The jury of the International Contemporary Art Prize Diputació de Castelló, gathered on September 13th 2011, has decided to give the prize to the artist Esmé Valk (Wijhe, The Netherlands, 1977) “because her installation is an aesthetic and historical exploration of the artistic correspondence between the geometry of designs for display cases and shop windows and their relationship with architecture, theatre and commercial concepts rooted in economic aspects and a drive towards marketing. Symmetry, a core axis of many of these disciplines, serves the artist as an artistic-historic ground base for a profound examination while at once lending particular attention to the artistic component in rendering the installation. The subtlety in the execution of the display and the exquisite realisation of the video, somewhere between performative, narrative and historic, earned it the approval of the jury who chose it as the winning work in this competition and it will now join the Diputación de Castellón’s collection”.
Esmé Valk, “Showcasing Today’s Essentials,” 2010. Installation, various materials, variable dimensions. “Asymmetry is Dynamic,” 2010. HD Video, color, sound, 9′ 40
The work Showcasing Today’s Essentials, 2010 that has formed part of the exhibition 5X5Castelló2011, celebrated at the EACC on the occasion of the prize, will enter the Diputació de Castelló collection. The award is of 60.000 euros.
The jury has been composed by Bartomeu Marí, Director of MACBA, Barcelona; Agustín Pérez Rubio, Director of MUSAC, León; Wenceslao Rambla, Professor of Aesthetics and Arts Theory of the University Jaume I de Castelló; Nicolaus Schaffhausen, Director of Witte de With, Rotterdam and Rosalía Torrent, Full Professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory of the Universitat Jaume I de Castelló.
Showcasing Today’s Essentials is a sculptural installation with moveable parts that can be set in motion by the visitor. The installation contains the short film Asymmetry is Dynamic. A long-term observation of a home furnishing shop was the starting point for the works. Valk’s re-interpretation of the display in the shop window explores the specific relation between the body, space and the geometry of (constructivist) theatre.
Asymmetry is Dynamic is a short film focusing on the relationship between the shop window, theatre and avant-garde artists through which the artist questions contemporary meaning and use of modernist visual language in the commercial realm. Frederick Kiesler’s book Contemporary Art Applied to the Store and Its Display (1930), silk shawls and shop window décor are the ingredients for a personal reflection on the relationship between modernism and commerce.
Espai d’art contemporani de Castelló
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