VIENNA.- The biennial award for contemporary art, endowed with 20,000 euros, was presented for the second time on Monday, May 13, 2024, by Vendome Projects and Belvedere.

JURY STATEMENT:

The selection of Rabbya Naseer was based on her impressive artistic quality and her special methodology. Rabbya Naseer's work opens up an intimate space that she creates together with her audience and that addresses the economy of time. In her process-based practice, she questions the modes and models of representation and visibility in the contemporary art system as well as in society at large. Rabbya Naseer addresses invisibility as a way of exploring temporary structures, subversive moments and spaces of freedom. She reflects on immediate contexts and situations, often as a dialog partner, a storyteller, setting up situations that generate and leave traces with a particular form of poetry. The artist works on different levels, taking into account the respective context and reacting to it. In doing so, she poses urgent and new questions that are of particular relevance to the jury in a time of rapid and complex technological and social change. The jury is pleased to unanimously award this prize to Rabbya Naseer.

This year’s nominated jury, consisting of Anette Baldauf (Sociologist, Professor of Methodology and Epistemology, and Co-Head of the artistic research program PhD in Practice at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts), Robert Gabris (Artist and recipient of the Belvedere Art Award 2022, Vienna), Jen Kratochvil (Curator and Educator, Vienna and Prague), Hana Ostan Ožbolt (Curator and Author, Vienna and Ljubljana), Nina Tabassomi (Director of Taxispalais Kunsthalle Tirol in Innsbruck), nominated a total of ten artists: Rawan Almukhtar, Gleb Amankulov, Abdul Sharif Oluwafemi Baruwa, Rehema Chachage, Rabbya Naseer, Naomi Rincón-Gallardo, Miriam Stoney, Esther Strauß, Sophie Thun, and Sophie Utikal. The award winner was determined by an international selection jury on May 13, 2024. This year’s selection jury included Andrea Bellini (Director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and Curator of the Swiss Pavilion at the 60th Biennale di Venezia), Fatima Hellberg (Director of the Bonner Kunstverein and designated General Director of mumok, Vienna), Andreja Hribernik (Director of Kunsthaus Graz), Stella Rollig (General Director of Belvedere, Vienna), and Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein (Art Historian, Curator, and Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Initiator of the Belvedere Art Award).

The festive award ceremony took place in the evening of May 13th at the Belvedere 21. After a performance by musician Steffanie Ergen, the nominated artists were introduced, and the award recipient was announced. Following a congratulatory speech also delineating the jury’s decision, around 100 invited guests from the arts and culture scene attended the reception with music by DJ JOIE DE F:LLE.

In addition to the 20,000 Euro prize money, Rabbya Naseer has been granted a solo exhibition with an accompanying publication. The solo presentation will take place from March to June 2025 at the Belvedere 21.