Walid Raad - 2011 Hasselblad Award Winner
The Hasselblad Foundation is pleased to announce Lebanese/American photographer Walid Raad as the recipient of the 2011 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. The prize, consisting of SEK 1,000,000 (approximately USD 150,000), a diploma and a gold medal were presented to Walid Raad in New York on March 8, 2011. An exhibition of the award winner’s work, Walid Raad – 2011 Hasselblad Award Winner will open on November 12, 2011 at the Hasselblad Center at the Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden, where the Foundation has its head office. In connection therewith one or more seminars will be arranged with the award winner.The Foundation’s citation regarding the decision to award the 2011 prize to Walid Raad is as follows:
Walid Raad is one of the most original and singular contemporary artists using photography. He has been widely acclaimed for his project “The Atlas Group,” in which Raad generated original ideas about the relationship between documentary photography, archive and history. In order to document and investigate Lebanon’s contemporary history, Raad developed innovative methods of approaching the imagery of war and the way political and social conflict can be explored in art. Through Raad’s work we are able to question the traditional iconography of war photography and speculate productively on visuality, memory and violence.
This year’s award committee, which submitted its proposal to the Foundation’s board of directors, consisted of:
• Sergio Mah (chair), Curator and Professor at University Nova of Lisbon, Portugal,
• Clément Chéroux, Curator, Department of Photography, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France,
• Charlotte Cotton, Creative Director, National Media Museum, UK,
• Thomas Seelig, Curator, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland,
• Carol Squiers, Curator, International Center of Photography (ICP), New York.
Hasselblad Foundation
www.hasselbladfoundation.org
info@hasselbladfoundation.org
For more information:
Jenny Blixt | T: +46 31 7782154 | jenny.blixt@hasselbladfoundation.org
www.hasselbladfoundation.org
Ekmansg 8, 41256 Göteborg, SWEDEN
The Hasselblad Foundation is an independent non-profit entity, created to promote research and academic teaching in the natural sciences and photography. This aim is achieved by means of donations and grants for scientific research, through the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, as well as several scholarships and grants for research projects in photography.
Victor Hasselblad (1906–1978), the pioneering Swedish photographer and industrialist, manufactured a camera which has become world famous, not least in connection with the manned trips to the moon. After his death, the Hasselblad Foundation was established in 1979 under the terms of the last will and testament of Dr. Victor Hasselblad and his wife Erna.
*Image above:
© Walid Raad. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut & Hamburg, Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London.