British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor has been named the Genesis Prize Laureate 2017, the Guardian reports. Dubbed the ‘Jewish Nobel Prize’ by Time magazine, it was awarded to Kapoor (born to an Iraqi-Jewish Mother and Indian Father) on 5 February. He has pledged to donate his $1 million (£800,000) prize money to help refugees who have fled war and persecution. In a statement, Kapoor has said: ‘Jewish identity and history have witnessed recurring conditions of indifference, persecution and Holocaust. Repeatedly, we have had to repossess ourselves and re-identify our communities… As inheritors and carriers of Jewish values it is unseemly, therefore, for us to ignore the plight of people who are persecuted, who have lost everything and had to flee as refugees in mortal danger.’
6 February 2017
