A painter, Richard Wright, wins the Turner Prize in London and Victor Pinchuk announces a $100,000 prize for an artist under 35 to be given every two years. The Telegraph’s Richard Dorment applauds the choice of Wright:
Wright is a quieter, subtler artist, but one who is capable of producing works of incandescent, ethereal beauty. His work, too, is often ephemeral because he draws and paints abstract designs directly onto the gallery walls. When the show closes, they are painted over. Apart from the two works he made for the show that accompanies the Turner Prize I can’t tell you where to go to see a piece by him, because they have a limited life span. […] And here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write about a Turner Prize winner: the result is so damn beautiful you stand transfixed in front of it. I’m sorry about Hiorns but delighted for Wright.
And the New York Times’s Carol Vogel has the details on the Pinchuk prize:
A new $100,000 prize for artists under the age of 35 is being announced on Tuesday by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 2006 by its namesake Ukrainian billionaire and art collector.
The award, the Future Generation Art Prize, will be given every two years and is open to any young artist who applies online. About 100 professionals will also be asked to nominate candidates they think are producing exceptional work. Though the jury has yet to be announced, Mr. Pinchuk has drafted an international board of starry names that include Elton John and Miuccia Prada.
In a telephone interview Mr. Pinchuk said he created the competition after serving on the jury of Geisai (art festival in Japanese), a semiannual contest for young Japanese artists sponsored by Takashi Murakami and his company, Kaikai Kiki. “It was a very fascinating system,” said Mr. Pinchuk, whose center in Kiev exhibits works he has collected by Mr. Murakami, Damien Hirst and others. “I am hoping that the Future Generation Art Prize will help promote the Ukraine and Kiev as an important contemporary art center.”
The $100,000 award comes with strings: because Mr. Pinchuk wanted to ensure that the winner keeps working, he said, $40,000 of the purse must go into the production of art.
Richard Wright: Turner Prize Winner 2009 (Telegraph)
New Prize to Honor Arist Under 35 (New York Times)
