BERLIN ART PRIZE 2016 NOMINEES

With the provoking motto HARD WORK/WORK HARD, the Berlin Art Prize is back on its fourth edition. The nine nominees have been announced as of October 23.

Berlin Art Prize is a new independent award annually honoring contemporary art from Berlin. Its aim is to support the city’s art scene by establishing a non-institutional prize awarded to three artists by a select jury of local art professionals. The Berlin Art Prize e.V. is a non-profit organization working with the support of private and public sponsors. From a queer feminist scope, the prize wants to support diversity and fight against elitism in the Berlin art landscape.

Open for all, names and careers don’t count, as the founder members (women and queers) state on their website. Furthermore, previous exhibition history, education and any recommendations are irrelevant. For the Berlin Art Prize organizers it is very important to have gender equality on all levels of the prize, and feminism is a core value. Due to its everybody-is-welcome-no exclusion-attitude, you could say it is one of the most queer feminist art awards in the city.

Applications are evaluated by an independent jury. This year, the panel included artist and HfG Offenbach professor Susanne M. Winterlingart, critic Kito Nedo, artists Emeka Ogboh and Ahmet Öğüt, as well as Karen Archey, who is an art critic and independent curator based in New York and Berlin with a focus on feminist practices and the intersection of art and technology. She is also the founder of the feminist working group Women Inc., which supports emerging women in the arts and responds to various feminist issues through group writing and events.

Selected from over 600 Berlin-based applicants, Lindsay Lawson, Martin John Callanan, Regina de Miguel, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Lotte Meret, Benedikt Partenheimer, Raul Walch, Lauryn Youden, and Aurora Sander will take part in an exhibition covering sculpture, installation, photography, performance and conceptual art, opening November 11. Three of those mentioned will receive the independent award, prize money, and a four-week residency in Georgia beginning March 2017 — to be announced at Kühlhaus Berlin on December 10.

Together with its respected jury, the Berlin Art Prize has developed a far-reaching network of Berlin-based artists, critics, curators, academics, architects, designers, and more.

 

 

Words by Lo Pecado

Image courtesy of Berlin Art Prize

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