US artist and filmmaker Garrett Bradley is the winner of the Eye Art & Film Prize 2023
US artist and filmmaker Garrett Bradley is the winner of the Eye Art & Film Prize 2023. Bradley receives the prize for her trailblazing work, in which she combines a personal visual style with research and social commitment. The jury were impressed by Bradley’s engagement, unique, contemporary aesthetics and adventurous attitude.
Garrett Bradley was chosen as the prize-winner by an international jury, and receives the sum of 30,000 EUR and an exhibition in Eye Filmmuseum. The cash prize enables the winner to create new work, and is generously supported by Ammodo.
Jury chair Bregtje van der Haak, director of Eye Filmmuseum: “We are delighted that Garrett Bradley is the ninth winner of the Eye Art & Film Prize. Bradley has been awarded this prize for her courageous, visually compelling work, which takes on themes including racism and exclusion with exceptional energy. Her work is given concrete form in a mix of different media. Her (documentary) films and installations refer to topics including the history of Americans, the struggle for social justice and the political history of the United States, and make in-depth explorations of human emotions such as rage and sorrow.”
“Garrett Bradley is a dream winner of the Eye Prize. She works at the intersection of fact and fiction and of film and visual art. She is both a passionate archive researcher and activist, and an exceptionally talented artist. In her work, she combines a personal aesthetic in the realm of cinematography with an unconventional experimental approach: her films and installations draw us in, challenge us, stir our souls and get us thinking about the world.”
About Garrett Bradley
Born in New York City and based in New Orleans, Louisiana, Garrett Bradley is a US artist, educator and Oscar nominated filmmaker. Bradley’s work spans narrative, documentary and experimental modes of filmmaking to address themes such as race, class, familial relationships, social justice and socio-political histories within the United States. Bradley received her BA from Smith College and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Adopting archival material alongside newly shot footage, Bradley’s films exist simultaneously in the past, present and future, not only disrupting our perception of time, but has also been at the forefront of challenging cinematic ideas around objectivity, perspective, truth-telling and American history.
In America (2019) a multi-channel video installation, Bradley constructs a visual archive of early Black American cinema. Inspired by a 2013 survey published by the Library of Congress proposing that 70 percent of silent films made between 1912 and 1929 have been lost, as well as the discovery and restoration of what is believed to be the earliest surviving film to feature a Black cast (Lime Kiln Club Field Day, 1913), America takes shape as a series of vignettes depicting the everyday, at times, quotidian moments in American history. Shot in black and white, with a score by Trevor Mathison and Udit Duseja of the Black Audio Film Collective (1983–98), Bradley’s film presupposes the existence of a body of cinema made by and for Black America and since lost to history.
Bradley’s debut documentary feature, Time (2020), earned her the Best Director Award in the US Documentary Competition category at the Sundance Film Festival, making her the first Black woman in the history of the Festival to win this award. Time, which was nominated for over 57 awards—including an Oscar nomination—won 20 times.
Eye Art & Film Prize
The Eye Prize has been presented annually since 2015 to an artist or filmmaker who is compiling an exceptional oeuvre and contributing in an exceptional way to new developments at the intersection of visual art and film. The prize is made up of a cash sum of 30,000 EUR, intended to facilitate the creation of new work.
Since 2023, the Eye Prize has received support from Ammodo. The previous winners are Hito Steyerl (2015), Ben Rivers (2016), Wang Bing (2017), Francis Alÿs (2018), Meriem Bennani (2019), Kahlil Joseph (2020), Karrabing Film Collective (2021) and Saodat Ismailova (2022).
International jury
Garrett Bradley was chosen as this year’s winner by an international jury chaired by Bregtje van der Haak (Netherlands). The other jury members were Nalini Malani (India, visual artist), Chris Dercon (Belgium/France, managing director of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris), Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (Lesotho/Germany, filmmaker/visual artist), Hila Peleg (Israel/Germany, curator/filmmaker) and Nanouk Leopold (Netherlands, filmmaker, theatre director, visual artist).
The list of nominees was presented to the jury by an international advisory panel made up of curators, directors and filmmakers, chaired by Jaap Guldemond, Director of Exhibitions of Eye Filmmuseum, in cooperation with Eye’s Associate Curator Marente Bloemheuvel.
Partner Ammodo
Ammodo has been a contributor to the Eye Art & Film Prize since 2023. Ammodo is a Dutch foundation that stimulates the development of art, architecture and science. To this end, Ammodo supports exemplary arts projects and groundbreaking scientific research, as well as initiatives in the fields of social and ecological architecture. Ammodo also produces documentaries to give visibility to the pioneers in these fields.
