IV Mediterranean Albert Camus Prize
The jury of the IV Mediterranean Albert Camus Prize convened in Menorca on May 3, 2024. Composed of Javier Gomá, who acts as its president, and N’Goné Fall, Miquel Molina, José Luis Pérez Pont and Anne Prouteau, it has decided to unanimously award Alfredo Jaar the IV Mediterranean Albert Camus Prize.
A universal artist who transcends territories and cultures. A creator whose work, in constant resonance with the convulsions of the world, opens the doors to possible futures.
Always respecting others, in a commitment to the service of social justice, his poetic work reaches all audiences, sparks dialogue and provides keys to understanding the world.
Like Camus, Alfredo Jaar does not conceive of art as “a solitary pleasure, but as a means to move the greatest number of people. He also stands out for his fidelity to his vocation as an artist, to his convictions, so to speak, “to his work as a human being.”
The Mediterranean Albert Camus Prize is awarded every two years, alternating with the Trobades, to honour the career of a person whose work engages with contemporary Mediterranean challenges. It recognizes the career and work of a creator or thinker who is a witness to and participant in their times, in the tradition of Albert Camus.
To this end, the Mediterranean Albert Camus Prize recognizes an important figure, whatever their practice area, for their entire career, valuing the impact of their work and person on contemporary Mediterranean society.
The Mediterranean Albert Camus Prize is a unique award, awarded to a single person whose work belongs to one of the following disciplines: Journalism, Literature, Music, Plastic arts, Thought and Visual arts.
The international jury of the IV Mediterranean Albert Camus Prize chaired by Javier Gomá, director of the Juan March Foundation, is composed of N’Goné Fall, independent curator; Miquel Molina, writer and journalist; José Luis Pérez Pont, critic and museum director, and Anne Prouteau, president of the Society of Camusian Studies.
In this fourth season of the prize the jury had to select the winner from the following finalists: visual artists Kader Attia and Alfredo Jaar, writer and poet Najwan Darwich, philosopher Achille Mbembe, singer Silvia Pérez Cruz, and writer and journalist Samar Yazbek.
The winner Alfredo Jaar join previous honorees Mona Hatoum (2018), Edgar Morin (2020) and Mathias Énard (2022).
Alfredo Jaar is an artist, architect and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. His work has been shown extensively around the world. He has participated in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007, 2009, 2013), Sao Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010, 2021) as well as Documenta in Kassel (1987, 2002). He has realized more than seventy public interventions around the world. Over sixty monographic publications have been published about his work. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 2000. He received the Hiroshima Art Prize in 2018 and the Hasselblad Award in 2020.
