by Eva Szwarc // Apr. 14, 2023
For the eighth year in a row, the BBA Artist Prize will be awarded to emerging artists from around the world. A shortlist of 22 artists will participate in the group exhibition at Kühlhaus Berlin, from which an independent jury of experts will decide and announce the prize winners on April 29th at 8 pm. The first prize winner will receive a solo exhibition at the BBA Gallery in Berlin-Mitte.
The exhibition will span a wide range of mediums, from sculpture and screen-printing to painting and textiles. Painting-based artists include Thomas Cameron (UK), whose scenes bring closer attention to the familiar and everyday sights found in city life: shopfronts, bus stops, passersby, workers. In the unsettling work of Mathe Laszlo (Romania), contorted anatomies join obscured faces that bring to mind paintings from the Baroque period.
BBA Artist Prize exhibition 2022 // Courtesy of BBA Artist Prize 2023
Highlights from multi-disciplinary artists include the work of Dior Thiam (Germany) and Ernest Kankam (Ghana). In Thiam’s ‘The Wet Eyes of the Sentimentalist’ (2021) portraits are washed, stitched, cut and woven together. In unifying the portraits, gaps and disruptions emerge. Thiam explores portraiture, specifically within its colonial history as a voyeuristic weapon, as a tool whose narrative can be reframed and reworked. On Kankam’s large calico fabric hangings, images and colours are printed, sewn in or painted on. The various materials create rich scenes emerging from memory, history and pop culture reference.
BBA Artist Prize exhibition 2022 // Courtesy of BBA Artist Prize 2023
Performance-based work with a focus on repetitive action can be expected from Glen Ogden (UK). The social observation invites us to ask at what point action crosses over into futility or absurdity, and within what contexts and to what outcome are these actions deemed valuable? Similarly interested in futile processes, Neil Mendoza (USA) works with sculpture, electronics and software to bring inanimate objects and spaces to life, entering absurd or surreal realms.
BBA Artist Prize exhibition 2022 // Courtesy of BBA Artist Prize 2023
The winner of last year’s BBA Artist Prize, French-Slovakian artist Katarina Kudelova, will also be exhibiting her, quite literally, dynamite work. Sculptures of forest creatures are built from or strapped with firecrackers, a commentary on the impermanent conditions. This year’s BBA Artist Prize looks set to be an explosive affair.
Exhibition Info
Kühlhaus Berlin
‘BBA Artist Prize’
Opening Reception: Tuesday, Apr. 25; 7–10pm
Award Ceremony: Saturday, Apr. 29; 8pm
Exhibition: Apr. 26 – May 6, 2023
bba-prizes.com/artist-prize-2023
Luckenwalder Str. 3, 10963 Berlin, click here for map
