BBA Artist Prize 2021

About

The BBA Artist Prize 2021; shortlist exhibition Kühlhaus Berlin

BBA Gallery is pleased to announce the 20 finalists of the BBA Artis Prize 2021

Shortlist: Tom Atwood, Sandra E. Blatterer, Sarah Choo, Ewa Cwikla, Mairead Dunne, Nina K Ekman, Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern, Kailum Graves, Mayuko Ono Gray, Dae Uk Kim, Jonathan Kraus, June Lee, Juliette Losq, Ernst Miesgang, Daniel Paul, Steve Parker, Tom Price, Chris Tille, Fiona White, Sven Windszus

The exhibition will also include works of the 2020 BBA Artist Prize winner Ming Lu

All works will be shown at:
Kühlhaus Berlin, Luckenwalder Strasse 3, 10963 Berlin

June 24 - July 4, 2021
Open daily from 11.00 - 19.00

Now in its sixth year, the BBA Artist Prize honors emerging artists. Together with an international jury, Berlin-based BBA Gallery has selected 20 artists whose works can be seen in a joint exhibition in the Kühlhaus Berlin. On June 25th at 7 p.m. the jury will announce the four winners as part of the exhibition. The first prize winner will receive a so-lo exhibition in the BBA Gallery.

The prize is sponsored by the notebook manufacturer LEUCHTTURM1917

The shortlisted artists and their works

At almost 9m long, “Big Bang” is an impressive photo by Chris Tille (Germany), which is the last available copy of a six-part edition, already represented in renowned private collections. The artist works at the intersection of science and art, visualising complex data sets and signals. In cooperation with the Max Planck Institute, which provided the artist with measurement data and a supercomputer on loan, “Big Bang” explores the cosmic microwave background, using a sound translation of radiation; the frequency, volume and time axis of sound defines the brightness and position of the image’s pixels.

A completely different kind of seeing, namely the gaze of the voyeur, connects the works of Sarah Choo (Singapore) and Kailum Graves (Australia). Graves uses low resolution surf cameras to capture the movements and activities of beach walkers. Through his video work “The Uncanny”, beings move on the threshold between the digital and physical world; hardly recognizable, because highly pixelated. On the other hand, Choo, who is known for her interdisciplinary approach to photography, video and installation, shows her video work “Accelerated Intimacy” and the accompanying fine art prints, where staged scenes in high resolution provide seemingly private insights into the life of hotel guests.

Photographer Tom Atwood (USA) also captures intimate moments. His series, “Kings & Queens and Their Castles” which has progressed over many years, is dedicated to the LGBTQ experience in the USA. His detailed portraits show some prominent personalities, such as the actor Alan Cumming, in their private environment. The motifs of the drawings by Mayuko Ono Gray (USA) are the private and the everyday. However, the artist combines her hyper-realistic drawing style with elements of traditional Japanese calligraphy by adding a single, string-like line to her pictures that serve as a metaphor for a life from birth of physical body to the exit of death and the loss of the physical.

Mysterious, symbolic scenes surround the figures painted by Fiona White (Australia). Her motifs are both challenging and moving; telling fragmented stories that comment on the human condition in a puzzling way and evoke an enlivened emotional response. Mairead Dunne (Great Britain), an Irish artist who explores the role of model-making in contemporary art, she creates unusual worlds in the form of small, dreamy tableaus by capturing theatrical models through the medium of photography. The landscapes that
Juliette Losq (Great Britain) created from ink and watercolors are partly imagined and partly real. Losq’s work describes the borderlands at the edge of human habitation, and the artist strives to free her chosen medium from the association of the small format preliminary study by working in the large format, upon which she applies many layers.

The field of sculpture is represented by diverse artists each using contrasting mediums. Sandra E. Blatterer (Germany) creates imaginary spaces with neon light, which generate things that never existed or are no longer original. The haptically inviting, textile cacti by Nina K Ekman (Denmark) give the artist opportunity to experiment with ways to stretch and challenge her own use of materials. Realistic figures and objects by June Lee (South Korea) are created with meticulous precision exploring the neutrality and duality of the individual, and the lifelike figures by Daniel Paul (Czech Republic), some of which are 3D-printed, are based on ethical and moral dilemmas. In contrast, the classic material porcelain and ceramics used by Ernst Miesgang (Austria) pretend to be anatomical mod-els, however, the artist deconstructs and reconstructs his objects so skilfully that his assembled figures appear strangely ironic. The mixed-media sculptures by Dae Uk Kim (Netherlands) appear similarly physical, but in a more futuristic manner and based on the aesthetics of the fetish. Tom Price (Spain) completes the field of sculpture with his
minimalist and conceptual work. For the artist, the material plays a central role and can even be decisive for the overall concept and narrative of his works, as is the case with his mixed-media sculpture “Synthesis”, which shines from within.

Both Sven Windszus (Germany) and Steve Parker (USA) follow an interactive approach. While Windszus uses the medium of the video installation to turn visitors into triggers for actions on the screen, Parker uses instruments and sounds. His sound sculptures invite the audience to create sounds by means of touch and movement and at the same time tempt them to listen without judgment.

Jonathan Kraus (Germany) and Ewa Cwikla (Netherlands) build a bridge between the old and the new. Cwikla pays homage to the atmosphere and lighting mood of the Dutch and Flemish masters, translating them into the medium of photography by means of
meticulous staging. Kraus too shows himself to be influenced by the art-historical canon and skillfully quotes (male) artist geniuses from classic modernism to pop art in his realistic paintings. This young painter cleverly combines an aesthetic that we are used to from the advertising or fashion world. In addition, a male figure appears again and again in his paintings - the artist's alter ego? With titles such as “Mansplaining in the conservatory”, Krauss also lets his pictures appear in the light of feminist discourse and gives them an original ambiguity.

Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern (Germany) is a choreographer and dancer who creates dance theatre for stage and film. In his detailed choreographies and productions, the artist explores emotions and social issues. He is represented in the exhibition with his dance film “Au mur de la mer” and a series of photographs of the same project, in which the artist lets two protagonists interact with one another to tell their story through the intertwining movements of their bodies.