Swiss Art Awards 2019

Today the Swiss Federal Office of Culture announced this year’s laureates of the Swiss Art Awards, Switzerland’s most acclaimed art competition. The awards annually honour outstanding positions in contemporary art, architecture as well as critique/publishing/exhibition.

The Swiss Art Awards are part of Switzerland's oldest and most renowned art competition—the Schweizer Kunstwettbewerb (Swiss Art Competition). Organised annually by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture since 1899, the exhibition offers a unique survey of the richly diverse, active and highly networked art scenes in all of Switzerland’s cantons and language regions. Each of the awards carries a 25,000 CHF prize.

Award ceremony and exhibition running in parallel with Art Basel

The works of the laureates and of all shortlisted participants of the Swiss Art Competition are on view in the Swiss Art Awards presentation, conceived by Léa Fluck and team. Following the award ceremony tonight at 5pm, the exhibition opens at 7pm, marking the start of a packed week of art in Basel.

Swiss Art Awards 2019 laureates

Art
Mirkan Deniz (*1990 in Istanbul, lives and works in Zurich)
Gabriele Garavaglia (*1981 in Vercelli, lives and works in Zurich)
Simone Holliger (*1986 in Aarau, lives and works in Geneva)
Sophie Jung (*1982 in Luxembourg, lives and works in Basel and London)
David Knuckey (*1985 in Geneva, lives and works in Geneva)
Aldo Mozzini (*1956 in Locarno, lives and works in Zurich)
Augustin Rebetez (*1986 in Delémont, lives and works in Mervelier)
Dorian Sari (*1989 in Izmir, lives and works in Basel and Geneva)
Hannah Weinberger (*1988 in Filderstadt, lives and works in Basel)

Architecture
Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten (founded in 2005, live and work in Zurich)

Critique/Publishing/Exhibition
Gianmaria Andreetta (*1986 in Lugano, lives and works in Geneva and Amsterdam)

The Swiss Art Awards 2019 feature an important innovation in architecture and in critique/publishing/exhibition that is unique both in Switzerland and internationally. Participants in the second round devised specific architectural interventions or drew up specific criticism, publication or exhibition concepts for the Swiss Art Awards. Both winning projects—Anthropomorphe Form by Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten and Show And Tell by Gianmaria Andreetta—will be executed in the exhibition hall next year as part of the Swiss Art Awards 2020.

Jury—Federal Art Commission
The jury for the Swiss Art Awards is chaired by Giovanni Carmine (Director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen). Its members are Laura Arici (Art Historian, Zurich), Valentin Carron (Artist, Fully), Victoria Easton (Architect, Christ & Gantenbein, Basel), Julie Enckell Julliard (Head of the Cultural Development Department, HEAD, Geneva), Anne-Julie Raccoursier (Artist, Lausanne) and Anselm Stalder (Artist, Basel). This year’s advisory experts are Oliver Lütjens and Tanya Zein (architecture), as well as Yasmin Afschar, Marcel Bleuler and Uriel Orlow (visual arts).

Publication
The Swiss Art Awards 2019 publication, scheduled to launch in autumn, will present the laureates’ works, jury statements and further texts on the awards.



Accompanying programme
Performances by Nicole Bachmann, Gabriele Garavaglia, Sophie Jung, Nils Amadeus Lange and Claudia Stöckli during the opening and/or the exhibition week. For further details, see swissartawards.ch. 

Public guided tours
4–5pm, Tuesday to Sunday

For press enquiries please contact
Anna Francke, T +41 79 778 49 15, media@swissartawards.ch