Emily Wardill is the first laureate of the
Follow Fluxus–After Fluxus grant!
ll NKV
nassauischer kunstverein wiesbaden
wilhelmstr 15
65185 wiesbaden
germany
info [at] kunstverein-wiesbaden.de
The first ever Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus grant for young contemporary art called by the NKV nassauischer kunstverein wiesbaden and the State Capital of Wiesbaden and doted with 10.000 Euro goes to British video and performance artist Emily Wardill.
Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus /
Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus supports young international artists whose work suggests ideas inherent to the Fluxus art movement in order to keep the art current alive. The establishment of the grant was inspired by the “Fluxus Festival of Very New Music” which took place in Wiesbaden in 1962. This Fluxus event provided the first real broad impact for the new art movement and started off what is now seen as the first international movement operating in a global network.
The endowment of 10,000 Euro is provided annually for a residency in Wiesbaden from June through August. Living quarters and studio space is provided by NKV during this time. The work stipend concludes with an exhibition of the artist’s created work in the following year between September and May and includes a publication. The grant holder should reside predominantly in Wiesbaden for the duration of the grant period.
Emily Wardill /
Emily Wardill’s fresh and insistent pictorial language and her ambition to tap the full potential of the medium film convinced the jury to elect her as the first ever Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus laureate of the NKV and the State Capital of Wiesbaden.
Following sources of philosophy, science and culture, in her films Emily Wardill recomposes text and image material from the history of ideas – such as the motives of medieval church windows or theoretical treatises from Ruskin to Rancière – and develops a many layered and intense meshwork of autonomous statements and concepts. Her work is concerned with strategies of communication and the implicit connection between the structure of a language and the media conversion of the pre-existent text and image material.
Based on one single metaphor, one carefully chosen motif, Wardill plays with the sensuous possibilities of filmic narrative. With the thus surging social and psychological implications, she pulls the spectator into an intense tableau vivant. The expectation of a complex overall meaning is fed by hidden leads and encoded clues for possible interpretations: The visitor’s perception is wooed along a labyrinthine path of
intellectual seduction.
This is where the jury sees the point of contact in the further development of George Maciunas’ ideas. Primal for the jury’s decision was not an artist’s self-image as an heir of historical Fluxus but rather a body of work which transpires the Fluxus spirit, free of any categorical boundaries.
The Jury 2008
/ Prof. Thomas Bayrle, artist and Professor at the Staedelschule Frankfurt
/ Michael Berger, Collection Berger, Wiesbaden
/ René Block, Curator of the Fluxus Trilogy Wiesbaden 1982 – 1992 – 2002
/ Rita Thies, Head of Cultural Department of the city of Wiesbaden
/ Elke Gruhn, Director and Curator of NKV and Dr. Ursula Schaumburg-Terner, Board Member of NKV
Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus is a cooperation of the ll\ NKV nassauischer kunstverein wiesbaden and the State Capital of the City of Wiesbaden.
