Absolut has announced the nominees for the 2015 Absolut Art Award. This year is exceptionally diverse in terms of nationality, age and gender, the Nominators have selected a total of 47 artists and art writers, across both the ‘Art Work’ and ‘Art Writing’ categories.
The 2015 Jury has invited two Nominators, with experience across multiple artistic disciplines and professional art backgrounds, to nominate five artists and one art writer, generating a maximum of 50 nominees for the ‘Art Work’ category and a maximum of ten nominees for the ‘Art Writing’ category.
The 2015 Nominators have selected 37 nominees in the ‘Art Work’ category, from across five continents and 24 countries, including established centres of contemporary art as well as emerging hubs such as Iran, Mexico and Ghana. Ranging in age from 30 to 69, the nominees in this category include widely recognised names, as well as more emerging artists.
In the ‘Art Writing’ category ten art writers have been selected, with an incredibly broad range of research backgrounds and theoretical interests. This element of the prize continues our longstanding support of the development of critical theory and nurturing artistic discourse.
The 2015 Jury will select a shortlist of five finalists, from both categories, which will be revealed during Art Basel Miami Beach 2014. The 2015 Jury is led by Jury President Massimiliano Gioni, Associate Director and Director of Exhibitions at the New Museum in New York and Artistic Director at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan.
The winning artist and writer will be announced during the Vernissage of La Biennale di Venezia – 56th International Art Exhibition in May 2015, and an award ceremony will take place in September 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden.
“We’re incredibly excited by the breadth of nominees selected in both categories for the 2015 Absolut Art Award, and we look forward with great anticipation to Massimiliano Gioni and the 2015 Jury’s selection of finalists later this year”, says Saskia Neuman, Global Art Manager, Absolut.
And The Nominees Are:
2015 Absolut Art Award Nominees
Art Work Category
John Akomfrah b. 1957 Ghana
José Antonio Suárez Londoño b.1955 Columbia
Leonor Antunes b. 1972 Portugal
Nairy Baghramian b.1971 Iran
Yto Barrada b.1971 France
Yael Bartana b.1970 Israel
Eric Baudelaire b.1973 USA
Mariana Castillo Deball b.1975 Mexico
Simon Denny b.1982 New Zealand
Trisha Donnelly b.1974 USA
Köken Ergun b.1976 Turkey
Geoffrey Farmer b.1967 Canada
Richard Hawkins b.1961 USA
Camille Henrot b.1978 France / USA
Federico Herrero b.1978 Costa Rica
Karl Holmqvist b.1964 Sweden
Iman Issa b.1979 Egypt
Jesse Jones b.1978 Ireland
Lee Kit b.1978 Hong Kong
Ragnar Kjartansson b.1976 Iceland
Mark Leckey b.1964 UK
Minouk Lim b.1968 Korea
Jean Luc Moulène b.1955 France
Maha Maamoun b.1972 Egypt
Rodney McMillian b.1969 USA
Nicole Miller b.1982 USA
Nástio Mosquito b.1981 Angola
Shahryar Nashat b.1975 Switzerland
Rivane Neuenschwander b.1967 Brazil
Amalia Pica b.1978 Argentina
Michael Portnoy b.1971 USA
Laure Prouvost b.1978 France
Frances Stark b.1967 USA
Zhou Tao b.1976 China
Kaari Upson b.1972 USA
Andra Ursuta b.1979 Romania
Arseniy Zhilyaev b.1984 Russia
Art Writing Category
Julia Bryan-Wilson USA
Santiago García Navarro Argentina
Mark Godfrey UK
Alex Kitnick USA
Adam Kleinman USA
Quinn Latimer USA
Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer USA
Helen Molesworth USA
Dieter Roelstraete Belgium
Tirdad Zolghadr Iran/Switzerland/USA
2015 Absolut Art Award Jury
2015 Jury President:
Massimiliano Gioni is the Associate Director and Director of Exhibitions at the New Museum in New York and the Artistic Director at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan. In 2013, he served as the Artistic Director of the 55th edition of La Biennale di Venezia, The Encyclopedic Palace.
2015 Jury Members:
Magali Arriola is an art critic and Curator at Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City. Previously, she was Chief Curator at the Museo Tamayo (2009‒11) and Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (1998-2001).
Negar Azimi is a writer and Senior Editor of Bidoun, an award-winning publishing, curatorial and educational platform. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Frieze, Harper’s Bazaar, The Nation, NewYorker.com and The New York Times Magazine.
Doryun Chong is Chief Curator at M+, a museum for visual culture located in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong due to be completed in 2017. From 2009 to 2012, Chong was Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA, New York.
Jessica Morgan is The Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, Tate Modern, and is the incoming Director of The Dia Art Foundation, New York.
2015 Absolut Art Award Nominators:
Juan A. Gaitán, Curator, 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
Clara Kim is an independent curator based in Los Angeles
Pablo León de la Barra, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Latin America
Aram Moshayedi, writer and Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Margot Norton, Assistant Curator, New Museum
Bartholomew Ryan, Assistant Curator, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Polly Staple, Director, Chisenhale Gallery
Ali Subotnick, Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Sandra Terdjman, Founding Director, Kadist Art Foundation
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, writer and critic, Beirut