Neo Rauch winner The Vincent Award 2002
In 2002, the Vincent Award was given to the German painter Neo Rauch (b. Leipzig, 1960). His work, firmly rooted in the tradition of German Realism, consists of industrial landscapes and events from everyday life, depicted on canvas as frozen scenes from a film or individual frames from a comic strip. The jury, who unanimously chose Neo Rauch as the winner, was persuaded by the ‘hallucinatory atmosphere’ of the ‘archetypal human figures and desolate utopian locations’ in his work. The jury felt that this work, alluring, provocative, yet also detached, compels the viewer to contemplate it closely.
Neo Rauch’s work has been on display at a large number of group exhibitions in recent years, including at the ICA in London and Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. A solo exhibition is opening at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal on 14 September 2006.
Exhibition
This second Vincent Award differed in many respects from the Vincent 2000. In 2000, the six nominated artists showed their work in a group exhibition and the winner was announced during the course of this exhibition, but as of 2002 the organisers of the Vincent decided to allow the nominations and deliberations of the jury to take place behind closed doors, so as to protect the artists who did not win. The winner received not only the cash prize of €50,000, but also a solo exhibition at the Bonnefantenmuseum and an accompanying publication. Neo Rauch exhibited more than 60 of his works, created between 1993 and 2000, at the Bonnefantenmuseum. As a complement to the display of Rauch’s work, the Bonnefantenmuseum also organised the exhibition ‘Rauch’s favorieten: Mosaik – Blake & Mortimer – Eightball’, featuring the work of Rauch’s favourite comic artists. The catalogue Neo Rauch (2002) was produced by the publisher Hatje Cantz.
Jury
The jury in 2002 was made up of:
Harald Szeemann (chair) worked as an independent exhibition curator from the age of 28, apart from the period from 1961 to 1969, when he was the director of the Berner Kunsthalle. His much-discussed exhibitions put conceptual art and artists such as Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, Daniel Buren and Lawrence Weiner on the map. Szeemann directed Documenta 5 in Kassel in 1972, a Documenta packed with performance and happenings. In 1999 and 2001, he was director of the Venice Biennial. Harald Szeemann died on 18 February 2005.
Rosa Martinez is an independent curator, based in Barcelona. From 1988 to 1992, she was the director of the Barcelona Biennial. In 2003, Martinez put together the Spanish pavilion at the Venice Biennial. Two years later, in 2005, she returned to the Venice Biennial as director, together with Mária de Corral.
Zdenka Badovinac is the director of the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana. From 1993 to 1997, she was the Slovene Commissioner at the Venice Biennial for Slovenia; in 2002, she filled the same role, but this time for Austria at the São Paolo Biennial. In 2000, Zdenka Badovinac, as guest curator, created the ‘Unlimited-nl 3’ exhibition for De Appel in Amsterdam.
Eija-Liisa Ahtila is an artist who lives and works in Helsinki. She won the Vincent Award in 2000 for her original video works.
Alexander van Grevenstein is the director of the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, the host location of the Vincent from 2000 to 2004. He sat on the jury as a non-voting member
Neujahr, 2005, oil on canvas, 270 x 210 cm, by Neo Rauch, winner of The Vincent Award 2002. Work of Rauch is acquired for The Monique Zajfen Collection