Group exhibition of this year’s nominees for the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2017 opens at Hamburger Bahnhof – Berlin. BMW as exclusive partner.

Berlin. The four nominees for this year’s Preis der Nationalgalerie Sol Calero, Iman Issa, Jumana Manna, and Agnieszka Polska will show their works in a group exhibition from September 29, 2017 until January 14, 2018 at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin. BMW is long-term partner of the Preis der Nationalgalerie and will also support the ninth edition of the award.

Since 2000, the Preis der Nationalgalerie honors important young positions in the international art field. The award winners and nominees have ever since been among the defining protagonists of contemporary art. Eligible for the Preis der Nationalgalerie are artists of all nationalities who presently live and work in Germany and who are not older than the age of 40.

All four artistic positions, which are presented in the joint exhibition, have been nominated by a first jury and will present their works during the group show to a second jury consisting of: Zdenka Badovinac, Director der Moderna galerija, Ljubljana; Sven Beckstette, Curator at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Hou Hanru, Artistic Curator of MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome; Udo Kittelmann, Director of the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin; Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A. Lauder Chairman for Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

On October 20, 2017 this year’s prize winner will be announced in an award ceremony at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin. The awardee will be honored next year with a comprehensive solo exhibition and an accompanying publication.

This year’s nominees are:

Sol Calero (born 1982 in Caracas, living in Berlin)
Sol Calero is interested in a “Latin American identity” and its cultural codes. In her expansive installations, elements of vernacular architecture, the aesthetics of the tropics and social interaction are combined. Playfulness is connected to a critical approach that clarifies the paradox of “self-exoticization” and focuses on processes of exoticization that transform images and communities into stereotypes.

Iman Issa (born 1979 in Cairo, living in New York and Berlin)
Iman Issa addresses the relevance and the presence of inherited culture. At first, her sculptures from the “Heritage Studies” series appear Minimalist and oriented towards formal issues. However, they are a sculptural and personal appropriation of existing works of art and cultural assets seen through today’s view of the artist. Issa’s sculptures, that each have an additional text, thus resemble their archetypes in a different way than as visual and formal similarities.

Jumana Manna (born 1987 in Princeton, living in Berlin)
Jumana Manna makes films and sculptures that explore the ways in which social, political, and interpersonal forms of power interact with the human body. Her films weave together fact and fiction, autobiographical and archival materials, to investigate constructions of national and ideological narratives. The use of personal references is characteristic of her work, like in the exhibited film about musical traditions of the ethnic groups living around Jerusalem.

Agnieszka Polska (born 1985 in Lublin, living in Berlin)
The references of Agnieszka Polska’s animation films originate neither from the distant past nor from high culture. Rather, her image collage is an encrypted inventory of the present that evokes the collective unconscious called the World Wide Web. Pervaded by an unsettling undertone, the connected films address the state of today’s world and our role and responsibility within it in a poetic and personal manner.

For further questions please contact: 
Dr Thomas Girst
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Cultural Engagement
Telephone: +49 89 382 247 53
Fax: +49 89 382 24418

www.press.bmwgroup.com 
E-Mail: presse@bmw.de

About BMW Group’s Cultural Commitment
For almost 50 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on contemporary and modern art, classical music and jazz as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group's Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Daniel Barenboim, Jonas Kaufmann and architect Zaha Hadid have co-operated with BMW. In 2016 and 2017, female artist Cao Fei from China and American John Baldessari created the next two vehicles for the BMW Art Car Collection. Besides co-initiatives, such as BMW Tate Live, the BMW Art Journey and the “Opera for All” concerts in Berlin, Munich and London, the company also partners with leading museums and art fairs as well as orchestras and opera houses around the world. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all its cultural activities for granted – as this is as essential for producing groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business.

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