This Absolut Art Award: Renata Lucas, Museum of the Diagonal Man, 2014, is one of the works selected for the Award. Photo: Roberto Chamorro. Courtesy of the artist and Absolut.

ART NEWS: 10 finalists selected for the 2015 Absolut Art Award prepare their art project proposals as the art contest enters the final stage

BY KAZAD

Massimiliano Gioni. Photo: Marco De Scalzi. Courtesy Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan

STOCKHOLM– The finalists for the 2015 Absolut Art Award have been announced. The art award goes out every two years to one leading contemporary artist and one art writer. This year’s finalists were selected by a group of art professionals led by Jury President Massimiliano Gioni, Artistic Director at the New Museum in New York and at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan.

Other members of the jury include Magali Arriola, Negar Azimi, Doryun Chong, and Jessica Morgan. From a long list of 37 nominees of artists and writers drawn from 24 countries, including Ghana, Iran, and Costa Rica, the 2015 jury selected a shortlist of five artists and five art writers in the ‘Art Work’ and ‘Art Writing’ categories, respectively. This year’s finalists, like other years’ are from different countries, including the United States, France, Iceland, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Belgium.

Proposal for a New Artwork

The next task for the selected finalists is to each “prepare a proposal for a new artwork, project, or piece of art writing, unencumbered by commercial constraints, for deliberation by the highly distinguished international jury.” Winners will be selected from the proposals submitted by the artists. On May 8, the winning artist and writer will be announced during the Vernissage of La Biennale di Venezia-56th International Art Exhibition.

The winning artist will receive a cash prize of €20,000, complemented by a budget of €100,000 to produce and exhibit a new artwork or project. The winning art writer will also get a cash prize of €20,000 along with a budget of €25,000. The prize money will go towards the research and production of a new art publication. An award ceremony to honor the two winners will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, in September 2015.

Saskia Neuman, Global Art Manager, Absolut explains the selection for this year:

Massimiliano, the Jury and Nominators have developed an extremely interesting and diverse selection of finalists who are at the forefront of their artistic practices and theoretical research. We look forward with great anticipation to receiving the finalists’ proposals for their dream project and to the announcement of the winners in Venice this May.

Instituted in 2009 to mark 30 years of creative collaborations with artists, the Absolut Art Award offers an artist and an art writer a unique opportunity to realize their dream projects, demonstrating Absolut’s continued commitment to collaborating on transformative artistic projects with the world’s most creative talent. In 2013, the Absolut Art Award for ‘Art Work’ w to Renata Lucas while Coco Fusco won for the ‘Art Writing’ category. In September 2014, Lucas unveiled his winning project, Museum of the Diagonal Man, a series of site-specific architectural interventions and installations located throughout the Pier Mauá area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Coco Fusco will launch her winning project in collaboration with Tate Publishing in October during Frieze London. Past winners of the Absolut Art Award include Anri Sala (2011), Rirkrit Tiravanija (2010), and Keren Cytter (2009).

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The Absolut Art Award is just one example of Absolut’s global support for art and artists. Beyond commissioning artists like Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, Mickalene Thomas, and Cuban collective Los Carpinteros to create art projects, Absolut has also been a major supporter of important art fairs and institutions, including Documenta, Art Basel, the Brooklyn Museum, and many others.

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2015 Absolut Art Award finalists:

Art Work

Trisha Donnelly, USA

Camille Henrot, France / USA

Ragnar Kjartansson, Iceland

Minouk Lim, South Korea

Frances Stark, USA

Art Writing

Julia Bryan-Wilson, USA

Mark Godfrey, UK

Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, USA

Helen Molesworth, USA

Dieter Roelstraete, Belgium