Peter Weibel receives Lovis Corinth Prize 2020
The Lovis Corinth Prize for the year 2020 goes to the versatile artist, curator, art and media theorist and artistic-scientific chairman of the ZKM, Peter Weibel. The award is aimed at internationally renowned artists whose personalities and works relate thematically or biographically to Central and Eastern Europe.
The prize is closely linked to the specialized focus of the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg. A few years ago, Peter Weibel was already represented at times in the permanent exhibition of the gallery with his interactive video installation »Imaginary Cube«. On the occasion of the award ceremony, the museum presents the exhibition »Peter Weibel – (Post-)Europa?«.
Peter Weibel, born 1944 in Odessa, today Ukraine, decisively shapes the European media art scene through his diverse activities. His artistic work is in the fields of conceptual art, performance, experimental film, video art, computer art and media art in general. He uses various techniques to investigate »media«: in addition to language and body language, he also investigates film, video, sound recordings, and interactive electronic environments. The beginnings of his artistic career in the 1960s are linked to the actions of the so-called »Viennese Group« and »Viennese Actionism«. His »teleaktionen« on Austrian Television (ORF), in which he researched on how video technology was applied to the mass medium of television, received great attention.
As a theorist and curator, Weibel deals with contemporary art, media history, media theory, film, video art and philosophy, but also devotes himself to classical artistic genres. Since 1976 Weibel has taught at various universities, including the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada, the Gesamthochschule Kassel and the State University of New York in Buffalo, N. Y. In 1989 he established the »Institute for New Media« at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, which he headed until 1994. At the same time, he was artistic director and subsequently also director of Ars Electronica, Linz. Since January 1999, he has been the director of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and since 2017 director of the Peter Weibel Research Institute for Digital Cultures at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Congratulations!
The Lovis Corinth Prize – named after the painter Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) from Tapiau/East Prussia – was founded by the KünstlerGilde e.V. in 1974. Since 2006, the prize has been awarded every two years together with the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie. The prize is awarded to visual artists (painting, graphic art, sculpture, installation, photography, new media) whose work is the result of belonging to contemporary art in eastern Europe and of dealing with it, or whose work reflects German art in historical German cultural landscapes. The award recognizes this internationally significant body of work, which makes a relevant contribution to the development of contemporary forms of expression. Since 2016, the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie has been awarding the prize alone or in cooperation with various partners. The KünstlerGilde is still represented on the jury. It consists of Hansjürgen Gartner, Federal Chairman of the KünstlerGilde e.V., Dr. Agnes Tieze, Director of the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Dr. Nina Schleif, Director of the Graphic Collection of the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Dr. Thomas Elsen, Director of the H2 – Zentrum für Gegenwartskunst im Glaspalast der Städtischen Kunstsammlungen Augsburg, and Prof. Dr. Burcu Dogramaci, Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Ludwig Maximilians-Universität Munich. The Lovis Corinth Prize 2018 went to the Slovak conceptual artist Roman Ondak.