Museum of Modern Art+Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Edit András, art historian, art critic, and curator from Budapest is named the 2024 Igor Zabel Award Laureate. Irfan Hošić, Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu, and Natalija Vujošević receive Igor Zabel Award Grants.
The Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory acknowledges exceptional achievements of curators, art historians and theorists, art writers and critics active in the field of visual art and culture in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe.
The jury has given Edit András the 2024 Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory in recognition of her exceptional contribution to counter-hegemonic discourses on Eastern European art and art history writing which emphasize the importance of local conditions and specificities, and promote a more nuanced and localized implementation of critical theories. She is also a critical analyst of the post-socialist condition, and has written and lectured extensively on nationalism and populism in connection to art and culture. As a progressive and critical (feminist) curator, researcher, and author, and also a radical voice against autocracy, András is one of the most dedicated advocates of contemporary visual art and culture in Hungary and the wider region of Eastern and Central Europe.
2024 Igor Zabel Award Grant recipients:
–Irfan Hošić, curator, critic, and artistic director of KRAK, Center for Contemporary Culture, Bihać (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in recognition of his inspirational ability to connect art, education, and community-building as well as his ability to propose new initiatives, manage them, and give them the necessary impetus to thrive and have an impact on the societies in which they operate.
–Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu, philosopher and cultural theorist, curator, translator, and editor, based in Copenhagen (Denmark) for his extraordinary ability to create connections across disciplines and geographies, his impressive opus of theoretical texts and public lectures which reflect a deep engagement with cultural and social issues, and his commitment to including Eastern European artists in international cultural events.
–Natalija Vujošević, artist and curator from Montenegro in recognition of her significant research, historicization, activation, and contextualization of marginalized but globally unique art collections and archives from the socialist Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav periods.
The Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory was named in honor of the distinguished Slovenian curator and art historian Igor Zabel (1958–2005) and has been conferred biennially since 2008 in cooperation with ERSTE Foundation, Vienna, and the Igor Zabel Association, Ljubljana.
A three-member international jury selects the laureate and recipients of the three grants based on proposals given by ten nominators. With total prize money of EUR 85,000, the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory is the highest and most prestigious prize for cultural activities related to Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe.
2024 jury
–Manuel Borja-Villel, art historian and curator, Madrid/Barcelona
–Ilona Németh, artist, curator, and professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the Slovak University of Technology STU, Bratislava
–Angelika Richter, art historian, curator, and president of the Weißensee School of Art and Design, Berlin
2024 nominators: Zbyněk Baladrán, Pavel Brăila, Sandra Bradvić, Dessislava Dimova, Margarethe Makovec & Anton Lederer, Zofia Nierodzińska, Adrian Paci, Eszter Szakács, Attila Tordai-S., Māra Traumane
The 2024 Igor Zabel Award Ceremony will take place on November 29, 2024 at 8:30pm CET at the Sokol House, Tabor in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The Award Ceremony will be preceded by a two-day seminar on November 28 and 29, 2024 at the Museum of Modern Art+Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova in Ljubljana. Recipients of this year’s Igor Zabel Award and Grants will present their work and discuss how art and theory from Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe can contribute to the world in this era of multiple and accelerating crises.
Produced by: Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, Ljubljana, and ERSTE Foundation, Vienna
Partner: Museum of Modern Art + Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana
