Grand Prix Art 2024 for art education, timber construction and painting
Publié : Jeudi, 1er février 2024, 12:31
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The Grand Prix Art / Prix Meret Oppenheim 2024 goes to the art mediator Jacqueline Burckhardt, the architecture duo Marianne Burkhalter and Christian Sumi and the painter Valérie Favre. This was announced by the Federal Office of Culture (BAK) on Thursday.
The BAK awards these prestigious prizes annually on the recommendation of the Federal Art Commission. With the award to Jacqueline Burckhardt, this prize goes to a cultural mediator who chaired this commission herself (1998-2006) and played a key role in the establishment of the Prix Meret Oppenheim.
However, the career of Burckhardt, who was born in Basel in 1947, extends far beyond this function. In the mid-1980s, she co-founded the art magazine "Parkett". In 101 issues until its discontinuation in 2017, the magazine "brought together the most important artists of her generation", writes the BAK.
In addition, the conservator, art historian, curator, author, editor and organizer has left her footprints at the Zurich Kunsthaus and the Zentrum Paul Klee. In 1996, she co-curated the exhibition "Meret Oppenheim: Beyond the Teacup" at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Or in 2009: as curator, she accompanied the artist Sigmar Polke in the realization of the windows in Zurich's Grossmünster. She has also taught in Mendrisio and was a curator at the Novartis Campus in Basel. She now lives in Zurich. She has "successfully championed the international positioning of the Swiss art scene and the recognition of contemporary art", writes the BAK in justifying the award.
Environmental awareness in architecture
The BAK credits Marianne Burkhalter and Christian Sumi with "pioneering achievements in modern timber construction". She, born in Thalwil in 1947, he in Biel in 1950, ran the Burkhalter and Sumi office in Zurich together, which was renamed Oxid Architektur after the generational change in 2020. Both Burhalter and Sumi continue to work in the fields of architecture, theory and exhibitions, and they continue to accompany their former office. Since the beginning of their careers, both have focused their construction and research activities on sustainability. They will continue this work under the name Burkhalter Sumi, even after they have passed the baton in their office to their partners.
One of their pioneering achievements is that they developed new types of housing based on their environmental awareness. The BAK refers in particular to the so-called "adaptive reuse", a reuse strategy that has become exemplary for today's architecture.
Marianne Burkhalter, a trained draughtswoman, experimented with interdisciplinary methods in avant-garde offices in Florence or Los Angeles and then studied at Princeton University. Christian Sumi researched modernism at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ), including Otto Rudolf Salvisberg and Le Corbusier. The two bequeathed part of their archive to the gta in 2021.
Pioneering role with figurative painting
The BAK emphasizes "her figurative and narrative painting" in the work of painter Valérie Favre. "With her painterly work, which she has been developing for more than thirty years, Favre plays a pioneering role," writes the BAK. While conceptual art and minimal art were being discussed in contemporary art before the turn of the millennium, Favre created expressionist compositions. She also made a name for herself as a feminist painter. In her works, she refers to film, literature and art history.
The artist often works on different series simultaneously over several years: for example, "Lapine Univers" (2001-2012) about a hybrid figure with long rabbit ears who is both heroine and anti-heroine; or her collection "Suicide" (2003-2013), in which the artist deals with the subject of suicide in countless forms.
Favre was born in 1959 above Lake Biel in Leibringen. She began her career in Geneva and Paris, originally in theater and film. She has been a self-taught painter since the late 1980s. Today she lives and works in Neuchâtel and Berlin, where she teaches painting at the University of the Arts.
With the Grand Prix Art / Prix Meret Oppenheim, the BAK honors the lifetime achievements of personalities from the fields of art, architecture, criticism, publishing and exhibitions. The prize is endowed with CHF 40,000 each. It is associated with the Swiss Art Awards exhibition at Art Basel. The award ceremony is scheduled for June 10.
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