Proa Foundation opens these days two different samples but with many points in common. On the one hand, The tenth edition of Prix Pictetone of the most important awards in the world destined to highlight the concept of “sustainability.” And on the other hand, An anthology of Kara Walker’s workan outstanding American artist whose work revolves around concepts such as popular culture, stereotypes, race, gender and violence (see box on the other page).
In both cases, the works have the value of a testimony, an artistic gesture that points (better than any other language) The wounds of an unequal society.
Images
Sponsored by the Swiss Pictet Investment Group and with a prize of US $ 120,000, the Prix Pictet is awarded every two years, based on issues in relation to “sustainability”. Unlike other competitions, participants do not present spontaneously but are nominated. And the prize is not awarded to a unique piece but to the general project of an artist.
In each edition there is a guide theme. In the last one, the one that can now be seen in bow, The topic is the word “human”. In previous editions was “water”, “land”, “consumption”, “disorder”, “hope” and “fire”, among other themes.
The contest has already summoned more than 5000 photographers to participate and 300 experts – critics, curators and visual arts specialists – to nominate projects in relation to the award themes. The selected artists make up an itinerant exhibition that travels through the main capitals of the world.
“The Pix Pictet has established itself as a global platform for critical visual thinking, in which aesthetics, ethics and commitment to the environment converge. Its impact not only lies in the artistic prestige of those selected, but also in the way in which the works contribute to generate awareness and reflection on fragility – and the possibility – of human and natural ecosystems,” explains the text of presentation of the award.
“For Proa Foundation, show the prix pictet for the first time in Argentina open a meeting space between contemporary photography and the urgent questions of the present Adriana Rosenberg, president of bows. This award, which brings together artists from all over the world to reflect on the links between image, sustainability and human condition, naturally dialogues with the bow mission: bringing productions of excellence to the community that stimulate critical thinking, artistic sensibility and cultural debate ”.
The good news is that proximly Proa will promote a South American Pictet Award, in alliance with the Swiss institution. With a long tradition in the photography exhibition, which began in 2000 with the “Exodos” exhibition of Sebastião Salgado, the institution will seek to highlight the trajectory of important photographers of the region.
On the other hand, Pictet closed an agreement with the National Museum of Fine Arts to exhibit each edition of the Prix in its rooms, in its passage through Buenos Aires.
The chosen ones
Artists from all over the world are part of the “Human” team. They reflect their geographical environments and their research spaces with a diversity of notable techniques and characters. The list of names is extensive: Hoda Afshar (Iran), Gera Artemova (Ukraine), Ragnar Axelsson (Iceland), Alessandro Cinque (Italy/Peru), Siân Davey (United Kingdom), Federic Renaldi (United States), Vanessa Winship (United Kingdom/ Bulgaria) and Vasantha Yogananthan (France). War, migration, razed landscapes, violence and exploitation are recurring themes in the works of these artists.
“’Human’ places in the center the question for our current condition. The human condition today -explains Adriana Rosenberg -. What interests me especially of this selection is that, even addressing urgent issues –Migration, work, body, communities crossed by conflict or climate change-, the works do not look for the blow of effect. They are deep, committed, sensitive looks, that invite us to stop and think about who we are and how we live this time. ”
The winner of this edition is the artist born in India, Gauri Hill. Although he lives in New Delhi, for about 20 years he has been working with the communities of the Rajastan desert. He has shown his work worldwide and institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York or the Tate Modern in London have incorporated their work into their collections.
Thus, Hill describes life in the place where he takes his photographs: “Living without land and in a situation of poverty in the desert is an inescapable dependence on oneself, of others and nature. You live to the limit, in direct contact with the elements, and life is as fragile as the jokes. They group, breathing together under the same blanket, next to the dogs.
The work of this artist is only a chapter of the dazzling extension of “human” and all the men and women who inhabit their scenarios.
Anthology/ Kara Walker
From the cartoon to the video, of the figures cut to the monumental sculptures, Kara Walker’s work is exceptional because of the way she feeds on popular culture to denounce racial and gender violence.
The sample that can be seen in bow until November this year brings together its works between 1994 and 2021. Born in California, Walker was formed in the Atlanta College of Art and in the Rhode Island School of Design. “One of its most notable contributions is the rereading of historically considered minor techniques, including the cuts cut – associated to the domestic and decorative sphere – that She expands and resignifies on a monumental scale, transforming them into contemporary frescoes capable of challenging from the visual and the symbolic”, Explains the curatorial text of the exhibition. Its immense monuments, which can be seen in models and photographs,“ appropriate the codes of the public monument to subvert them from within: instead of exalting deeds considered ‘heroic’, they reveal absences and violence invisible by that celebratory rhetoric ”.
Image gallery
