Jan

Pierre Huyghe is winner of contemporary art award

(Image: Still from “Streamside Day,” 2003. Film and video transfers, 26 min, color, sound. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris. Copyright Pierre Huyghe.)

The Smithsonian American Art Museum announced in December that Pierre Huyghe is the 2010 winner of the museum’s contemporary artist award. Huyghe was selected by an independent panel of jurors for his “pioneering vision and tireless ambition to make art that defies expectations and extends conventional practices into new territory.”

Huyghe is the ninth winner of the $25,000 award, which recognizes an artist younger than 50 who has produced a significant body of work and consistently demonstrates exceptional creativity. It is intended to encourage the artist’s future development and experimentation.

Still image from Pierre Huyghe, "This is not a time for dreaming," 2004 © Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris © the artist, Live puppet play and super 16mm film, 24 minutes

“Pierre Huyghe represents the commitment to creative innovation that this award seeks to recognize,” said Elizabeth Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “Huyghe’s pioneering use of appropriated imagery and filmic reenactment reveal the power of mass media to shape our memory of personal and historical events.”

The winning artist is selected by a panel of distinguished jurors with an extensive knowledge of contemporary art. The five jurors who selected the 2010 winner are Nicholas Baume, director and chief curator of the Public Art Fund in New York City; Margo Crutchfield, senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland; Anne Ellegood, senior curator at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; Tim Rollins, artist; and Howard Singerman, associate professor of contemporary art and theory at the University of Virginia.

Pierre Huyghe, "This is not a time for dreaming," 2004 © Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris © the artist, Live puppet play and super 16mm film, 24 minutes

The jurors wrote in their decision, “Huyghe looks beyond national boundaries to create an art that speaks to universal themes and experiences. His impressive body of work includes landmark video installations that have changed the course of contemporary film and video. He has continued to build upon this foundation, devising inventive projects that range from incisive social commentary to poetic moments of pure beauty. Simply put, Huyghe is one the most influential artists of his generation. We are as excited about what he will create next as with what he has already accomplished.”