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Weekly News Roundup: October 20, 2023
By The Editors
Portrait of TARIK KISWANSON. Photo by Julie Ansiau. Courtesy Sfeir Semler Gallery, Beirut/Hamburg.
Marcel Duchamp Prize 2023 Announces Winner
Palestinian-Swedish artist Tarik Kiswanson has won the Marcel Duchamp Prize 2023, receiving the prestigious EUR 35,000 (USD 37,000) contemporary art prize. Swedish-born Kiswanson works across a variety of mediums, including sculpture, writing, drawing, performance, and video. As a second-generation immigrant, his work explores themes such as rootlessness, regeneration, and the intersection of different cultural contexts. He has presented at the Ural Biennial (2019), Performa 19 in New York (2019), and the 12th Gwangju Biennial (2018). Given by the Association for the International Diffusion of French Art, the Marcel Duchamp Prize is awarded yearly to an artist who is French or living in the country and has been nominated to partake in a group presentation at the Centre Pompidou. The award ceremony took place in Paris on October 16.
Installation view of YAYOI KUSAMA‘s Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love, 2023. Courtesy San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Yayoi Kusama Apologizes for Past Racism
Prior to the opening of her exhibition “Infinite Love” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama apologized for racist comments made in her autobiography Infinity Net (2003), in which she said she characterized black people as “exotic” and “primitive.” In a statement published by the SFMOMA, Kasama says she “deeply regret(s) using hurtful and offensive language” and reaffirms that her “lifelong intention has been to lift up humanity” through her art. Meanwhile, tickets for the first two months of her show, which feature two of Kusama’s famed Infinity Mirror Rooms have already sold out. Despite backlash and rising admission prices, Kusama’s whimsical, polka-dot-filled installations continue to draw long lines of fans eager to snap a picture within the exhibition’s strict policy of limiting visitors to two minutes per room.
Installation view of MIRE LEE’s Landscape with Many Holes: Skins of Yeongdo Sea, 2022, scaffolding, wasted oil, fence fabric, 162 × 216 × 166 m, at Busan Biennale, Yeongdo, 2022. Courtesy Busan Biennale Organizing Committee.
Four Artists Named for Gold Art Prize
The second round of the Gold Art Prize has been awarded to Tishan Hsu, Mire Lee, Gala Porras-Kim, WangShui, and the duo of Enzo Camacho and Amy Lien, who will each take home USD 25,000. The Gold Art Prize, formed by adviser Kelly Huang and Gold House, a California-based nonprofit, is given to five Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Asian diaspora artists every other year in an effort to increase scholarship, visibility, stronger networks, and opportunities for collaboration. The awardees will also be included in Gold House’s mentorship initiative, Gold House Futures, and see their works published in a catalog featuring essays and artist interviews. The 2023 prizes are sponsored by the Kahng Foundation, which was founded in 1998 to support the development of arts and culture.
An art studio at Artspace’s The Gunnery. Photo by Katherine Lu. Courtesy Artspace, Sydney.
Syndey's Artspace 2024 Studio Program Artists Announced
Following Artspace’s AUD 19.2 million (USD 12 million) renovation of its headquarters, the Gunnery building in Woolloomooloo, Syndey, the interdisciplinary space will offer seven to ten artists rent-free studios for the entire year. This year, the One Year Studio Program artists include Jack Ball, a Western Australian photographer; Brian Fuata, a Samoan-Australian, visual and performance artist working in structured improvisation; Julia Gutman, a Sydney-based, 2023 Archibald Prize-winning painter; Tina Havelock Stevens, an Australian multimedia artist; Jazz Money, an artist, poet, and filmmaker of Wiradjuri-Irish heritage; Thea Anamara Perkins, an Arrernte-Kalkadoon painter in search of First Nations’s representation; Gemma Smith, an Australian sculptor and painter; Leyla Stevens, a Balinese-Australian artist and sociopolitical researcher; Latai Taumoepeau, a punake (orator and poet) and body-centered performance artist; and David M. Thomas, an Australian artist, teacher, and researcher. Artspace plans to host 350 artists within the span of 35 years.
