FREIBURG IM BREISGAU.- The Ege Art and Culture Foundation and the City of Freiburg have named Kelly Tissot the winner of the 2024 Paul Ege Art Prize.

The Paul Ege Art Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros, has been awarded every three years since 2007 by the Ege Art and Culture Foundation in cooperation with the City of Freiburg. The prize is aimed at young artists up to 35 years of age who come from or work in the three-country border region of France, Germany and Switzerland. The award is judged in a two-stage process consisting of a nomination committee and a jury. This year, the members of the nomination committee were Iris Hasler, associate curator, Fondation Beyeler (Switzerland), Samuel Leuenberger, director, SALTS (Switzerland), and Elfi Turpin, director, CRAC Alsace (France). The jury consisted of Aoife Rosenmeyer, art critic (Switzerland), Marijke van Warmerdam, artist and professor, State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe (Germany), and Sandrine Wymann, director, La Kunsthalle Mulhouse (France).

Jury statement

“Kelly Tissot employs photography in order to communicate a close but unsentimental viewpoint of agricultural and rural life. In this work she presents a little-explored perspective with considerable authority. It is not romantic nor is it driven primarily by environmental concerns but manifests the social structures of farm and rural life.

The jury was impressed by Tissot’s mastery of photography, informed by the artist’s research into various techniques and supports. Her analogue photography is the basis for carefully constructed prints complemented by architectural elements that are both independent sculptures and an exhibition architecture that cleverly corrals viewers.

In this practice, the photographic works become sculptural and sculptural elements are graphic. The scenography is often slight yet nonetheless contributes to an orchestration of the viewer’s movement and the viewing experience. In the structures themselves, Tissot identifies an overlooked and uncelebrated vernacular and creates forms that, with minimal means, speak of the practice of farming, of influences from other sectors, of scale and of populations.”

—Aoife Rosenmeyer, Marijke van Warmerdam, Sandrine Wymann

The Ege Art and Culture Foundation and the City of Freiburg would like to thank the jury for their commitment and are delighted to announce the winner of the Paul Ege Art Prize 2024: Kelly Tissot was born in France in 1995, completed her Bachelor’s degree 2018 at the Ecole Cantonale d’Art in Lausanne and in 2020 her Master’s degree at the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst in Basel, where she currently lives and works.