize
Host: Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum.
Established: 1996.
Amount: $50,000. The
winner also gets a solo exhibition at the museum.
Most recent
winner: Rirkrit Tiravanija, 2004. Like many of his fellow award
winners, Mr. Tiravanija creates interactive art; in the past, he has
prepared food for audiences and constructed a mock-up of his
apartment within a gallery space. Mr. Tiravanija's show, for which
he built a low-power television station inside the Guggenheim, runs
through May 22.
First winner: Matthew Barney.
Web site
Bucksbaum Award
Host: Whitney Museum of
American Art. The Bucksbaum is a prize-within-a-prize, given to an
artist who has secured a coveted slot in the museum's Biennial.
Established: 2000. award trophy designed by Tiffany &
Company.
Most recent winner: the artist Raymond Pettibon,
2004.
Web site
Lucelia Artist Award
Host: Smithsonian
American Art Museum. Lends some contemporary-art allure to an
otherwise staid institution; as the Smithsonian's contemporary art
curator Elizabeth Broun said, "We wanted to establish a profile for
our museum that puts us more in that world."
Established: 2001.
Amount: $25,000.
Most recent winner: the silhouette artist
Kara Walker, 2004.
Star jurors: the artists Richard Tuttle,
Cindy Sherman, and John Baldessari.
Web site
The Vincent van Gogh Biannual Award of Contemporary
Art in Europe
Host: Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, The
Netherlands. The prize is supported by the state.
Established:
2000.
Amount: 50,000 euros ($65,000)
Most recent winner:
Pawel Althamer, 2004. Mr. Althamer is known for organizing
performances featuring marginalized members of society - the
homeless, alcoholics, and so on - and for video works in which he is
shown while under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. The
Bonnefanten's exhibition of his work involved inviting teenagers
from the grim suburbs of Warsaw, the artist's hometown, to cover the
main hall of the museum with graffiti.
|
.gif){kind=spacer}
.gif){kind=small}
