19.09.2015
Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
Anne Imhof (born 1978 in Gießen, lives and works in Frankfurt/Main and Paris) wins the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2015. Bastian Günther (born 1974 in Hachenburg, lives and works in Berlin and Austin, Texas) wins the Förderpreis für Filmkunst.
On the evening of September 18, 2015 in the presence of State Minister of Culture Monika Grütters the winner of the Preis der Nationalgalerie was announced in an award ceremony at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin.
The Jury with Bernard Blistène, director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Manuel Borja-Villel, director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Elena Filipovic, director of the Kunsthalle Basel; Udo Kittelmann, director of the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin und Gabriele Knapstein, head of exhibitions at Hamburger Bahnhof, decided after intensive discussions to award Anne Imhof with the prize.
With the award Anne Imhof receives the commitment to have a solo show in one of the Nationalgalerie’s location next year as well as an extensive publication about her work and the exhibition.
Jury statement:
After a lively discussion of both the work presented here and the overall oeuvre of the four nominees the jury voted for Anne Imhof. The complexity of her works grounded in different sources and media – among them cinema, visual art and performance – involves the audience in a flow of images and the experience of a distinct temporality. Between theatricality and image making Anne Imhof articulates a new position which has convinced the jury.
The jury congratulates the artist and looks forward to her exhibition in September 2016.
In cooperation with the Deutsche Filmakademie the Förderpreis für Filmkunst was awarded for the third time. Bastian Günther wins the award with his 80 minute long hybridfilm California City and receives 10.000 Euro for future projects.
The jury with Marius Babias, director of the n.b.k., Berlin; Fritzi Haberlandt, member of the Deutsche Filmakademie; Fred Kelemen, member of the Deutsche Filmakademie; Eva Kraus, director of the Neues Museum, Nuremburg; Polly Staple, director of the Chisenhale Gallery, London, selected the winner out of six candidates from the shortlist.
Jury statement:
Documentary, or feature film?
Political film, or metaphysical drama about the loneliness and forsakenness of the human being in this world, inhospitably contrived and ravaged by humans themselves? Never mind.
This film is not a narrow either-or, rather it moves within the intellectual-artistic sphere of the broader as-well-as. Its categorical unclassifiability unsettles; the precision of its form and the composition of its images does this too. Thus they deny a monopolising and banal interpretation.
A film about us all in a future that has long since begun and painfully foreshadows that besides our loneliness, besides our lack of utopia, and our inability to simply successfully love – we will die of thirst in a desert world without drinking water: the consequence of our inner drought of constructive concern about our surrounding and shared world, and our desolation regarding visionary ideas and realisations of a sustainable way of living.
An important film which raises awareness and unsettles and clears the head for that which is worth telling and considering; by a director, Bastian Günther, who without a doubt deserves this prize for his film “California City”, and who, together with his team, has earned the appreciation and recognition expressed here.
As a symbolic prize Iris Berben and Edward Berger (both Deutsche Filmakademie) as well as Bernard Blistène handed over the signed multiple Intuition by Joseph Beuys from 1968 to Anne Imhof and Bastian Günther.
The awarded film California City and the exhibition of the four shortlist candidates are on show at Hamburger Bahnhof until January 17, 2016.
The scriptwriter and actress Anna Brüggemann was leading through the award ceremony. More than 800 invited guests and members of the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie, along with its longstanding partner BMW celebrated the two winners.
The Preis der Nationalgalerie is made possible by the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie and supported by BMW.
More information at www.preisdernationalgalerie.de
Exhibitions
Preis der Nationalgalerie 2015
11.09.2015 to 17.01.2016
Anne Imhof. Angst II
14.09.2016 to 25.09.2016
Related online offer
Anne Imhof. Angst II: Contemporary art performance