Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Art Awards 2016

Ulrike Königshofer
Recipient of the Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Art Award New York

Artist’s Statement
For me, the artistic process is a way of thinking differently about certain circumstances. Questions that perhaps otherwise would not be conceivable become possible during the working process. Whereas science produces knowledge, my work deals with the process of knowledge production, reflecting the method. In a sense, it can be interpreted as a kind of “second-order observation.” My main focus is on our perception, experience and understanding of the external world. What’s captured is the process of creating images rather than the images themselves.

 

 

Jury Statement
After intense discussion, the jury unanimously chose Ulrike Königshofer, for the impressive clarity and accuracy of her artistic practice as well as its precise, analytically investigative character. In her works, the artist uses simple arrangements and apparatuses to observe and examine the relationship between the artistic object, the viewer’s perception and her own position. This results in new perspectives of seemingly natural processes.

Samuel Schaab
Recipient of the Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Recognition Art Award 2016

Artist’s Statement
Everything starts with space, and its circumstances. The process of appropriating space, the manipulation of what exists. What can be said about the world, and how can its sheer diversity be gathered? It seems that any attempt to capture this infinite vastness, to translate the existing evidence, is a futile exercise. But precisely in this inconclusiveness, in the always imperfect translation, a broad field opens up. This field is what I try to investigate: the communication between space, objects, and their functions. The observation of the relationship of, and contradiction between, technology and nature. I follow the anxiety between the parts, the noise and the silence, the self-oscillation of opposites and contexts. The field of simulation.

Jury Statement                                                                                        Given the close decision, the runner-up Samuel Schaab received an Honorable Mention upon the jury’s recommendation. His works are fascinating in their formal quality. In his space-consuming installations and aesthetic objects, the artist primarily works with sound and light. He succeeds in making manifest immaterial phenomena such as wind, air or lightning.

Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Art Awards 2016
In 2016, the prize has been awarded for the first time. It included a one-month residency in New York, and a solo exhibition on the 11th floor of the Austrian Cultural Forum from July 7 to 31, 2016.

In addition, a second prize endowed with 1,500 euros has been awarded, which included a solo exhibition at das weisse haus from October 5 to 29, 2016.

Jury Members                                                                                          Boris Manner (curator, theorist and author)                                                      Eva Schlegel (artist)                                                                                    Andrei Siclodi (director of Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen)                        Ruth Goubran (director of Erste Bank’s MoreVALUE Sponsoring Program)  Alexandra Grausam (director of das weisse haus and studio das weisse haus)