The Prize for Young Contemporary Creation of the City of Nice, supported by the Bernar Venet Foundation, was awarded to two winners from the 2011 class of the Villa Arson at a ceremony at the Galerie de la Marine.
The artist selected for the City of Nice Prize is Thomas Teurlai, and Ugo Schiavi was chosen for the Bernar Venet Foundation Prize.
The prize for young contemporary creation, which for the third year distinguishes two winners among the graduates of the Villa Arson, reflects the City of Nice’s strong commitment to help and encourage young artists to settle and develop professional projects in the art world after leaving the school.
The winners will each receive a creative grant, along with a one-year residency and an exhibition at the Galerie de la Marine in October 2012.
Organized at the initiative of the City of Nice and supported by the Bernar Venet Foundation, the jury for the 2011 prize was chaired by Xavier Douroux, director of the Consortium in Dijon and Director of the Presses du Réel. He was assisted by critic Jill Gasparina, collector Michel Fédoroff, and artists Christophe Berdaguer and Maris Péjus.
Thomas Teurlai, City of Nice Prize winner, develops works of sculpture and installations supported by different regimes that equally rest on the idea of the presence of sculpture, stressing physical phenomena, space, and the spectator, as well as related notions of secrecy, erasure, or irreversible loss that form an image.
At the Galerie de la Marine, an explosive mandala revisits the aerial photograph of a bombed city through gunpowder.
Ugo Schiavi, Bernar Venet Prize winner, addresses questions related to the practice and history of sculpture through his videos, photographs, and installations. Through a series of performances climbing monumental public sculptures like those of Calder, Takis, Miro at La Défense, or even Cragg at the Tuileries, he approaches modern art with bare hands for a sensitive interpretation of the forms.
This prize is awarded at the occasion of the annual exhibition of the 2011 graduates of the National School of Art of the Villa Arson. Titled “Demain c’est loin,” it unfolds in two parts, at the Galerie de la Marine and at the Villa Arson Test Gallery, until October 9, 2011.
The exhibition is part of the “Contemporary Art and the Côte d’Azur, a Territory for Experimentation, 1951-2011” event.
