Artist from Albania won EU fine art prize

The Albanian-born artist Anri Sala attained a € 50,000 fine art grant as a result of winning the Vincent Award in the Hague, capital of the Netherlands. The Vincent Medals, held biennially, rewards artists who have had a significant impact on the progression of conceptual creative arts in the European Union. The opponents were comprised of Manfred Pernice from Germany, Willem de Rooij from the Netherlands, Pierre Huyghe from France and the English Gillian Wearing, a winner of the United Kingdom Turner award.

His victory installation artwork was a new look at previous pieces: two flicks and an installation. Dubbed Le Clash and Tlatelolco Clash, the piece incorporates one man wandering around the place of brutal, suppressed youth manifestations of 1968, in the capital of Mexico. He is followed by the music of a self-regulating drum installation and The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go”. Both films are featured together, pushing the visitors to engage in judgements about the way they look at the piece, sending some measure of influence back to the guests. As for himself, Sala stated that the piece concerned the “lack of success of ideological constructions”.

The proposal and appointment of the victor was decided by a modestly sized judging body, which featured Benno Tempel, head of the Gemeentemuseum, and Anita Zabludowicz, co-founder of the Zabludowicz Collection, United Kingdom. The nomination was offered on pre-selection grounds, made by industry experts of fresh art. Nominee Anri Sala could not be found at the ceremony but he was represented by an Albanian ambassador and, besides that, supplied his many thanks by using a live broadcast. “It’s a remarkable delight to have been awarded this, but it’s saddening that I cannot be present at the awards to enjoy and receive it personally” he said. “Even if this is perhaps a little like my installation artworks, where the graphic is in a single area and the audio is in some other space, even so I would like it if both my sound and my presence could be there with you all. Thank you all a lot for this trophy.”

A press release from the judges said: “In this 6th iteration of the Vincent Prizes, we experienced an intense emphasis on temporal-minded setups, installation artworks that are not demanding time on the audience but delivering time. Time to ponder, time to submerge and time to step into other spheres and aspects. In our communities, time consuming and multitasking is everywhere you go. We believe that being curious as to this this is an indispensable job of modern-day creative arts.”

As the organizer of this year’s prizes, the Gemeentemuseum in the Hague gets to show the final 6 installations until February.