09.01.2012
Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
After the official jury voted on 28 September 2011 to award Cyprien Gaillard the 6th Preis der Nationalgalerie, the public have now also added their backing to that decision, with Gaillard the clear winner of the public choice award.
In all, some 3000 visitors cast their votes after seeing the show, and more than half voted for Cyprien Gaillard. It is the first time in the prize's history that the official jury and the public have been united in their decision.
The jury's official statement on their decision reads as follows:
'Cyprien Gaillard's film "Artefacts" is an impressive reflection on the myth of Babylon, which is revived here with particular topicality in the shadow of the war in Iraq. The powerful, haunting images are interwoven with each other in a way that imbues them with a frenetic, almost hypnotic effect that draws our attention to our own cultural sensibilities. Cyprien Gaillard is not a documentary filmmaker and his approach of using the open principle of montage raises questions on the remains and preservation of our cultures. Essentially, his film is about the erosion of artefacts. The stark aesthetic form he chooses is coupled with the desire to find a particular tone and language beyond that usually adopted in conventional media coverage on Iraq, thus allowing other emotional spaces to reveal themselves to our perception. Gaillard has wrought a work from a string of suggestive images in which the political is inseparably wound up with the cultural. We congratulate the artist on his achievement.'
The public choice award was presented by art - Das Kunstmagazin. Together with our exclusive partner, BMW, art gave away a series of attractive prizes to participants in the public choice award.
Around 85,000 people saw the exhibition since its opening four months ago. The public choice award also marks the end of the exhibition for this year.
Theo Solnik's winning film in the Preis für junge Filmkunst, 'Anna Pavlova lebt in Berlin' was also screened for the last time on 8 January.
The Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst 2011 was made possible thanks to the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie and was sponsored by BMW.