Salomon Foundation Residency Award 2021
Image: Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia, "Akossiwa, le temps d’une routine", 2017, copper, wood.
Courtesy of Galerie Sator. © Adrien Thibault
ART
Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia
Salomon Foundation Residency Award
The prize rewards each year an artist from one of the member countries of the Francophonie, working in the field of plastic and visual arts. The winning artist is rewarded by a six-month residency under the International Studio & Curatorial Program in Brooklyn, New York.
Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia lives and works between Paris, Amsterdam and Lomé. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Lomé (Togo) where he studied computer networks and telecommunications. Convinced of his passion for art, he continued his studies in the fine arts, which did not exist in his country of origin. After Abidjan and Valenciennes, he graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Paris. He is currently in residence at De Ateliers in Amsterdam.
About the Salomon Foundation Residency Award
Prix Picto de la Photographie de Mode 2021
Image: Natalia Evelyn Bencicova, The Rite.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Natalia Evelyn Bencicova
Premier Prix
Grand Prix Picto de la Photographie de Mode
Natalia Evelyn Bencicova is a 28-year-old visual artist from Slovakia. Her practice combines her interest in contemporary culture and academic research, creating a unique aesthetic space in which the conceptual meets the visual. Her photographs represent meticulously controlled compositions, characterized by a refined aesthetic, tinged with poetic overtones. Natalia Evelyn Bencicova constructs fascinating narrative scenarios that blur the lines between reality, memory and imagination - "truth-based fictions".
Image: Laurent Poleo-Garnier, Berlin.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Laurent Poleo-Garnier
Deuxième Prix
Dotation le19M de la Photographie des Métiers d'art
Born in Paris in 1995, Laurent Poleo-Garnier began his studies at a visual communication school before moving on to the visual arts. He now lives and works in Berlin where he explores different modes of expression such as video, dance and portrait photography, which will become his favorite subject. Encountered around clubs, shops or streets, his models, with a nonchalant attitude, express the duality of Berlin, between strength and fragility.
Image: Olivia Malena Vidal, Reaction, 2017.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Olivia Malena Vidal
Troisième Prix
Dotation Filippo Roversi
Olivia Malena Vidal trained, after a Masters in translation, at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), then at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam where she obtained a Bachelor of Visual Arts with a specialization in photography. Her artistic approach combines video, collage, photography, writing and painting in a research where dream and reality intermingle, accomplices in a perpetual quest for memory. In her visual work, the artist deals in particular with themes associated with figuration such as the study of the body and fashion. She explores the intimacy between the model and the photographer and the boundary between photography and painting.
About the Prix Picto de la Photographie de Mode
Joan Mitchell Fellowships 2021
Image: A composite of artworks by the 15 fellowship recipients.
Courtesy of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
ART
Joan Mitchell Fellowship
The New York–based Joan Mitchell Foundation has announced the inaugural recipients of its Joan Mitchell Fellowships, which provide 15 artists working in painting and sculpture with grants. The funds will be disbursed over a five-year span, during which the awardees will also be given access to networking opportunities with arts professionals and mentorship programs.
The 2021 Joan Mitchell Fellows are: María Berrío, Margaret Curtis,
Adam de Boer, Raúl de Nieves, Justin Favela, Chie Fueki,
Emily Gherard, Angela Hennessy, Mie Kongo, Guadalupe Maravilla, Kambui Olujimi, Ronny Quevedo, Rose B. Simpson, Liza Sylvestre and Luis Tapia.
About the Joan Mitchell Fellowships
Preis der Nationalgalerie 2021
Image: Sandra Mujinga, Spectral Keepers, 2021, exhibition view, The Approach, London.
Courtesy of the artist, The Approach, London and Croy Nielsen, Vienna. © Plastiques
ART
Sandra Mujinga
Preis der Nationalgalerie
This year’s Preis der Nationalgalerie, an esteemed biennial award given to a German artist younger than 40, went to Sandra Mujinga, whose sculptures, videos, photographs, and installations often conjure dystopian futures. Mujinga, who is based in Berlin and Oslo, will receive a solo show at the Hamburger Bahnhof, a state-run contemporary art museum in Berlin. Sandra Mujinga’s best-known works are her sculptures resembling elongated mythical beings with draping clothes that appear not to have bodies beneath their folds. The artist also has paid homage to the role that digital technology plays in how certain communities are represented in both the digital and physical realms.
