Loukia Alavanou wins The DESTE Prize 2007
Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art
11, Filellinon & Em.Pappa street
N.Ionia 142 34, Athens Greece
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The DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art is delighted to announce that the winner of DESTE Prize 2007 is Loukia Alavanou.
The winner was decided by this year’s Jury, consisting of Dakis Joannou-President, The Deste Foundation, Pawel Althamer-Artist, Laura Hoptman- Curator, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Hans Ulrich Obrist-Co-Director Exhibitions & Programmes and Director of International Projects, Serpentine Gallery and Amanda Sharp-Publishing Director, Frieze Magazine & co-Director, The Frieze Art Fair.
The Deste Prize of 10.000, was presented to the artist by the Jury at a special event at the Foundation’s premises on the evening of 24th September 2007.The five other short listed artists were Nikos Arvanitis, Savvas Christodoulides, Socrates Fatouros, Yiannis Grigoriadis and Eleni Kamma.
The work of all six artists will be on display at the DESTE Foundation until November 3rd 2007.
According to the statement of the Deste Prize 2007 Jury Committee:
“This year was a particularly strong showing for the DESTE Prize. The Prize has been awarded to Loukia Alavanou whose video work displays a lightness of touch in its frank embrace of the strange, its mordant humor, and its witty mining of cinematic references.
Inspired by historical animation techniques, Loukia weaves narratives that transform a familiar Disney image into a surrealistic nightmare or fantasy. Visually rich, Loukias work displays a facility with her craft that we look forward to seeing develop.”
Alavanou, (born in Athens in 1979) has had a number of solo shows, including
Haas & Fischer, Zurich (2007), Dead Real, upstairs berlin, Berlin (2006) and Cactus, The Breeder, Athens (2004). Group exhibitions include among others: Satelite Works, Centre de Production et de Diffusion en Art Actuel et Multidisciplinaire, Québec (2007), 100Tage = 100 Videos, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg (2006), Videos And More, Vamiali’s Gallery, Athens (2006), This Ain’t No Karaoke, Haas & Fischer, Zurich, curated by M .Henry (2006), Peach, Gallery Eugen Lendl, Graz, curated by E. Martischnig (2006), What Remains Is Future, Arsakion, Patra, curated by N. Argyropoulou (2006).
The DESTE Prize was established in 1999 as part of the Foundation’s policy of supporting and promoting contemporary art in Greece and is awarded every two years to a Greek artist living and working either in Greece or abroad. Through this prize, Deste hopes to endorse the spirit of exploration, ingenuity and ambition so essential to the Foundation’s mission and to the vitality of contemporary art.
Previous DESTE Prize winners have been Panayota Tzamourani, (1999), Georgia Sagri, (2001), Maria Papadimitriou, (2003), Christodoulos Panayiotou (2005).
