Hito Steyerl wins the inaugural EYE Prize
EYE
IJpromenade 1
1031 KT Amsterdam
The Netherlands
The winner of the inaugural EYE Prize is Hito Steyerl (b. 1966, Munich). She receives the 25,000 GBP prize to fund the making of new work.
The EYE prize, a collaboration between the Dutch film museum EYE and the Paddy & Joan Leigh Fermor Arts Fund, aims to support and promote an artist or filmmaker whose work has contributed to the developments in the field between art and film in a remarkable manner.
This is clearly seen in Steyerl’s oeuvre.”Steyerl is amongst the keenest observers of our thoroughly globalised, digitised world. Her works are at the forefront of the new digital age language, which she researches, questions and opens up to discussion. She speculates on the impact of the internet digitalisation on the fabric of everyday life. By using all different and possible audiovisual techniques, Steyerl is an essay filmmaker and artist par excellence.” (The Jury’s report) An international advisory board, consisting of key members from the fields of visual arts and film, made the selection of nominated candidates for the EYE Prize, and the winner was chosen by the EYE Prize Jury.
Born in 1966 in Munich, Germany, Berlin-based artist and writer Hito Steyerl is one of the most critically acclaimed artists working in the field of the moving image today. Her work straddles the border between film and fine arts, and between theory and practice, exploring the role of the media in globalisation, and the mass proliferation and dissemination of images and knowledge brought on by digital technologies.
In the last year, she has had solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Her work has been included in the 2013 Venice Biennale and Istanbul Biennial; the 2010 Gwangju and Taipei biennials; the 2008 Shanghai Biennale; Documenta 12, Kassel; in 2007 and Manifesta 5 in 2004. Steyerl is a professor of Art and Multimedia at the Berlin University of the Arts.
EYE Prize
Marking a new collaboration between EYE, the Dutch film museum and the Paddy & Joan Leigh Fermor Arts Fund, the creation of the EYE Prize was set to highlight the intricate relation between contemporary art and film.
EYE positions itself as a leading international museum of the art and culture of the moving image—as a museum that presents film as the youngest, most dynamic and border-crossing art form. EYE’s commitment to exploring the interface between art and film—both historical and contemporary developments—is clearly illustrated by its programming of exhibitions, screening room programmes, events, lectures and symposia. EYE’s exhibition programme concentrates on the various forms in which film is shown within the context of museums and has a strong focus on the area in which visual arts and film meet. The many artists/filmmakers that have been the subject of dedicated exhibitions include Yang Fudong, Oskar Fischinger, Brothers Quay, Fiona Tan, Anthony McCall, Isaac Julien, David Maljkovic, Douglas Gordon, Christoph Girardet & Matthias Müller, Nicolas Provost, and Slater Bradley.
Sandra den Hamer, CEO of EYE: “With the undeniable intimate relationship between the moving image and contemporary arts, it is about time for a prize for work which brings these two art forms together. EYE is delighted that the PJLF Arts Fund has made the creation of this new prize possible, and, with our additional commitment to stage an exhibition every fourth year of the three previous years’ EYE Prize winners, EYE will cement its position as a leading and international institution for film and art.”
Jury inaugural EYE Prize 2015
Sandra den Hamer, Chairman (The Netherlands), Chief Executive Officer EYE
Chantal Akerman (Belgium), director / artist
Stuart Comer (USA), Chief Curator for Media and Performance Art, MoMA, New York
Isaac Julien (UK), artist / director
Martijn Sanders (The Netherlands), cultural entrepreneur, advisor and art collector
Olivia Stewart (UK / Italy), Trustee PJLF Arts Fund / producer / screenwriter
Béla Tarr (Hungary), screenwriter / director
Advisory board EYE Prize
Jaap Guldemond, Head of the Advisory Board (The Netherlands), Director of Exhibitions / Curator, EYE
Solange Farkas (Brazil), Director and Curator of Associação Cultural Videobrasil
Gyula Gazdag (Hungary/USA), filmmaker / Artistic Director of the Sundance Filmmakers Lab
Marc Glöde (Germany), film historian / critic
Sunjung Kim (South Korea), curator and Professor at the Korea National University of Arts
Andrea Lissoni (Italy/UK), Curator, Film and International art, Tate Modern
The PJLF Arts Fund
The PJLF Arts Fund was established in 2011 to support artists, writers, filmmakers and musicians. Paddy Leigh Fermor (1915–2011) was a celebrated British writer. He and his wife, Joan Eyres Monsell (1911–2003), a talented photographer, were active supporters of the arts. Both their archives are housed at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.