The Academy of Fine Arts of Macerata is proud to announce that Alfredo Jaar has been awarded the 2019 Josef Svoboda Prize for Artistic and Creative Talent as well as a Doctor Honoris Causa.
Previous winners include Michelangelo Antonioni, Gillo Dorfles, Jannis Kounellis, Achille Bonito Oliva, Maurizio Mochetti and Giancarlo Politi.
Before receiving the Prize, Alfredo Jaar will deliver a Lectio Magistralis in the Svoboda Aula Magna of the Academy on Thursday, February 14. He will be introduced by Ida Panicelli.
About the Josef Svoboda Prize:
The Josef Svoboda Prize was born in 2005 to commemorate the eclectic figure of Josef Svoboda (Časlav 1920-Prague 2002) known as one of the world’s leading scenic designers and the greatest representative of the post-WWII scenographic renewal. According to the New York Times he combined “an architect’s precision, a technician’s ingenuity and an artist’s vision to evoke magically imaginary worlds” in more than 700 memorable theatrical productions in the leading theaters of the world.
The Prize is awarded every year to a prominent intellectual in the world of art and creativity, a figure who, through the happy coalescence of ethics and aesthetics, has the ability to reflect upon our present condition.
Since its first editions the Award has focused its index on national and international exceptional thinkers in the field of arts, criticism and theory. Now in its 15th year, the Award is associated with a Doctor Honoris Causa.
Previous winners of the Josef Svoboda Prize:
Michelangelo Antonioni, 2005, Gianpero Solari, 2006, Eduardo Sanguineti, 2007, Milo Manara, 2009, Enzo Cucchi, 2009, Achille Bonito Oliva, 2010, Emma Dante, 2010, Pupi Avati, 2011, Gillo Dorfles, 2012, Jannis Kounellis, 2013, Tomaso Binga, 2013, Eliseo Mattiacci, 2014, Mimmo Jodice, 2015, Maurizio Mochetti, 2016, and Giancarlo Politi, 2018.
About Alfredo Jaar:
Alfredo Jaar is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. He is known as one of the most uncompromising, compelling, and innovative artists working today. His work has been shown extensively around the world. He has participated in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007, 2009, 2013) and São Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010) as well as Documenta in Kassel (1987, 2002.)
The artist has realized more than 70 public interventions around the world. Important individual exhibitions include The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Whitechapel, London; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. Major recent surveys of his work have taken place at Musée des Beaux Arts, Lausanne; Hangar Bicocca, Milan; Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlinische Galerie and Neue Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst e.V., Berlin; Rencontres d’Arles, KIASMA, Helsinki and YSP, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK.
Alfredo Jaar has been an active participant in the Italian art scene since his participation at the Venice Biennale in 1986. Between 2004 and 2005, he produced the Gramsci Trilogy, exhibited in Milan, Rome and Como. He was Visiting Professor at the Superior Course of Visual Arts at the Antonio Ratti Foundation in 2005. In 2008 he realized a major solo exhibition at Hangar Bicocca and Spazio Oberdan in Milan, where he also made a city wide public intervention (Questions, Questions.) In 2009 he presented the film Le Ceneri di Pasolini to great acclaim at the Venice Biennale. He is now developing two permanent public projects for Milan and a memorial for Antonio Gramsci in Turin. He is represented by Lia Rumma.
Over 60 monographic publications have been published about his work. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 2000. He received the National Art Prize of Chile in 2013 and was awarded the Hiroshima Art Prize in 2018.
