Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2023
Image: Ismail Ferdous, Fishermen at the Cox’s Bazar Beach, Bangladesh, December 19, 2022, from the series Sea Beach. © Ismail Ferdous/LOBA 2023
PHOTOGRAPHY
Ismail Ferdous
Leica Oskar Barnack Award
Ismail Ferdous is the winner of the 2023 Leica Oskar Barnack Award with his series Sea Beach. Colourful life at the beach: Cox's Bazar lies at the southernmost point of Bangladesh. It is a popular destination for many of the country's population, stretching along the Bay of Bengal. It is considered a cultural melting pot, where people from every walk of life and place in society search for a few moments of relaxation and recreation. Though he is currently based in New York, the photographer (born 1989) originates from Bangladesh, and returned to this special place to capture the beach goers and atmosphere in brilliant colours.
Image: Ziyi Le, A young couple, Hangzhou, China, April 21, 2021 from the series New Comer.
© Ziyi Le/LOBA 2023
PHOTOGRAPHY
Ziyi Le
Newcomer Award
Ziyi Le has been awarded the 2023 Newcomer Award with his series New Comer. Personal feelings of emptiness and self-doubt were the starting point for the Chinese photographer’s sensitive portrait series. Using Weibo, a Twitter-like portal for short messages in China, Ziyi Le found the protagonists for his series – and, in doing so, captured pictures reflecting a whole generation’s state of mind. "In this age of swift population mobility, people are increasingly leaving their hometowns. I use the term New Comer to refer to this group of people, including myself." Ziyi Le says.
About the Leica Oskar Barnack Award
Robson Orr TenTen Award 2023
Image: Michael Armitage, Ngaben, 2023 © Michael Armitage – Commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr TenTen Award 2023, a GAC/Outset Annual Commission
ART
Michael Armitage
Robson Orr TenTen Award
Kenya-born British artist Michael Armitage is the latest beneficiary of the Government Art Collection’s Robson Orr TenTen Award. The Government Art Collection commissions a different artist every year to create a limited-edition print to be displayed in diplomatic buildings internationally. Armitage’s print, Ngaben, pays tribute to a close friend in Bali who recently died, in an interweaving of the European aesthetic and east African techniques that the artist is known for. The title of this piece refers to Bali’s Hindu cremation ceremony, which puts the burning pyre at the centre of the cycle of life narrative.
About the Robson Orr TenTen Award
Frieze London
Image: Jack O'Brien, Swimmer, 2023. Soft pastel, spray paint, photographic print mounted on aluminium, heat-formed PETG plastic, chrome-plated steel, steel wire, springs, silver soup spoons, epoxy putty, 102x61x15 cm. Courtesy the artist and Ginny on Frederick
ART
Jack O’Brien
Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Prize
Jack O’Brien is the winner of the 2023 Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Prize at Frieze London. The London-based artist, who is represented by Ginny on Frederick, will realize a solo exhibition at Camden Art Centre in 2024 as part of the prize. Martin Clark, Director, Camden Art Centre, said of the winner: "We can’t wait to start working with Jack on his show at Camden Art Centre next year. It feels like a really important and timely moment for him. It’s only the second time we’ve made the award to a London-based artist and gallery, and it feels like such an energized time in London at the moment, with so many brilliant new galleries opening and so many exciting young artists living and working here."
2023 Borlem Prize
Image: Fia Backström, Aphasia as a visual way of speaking—on A-production and other language syndromes (2014). Part of the exhibition Greater New York at MoMA PS1, 2017. Photo: Charles Roussel.
ART
Fia Backström
Borlem Prize
Fia Backström has been awarded the Borlem Prize, which goes to an artist who brings awareness to mental health issues. Backström, who teaches at Cooper Union, represented Sweden at the Venice Biennale in 2011. Artist Linda Sibio's organisation Bezerk Productions will receive half of the prize money. Language is central to Fia Backström's text-based practice, including the ways it breaks down during experiences of psychosis.
Bourse Drawing Lab Project 2024
Image: Boris Labbé, Mono no aware, dessin préparatoire pour le projet Ito Meikyu / Fil d’errance. Courtesy de l’artiste.
ART
Boris Labbé and Judith Guez
Bourse Drawing Lab Project
The Drawing Lab Project 2024 grant intended for the production of an exhibition of contemporary drawing, was awarded to the artist Boris Labbé and the exhibition curator Judith Guez for their project entitled Ito Meikyu / Fil d’errance. The exhibition project proposes to explore the world of Mono no aware’s immersive fresco, central work throughout the exhibition, which will immerse us in an audiovisual wandering where the drawing (fixed and animated) will be the center of gravity and this time will revolve around a new field of creation for the artist: virtual reality.
About the Bourse Drawing Lab Project
2023 MacArthur Fellowships
Image: María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Freedom Trap, 2013. Polaroid Polacolor Pro photograph, 24x20 in. (61x50.8 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco. © María Magdalena Campos-Pons. (Photo: courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris)
ART
María Magdalena Campos-Pons
Raven Chacon
Carolyn Lazard
Dyani White Hawk
MacArthur Fellowship
The MacArthur Foundation has included four artists among its 2023 fellows. They are: María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Raven Chacon, Carolyn Lazard and Dyani White Hawk. Campos-Pons favours Polaroid photography in a practice that takes inspiration from her heritage, Nigerian slaves brought to Cuba to work on the sugar plantation where she grew up. Sound artist Raven Chacon incorporates objects such as foghorns, rifles, coins and whistles in his compositions. Pennsylvania artist Carolyn Lazard is especially concerned with the mechanisms of care. Lazard has incorporated medication, wheel-chair ramps and captions for a dance in her works. Minnesota-based artist Dyani White Hawk draws on her Sičáŋǧu Lakota and European ancestry in a practice that includes paintings, textiles, feathers and buckskin tassels.
About the MacArthur Fellowships
FRAME Awards 2023
Image: Ceramics manufacturer Mutina enlisted Studio Urquiola to develop a headquarters in its home base of Fiorano Modenese, Italy. The interiors are furnished with bespoke pieces by Urquiola and leading brands including Cassina, Vitra, Moroso and more.
DESIGN
Patricia Urquiola
Lifetime Achievement Award
Patricia Urquiola is FRAME’s 2023 Lifetime Achievement winner. Born in Oviedo, Spain, in 1961, she has dominated the design scene throughout the 21st century. With the invaluable experience she gained from three of Italy's great design maestros, she founded her studio in Milan in 2001. Combining strong, architectural forms with sensual textures, she quickly stood out in the male-dominated Italian design world. "Empathy is key when working with different brands," shares Urquiola. "You have to feel and understand the person in front of you, from the inside, even though you arrive from the outside. You have to respect their roots, their heritage – to focus and give it your all. Then you can move from company to company."
2023 PAD London Prizes
Image: Objects With Narratives, booth PAD London 2023. Photo credit: Studio Brinth
DESIGN
PAD London Prize
The 2023 PAD London Prizes have been awarded. Objects With Narratives received the Booth Prize; the Contemporary Design Prize was awarded to Khaya Cabinet (2023) by Gareth Neal Khaya (Mahogany) presented by the Sarah Myerscough gallery; the Historical Design Prize was awarded to a bar cabinet attributed to Otto Schulz for Boet Sweden (1935) presented by Modernity gallery; and Elisabetta Cipriani received the Jewellery Gallery Prize.
CIRCA Prize 2023
Image: Cemile Sahin, still from Four Ballads for My Father - Spring, 2023.
ART
Cemile Sahin
CIRCA Prize
The CIRCA prize was awarded to Cemile Sahin for her video work Four Ballads for My Father - Spring (2023). The theme of this year's prize was Hope: The Art of Reading What Is Not Yet Written. Sahin's film tells the story of a Kurdish family divided between Paris and Istanbul and the impact on their lives of the Southeastern Anatolia Dam Project which disrupted communities in Turkey's Kurdish regions. In the context of independent Kurdish Cinema muted by conflict in the region and Turkish cultural hegemony, "Making a film means hope" Sahin explained.
