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Mykyta Kadan becomes the winner of the Main Prize of the PinchukArtCentre Prize 2011

Zhanna Kadyrova and Serhiy Radkevych are awarded Special Prizes PinchukArtCentre 2011, and Public Choice Prize goes to Mykyta Shalennyi.

Watch the PinchukArtCentre Prize 2011 Award Ceremony photo gallery

On December 9, 2011, the PinchukArtCentre announced laureates of the PinchukArtCentre Prize 2011 based on the decision of the international jury members, who arrived to Kyiv especially for this occasion. 

The winner of the Main Prize becomes Mykyta Kadan for his work “Pedestal. The Practice of Exclusion”. The finalist has been awarded UAH 100 thousand and one month residence in a studio of an internationally renowned artist. Additionally, Mykyta is automatically included in the short list of the Future Generation Art Prize - international prize for young artists.

The international jury members Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director Serpentine Gallery (United Kingdom), and Ekaterina Degot, professor at Moscow Alexander Rodchenko school of photography and new media (Russia), presented the top award to the winner. They said: “The jury was unanimous in judging this the best piece in the exhibition.  We admired the clarity of his ideas and the way they were executed in subtle, spatial terms. This  non-nostalgic, anti-monument reflects on the nature of history and memory, while pointing to the future. It reflects on ideas of permanence and ephemerality. We liked the way the piece condenses wider ideas of the city and its current mutation and transformation:  Kiev as a city on the move.”

Video Profile of Mykyta Kadan, the winner of the Main Prize

The first Special Prize of the PinchukArtCentre Prize 2011 went to Zhanna Kadyrova and the second Special Prize was awarded to Serhiy Radkevych. The laureates receive UAH 25 thousand each and one month residence in a studio of one of the world’s leading artists.

For the PinchukArtCentre exhibition Kadyrova continued the transformation of found objects or situations, radically cutting found pieces of fractured road asphalt and presenting them as paintings in the gallery, or placing an asphalt sphere next to the entrance to the art centre.

Presenting the award to Zhanna, Kate Bush, Head of Art Galleries Barbican (United Kingdom), stated: “The jury found consistent development in Zhanna Kadyrova’s body of sculpture. We particularly appreciated the relationship between inside and outside in her practice: the way that the pieces are positioned equally well in public space and gallery space, thereby questioning the traditional demarcation of public art and gallery art. We found her works tactile and expressive. We respected her wider project which seems to us to involve complex ideas about the relationship between city, art and architecture, and a rich investigation of cartography.”

Video Profile of Zhanna Kadyrova, the first Special Prize Winner

The jury awarded Serhiy Radkevych for his large scale mural “Eucharist” inside historical building of Bessarabka food market.

Marc Olivier Wahler, Director of Palais de Tokyo (France): “The jury were excited and surprised by Serhiy’s juxtaposition of religious iconography with the language and form of street art. The artist succeeds in developing an extremely contemporary language based on fragments of the past. On an aesthetic level, we considered his exhibited work beautifully integrated into the context and history of the market hall. We admired it’s mingling of figuration and abstraction, modernity and tradition, in a vivid public setting. Radkevich continually seeks interesting settings for his interventions whether in urban or landscape contexts.”

Video Profile of Serhiy Radkevich, the second Special Prize Winner

The Public Choice Prize of UAH 10 000 went to Mykyta Shalennyi for his series of works “Loneliness” with a blow-up doll and a clown as main actors who emphasise the idea of loneliness and anonymity within society.

The winner of this Prize was chosen based on the results of voting by the PinchukArtCentre visitors held during the exhibition of 20 shortlisted artists from October 27 to December 4, 2011. Pavlo Makov presented the award to the winner.

The PinchukArtCentre Prize 2011 international jury include Kate Bush, Head of Art Galleries Barbican (United Kingdom); Marc Olivier Wahler, Director of Palais de Tokyo (France); Ekaterina Degot, professor at Moscow Alexander Rodchenko school of photography and new media (Russia); Olafur Eliasson, artist (Denmark); Pavlo Makov, artist (Ukraine); Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director Serpentine Gallery (United Kingdom); Eckhard Schneider, General Director PinchukArtCentre (Ukraine).

The 20 nominees for the PinchukArtCentre Prize 2011 were shortlisted by an Expert Committee from more than 1100 applicants. Among them: Daniil Galkin, Andriy Halashyn, Dobrynia Ivanov, Mykyta Kadan, Zhanna Kadyrova, Taras Kamennoy, Olesia Khomenko, Alina Kleitman, Volodymyr Kuznetsov, Lada Nakonechna, Serhiy Petlyuk, Serhiy Radkevych, Stepan Riabchenko, Mykola Ridnyi, Mykyta Shalennyi, Masha Shubina, Natasha Shulte, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Hamlet Zinkovskyi, Salmanov-Kornienko group (Oleksiy Salmanov; Dmytro Kornienko).

The PinchukArtCentre Prize 2011 exhibition will be open until January 8, 2012.