The City of Graz Art Prize has been awarded to a visual artist every two years since 1986 in appreciation and recognition of the overall artistic work in the field of visual arts. The City of Graz Art Prize will be endowed with EUR 15,000 from 2020.
Reason of the jury:
The jury unanimously decided to award the 2020 City of Graz Art Prize to Ruth Anderwald and Leonhard Grond. For years the two have stood out for their particularly productive analytical approach in their art production. Coming from photography and experimental film, Ruth Anderwald and Leonhard Grond work more consistently than almost any other artistic position in Austria in the field of artistic research in creative and collaborative processes. An artist couple who have been working together since 1999, they examine them both in their photographic and cinematic works, but also in exhibition projects such as Taumel. Navigating In the Unknown (Kunsthaus Graz and Ujasdowski Castle Warsaw), in her curated film programs such as Hasenherz (Cultural Center of the Minorites, et al.) Or in her documentary and educational work, new levels.
In current projects such as the short, Dadaist-looking film sketches for the renovation of the House for History in Vienna or a highly sensitive process support for the reorganization of the Austrian exhibition in the Memorial Center in Auschwitz-Birkenau, as well as in the seemingly classic art works project! European Culture of Resistance and Liberation, they continuously deal with forms of remembrance as an active form of enlightenment and participation in an exchanging community. You not only manage to cross genre and media boundaries, but also to open institutionalized processes for a productively distant (self) perception in exchange with visitors, researchers, youth groups and curators.
Video © Markus Mörth
Photo: © Kunsthaus Graz
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