Anne Imhof and Huey Copeland have been awarded the 2017 Absolut Art Award for Art Work and Art Writing, respectively. Imhof and Copeland will each receive a prize of €20,000 (£17,000), with a further budget of €100,000 (£85,000) for the artist to produce and exhibit new artwork, while Copeland will receive an extra €25,000 (£21,000) to develop a new art publication in collaboration with a publishing house.
Imhof was chosen for her proposal of a new work which takes art production outside of the limitations of the art institution and is instead set in salt desert in Death Valley, California. The new performance will culminate in a film. Copeland was awarded the Art Writing prize for his proposal of a collection of essays titled Touched by the Mother which will offer different perspectives on American art production and discourse over the last half century, combining personal accounts with critical observations of leading contemporary artists.
The jury for the 2017 award included: Simon Castets, director and curator of Swiss Institute, New York and co-founder of 89plus; Elena Filipovic, director and chief curator of Kunsthalle Basel; Polly Staple, director of Chisenhale Gallery, London; and critic, curator and editor-at-large at Artforum Jack Bankowsky.
12 May 2017
