Photographer wins caricature award | Sächsische.de

Almost 80 artists took part in the competition, which was advertised throughout Germany for the third time this year. This bears the motto “No more fun!” And deals with the topic of “death and humor”. The Saxon town of Radeburg is the birthplace of the graphic artist, painter and photographer Heinrich Zille, who later became famous in Berlin. The award, endowed with 1,000 euros, will be presented in Radeburg in May 2021.

On Kunert’s winning picture “Up high” you can see a stairlift in an old villa, the rail of which leads through the open window into the sky. “This already surreal scene satirically intensifies the desperate hope for a life after death,” says the jury chairman, Radeburg mayor Michaela Ritter (non-party). Together with the Komische Meister gallery in Dresden, the city of Zille’s birthplace launched the award in honor of Zille in 2018.

Grotesque and bizarre

Frank Kunert, born in 1963, does not work with pen and color like most of his caricaturist and cartoon colleagues. He builds his satirical worlds as amazingly real-looking miniature models. Then he photographs them extensively in the studio. Kunert’s works of comic art are also internationally successful and have been exhibited in New York and France. Several books show the grotesque and bizarre scenes from the artist’s workshop.

“I’m really happy about the award,” says Frank Kunert. “It’s my first prize that I get. The fact that it is given in Saxony is also something special for me personally. ”The artist’s mother comes from Dresden, the father from Leipzig, which is why he has always felt connected to Saxony, according to the trained photographer, who now lives near Koblenz in Boppard on the Rhine.

The company ANTEA Bestattungen is sponsoring the main jury prize. With the award ceremony in May 2021, the exhibition “No more fun!” Will open in the Radeburg local history museum. During the planned exhibition for the current competition with around 80 caricatures, a Heinrich Zille audience award will also be awarded. Visitors will be able to choose their favorite in the show from spring 2021. The Ideenwerk Radeburg GmbH donates 500 euros for this. “Our participating artists will be pleased, because an audience award is always recognition with broad approval,” said jury member Mario Süßenguth. He runs the Komische Meister Dresden gallery together with Peter Ufer.

Good visitor reactions

A cabinet show on Zille’s life and work can also be seen in the local history museum in Radeburg. “We are very positively surprised by the visitor reactions in our newly designed museum,” said Mayor Ritter. “Unfortunately, fighting the pandemic is currently making the presentation more difficult.” The federal-state program Urban Redevelopment East supports the Zille caricature prize project as well as the renovation of the museum building.

The previous winners of the Heinrich Zille Caricature Prize were the Berlin cartoonist and comic artist Olaf Schwarzbach for the drawing “Refugee Crisis”. The 2019 competition had the motto “The truth is the last thing!” confessed.