Ars Fennica Award Exhibition
Location: 5th floor, Gallery of Contemporary Art
Exhibition of the candidates for the Ars Fennica 2008 award in the Kumu Art Museum. On February 28, 2008 at an official award ceremony in Kumu, the president of Finland Tarja Halonen presented the award of 2008 to the winner, Estonian video and photo artist Mark Raidpere.
The candidates:
- Maria Duncker (born 1963 in Helsinki, lives and works in Helsinki)
- Tea Mäkipää (born 1973 in Lahti, lives and works in Weimar)
- Katrīna Neiburga (born 1978 in Riga, lives and works in Riga)
- Mark Raidpere (born 1975 in Tallinn, lives and works in Tallinn)
- Seppo Renvall (born 1963 in Helsinki, lives and works in Helsinki)
The candidates for the award are introduced in a voluminous catalogue.
Ars Fennica is a Finnish art award that has been given out since 1991 by the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Art Foundation to foster Finnish fine arts and to build international contacts. The award includes a premium of 34 000 euros, a publication introducing the artist’s creation and a travelling exhibition. The competition will be in two parts: the award committee of the Foundation will name the candidates and an international art expert selected by the committee will choose the award winner from among the candidates.
In deciding the Ars Fennica award winner, the artist’s overall creation and achievements will be taken into account. The award can be given either to an acknowledged artist or an emerging artist. The candidates have usually been Finnish artists, but there have also been artists from northern countries, from the Baltic countries, from St. Petersburg and from its surroundings. The first collective exhibition of the 2008 candidates took place from 3 October until 16 November 2008 in the Amos Anderson Art Museum in Helsinki, and now the works are being exhibited in the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn.
The candidates for the Ars Fennica 2008 award were named by the art committee, whose members were the executive director Leena Niemistö, MD, Tuula Karjalainen, PhD, the sculptor Matti Peltokangas and the painter Henry Wuorila-Stenberg. This year, the winner of the award will be chosen by Hou Hanru, a Chinese critic and curator working in the San Francisco Art Institute.
