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SÂADANE AFIF WINS MARCEL DUCHAMP PRIZE
The French artist Sâadane Afif has been awarded the Marcel Duchamp Prize for 2009. The prize, which comes with nearly fifty thousand dollars, was presented to Afif at FIAC. Association pour la Diffusion Internationale de l’Art Francaise (ADIAF), which has given out the prize annually for the past nine years, posted the announcement. “His work over the past few years in collaboration with musicians, art critics, and other artists enables him to envision new forms of receiving art,” noted the jury in its evaluation.
The jury included American collector James Cottrell, ADIAF France president Gilles Fuchs, Greek collector Dakis Joannou, director of Museum Ludwig Kasper König, CAPC Bordeaux director Charlotte Laubard, French artist Jacqueline Matisse-Monnier, and director of the Pompidou Alfred Pacquement. In addition to the prize money, Afif will present an exhibition at the French Pavilion of the World Exhibition in Shanghai (June 1–30, 2010) and Espace 315 of the Pompidou in Paris (September 2010).
IDA TURSIC AND WILFRIED MILLE WIN RICARD FOUNDATION PRIZE
Afif was not the only artist to be honored at FIAC. Ida Tursic and Wilfried Mille have been awarded the 2009 Ricard Foundation Prize, a prize for young artists. As the foundation's website notes, the award involves the purchase of a work by the artists, who were selected by a jury composed of critics and collectors. The purchased work will be presented as a gift to the Pompidou and featured in its permanent collections.
ARTIST HIDES GOLD
A German artist has set off a gold rush in Pulheim, near Cologne. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung's Holger Liebs reports, Michael Sailstorfer hid gold in a field in Pulheim last summer. Twenty-eight gold bars—valued together at nearly fourteen thousand dollars—are sitting about three feet under the ground. After burying the gold, Sailstorfer planted mustard, which is now blooming. Local headlines read "Pulheim Digs," since whoever finds a gold bar has the right to keep it. Some are using metal detectors. According to Liebs, there is a bookish inspiration for the artwork, which is part disappearing, part freebie. In Masquerade, the British author Kit William buried a jeweled rabbit somewhere in England, only to promise it as a prize to whoever could find out the location by reading the book. According to Liebs, William’s ex spoiled the action by giving away the secret location.
SIGMAR POLKE WINS SWISS PRIZE
The German artist Sigmar Polke has been awarded the Swiss Roswitha-Haftmann-Preis for 2010. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, the prize comes with a cash award of about $140,000 and will be presented to the Cologne-based artist next spring. Born in 1941, Polke has been recognized for his paintings as well as graphic and photographic works.
PIERRE BERGÉ CREATES ENDOWMENT TO FIGHT AIDS
Pierre Bergé—a collector and partner of the late designer Yves Saint Laurent—is creating an endowment fund to support the fight against AIDS. As the Agence France-Presse reports, Bergé intends to “inscribe this fight in the long term” by giving two million dollars to the endowment fund every year for the next five years. “I thought that I should once again show my engagement in the struggle against AIDS.” Bergé has decided to donate all the proceeds of the upcoming Christie’s auction of objects from the Normandy and Paris residences shared by Bergé and the designer. The auction, which will take place November 17–20 at Christie’s Paris branch, is expected to raise between four and six million dollars, according to estimates from Christie’s. Bertrand Audoin, general director of the AIDS committee Sidaction—which includes the Nobel laureate Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and researcher Yves Lévy—will decide what projects are to be financed by the new fund. According to Audoin, Bergé’s contribution represents the largest single donation to Sidaction in its fifteen-year existence.
KIPPENBERGER’S PARIS BAR PAINTING: NOT EXACTLY KIPPI
Questions are circulating about the authorship of a Martin Kippenberger painting, which was auctioned off by Christie’s to an American buyer last month for close to three million dollars. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, Paris Bar, 1991—which depicts one of Kippenberger’s favorite Berlin haunts and an exhibition he curated there—was executed by the Berlin cinema-poster painter Götz Valien. While Valien’s name circulated through the German media, there was no mention of him in the auction catalogue, while there was talk of his thousand-deutsche-mark fee at the time. “Did the unknown American throw his money out of the window for a fake,” asks the paper. “Or did he ‘only’ spend too much? Maybe he’s simply happy about a work whose painting reflects more than the virtuosity of the artist’s hand.” After Kippenberger was not invited to the exhibition “Metropolis,” he invited other “réfusés” to show at the Paris Bar. One year later, he had the selection of works painted by a contract painter in large format as part of the series "Lieber Maler, male mir" (Dear Painter, Paint Me), which were contracted by Kippenberger. According to reports in Der Spiegel and Der Tagesspiegel, Valien is philosophical about his low fee for a million-dollar painting. “I can say that I painted one of most expensive Kippenbergers.”