PHOTO BY NADINE FRACZKOWSKI
The Absolut Art Awards for 2017 have been announced, and the winners are Anne Imhof for art work, and Huey Copeland for art writing. Each will receive a cash prize of €20,000, along with a budget for a new project: €100,000 to Imhof to develop a new work, and €25,000 to Copeland to support the writing of a book.
The winners will be feted tonight here in Venice—where Imhof has one of the standout works in the Giardini—and the awards will be handed out during a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, in September.
This year’s jury consisted of a number of figures from various corners of the art world: Moderna Museet president Daniel Birnbaum, Swiss Institute director Simon Castets, Kunsthalle Basel director Elena Filipovic, Chisenhale Gallery director Polly Staple, and Artforum editor-at-large Jack Bankowsky.
Imhof will use the funding to stage a performance in California’s Death Valley, swapping “the white cube for the Badwater Basin, pushing the production outside the parameters offered by the art institution.” This will eventually be presented as a film. Copeland will write a collection of essays, Touched by the Mother, “a personal account of what it means to navigate the world of contemporary American culture as a gay black man and a critical consideration of the works of many of today’s most important artists.”