23/04/07
The Cartier Award 2007 Announced
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The Cartier Award 2007 announced
Frieze Art Fair, the world’s most influential contemporary art fair, today announced the recipient of The Cartier Award 2007, as Mexican artist Mario Garcia Torres.
Mario Garcia Torres, who is currently based in Los Angeles, is an exciting young conceptual artist, whose work includes film, video and photography. His proposal was chosen from over four hundred applications submitted worldwide.
The Cartier Award is a major art award providing a unique opportunity for an emerging artist living outside the UK to realise a project at Frieze Art Fair as part of the fair’s critically acclaimed curatorial programme. Neville Wakefield, Curator, Frieze Projects commented, “Mario’s proposal for Frieze is a brilliant and irresistible combination of dry
wit and conceptual elegance sure to perplex, confuse and hold everyone’s attention at the same time.” The artist also receives production costs up to £10,000, an artist’s fee and a three month residency in London.
The award is run under the auspices of Frieze Projects and sponsored by Cartier. Cartier’s commitment to contemporary art is now well recognised through its continued sponsorship of this award, Frieze Art Fair and over twenty years of the prestigious Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris. Hervé Chandès, director, Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art and part of the selection panel added, “Mario Garcia Torres explores new ways to approach the characteristics and processes which constitute and define the world of contemporary art. By choosing very particular works of art from the recent past, focusing on dematerialisation as a starting point for his personal work, he both redefines the role of the artist with a humorous and intelligent approach and plays with the concept of the work of art in today’s society.”
In 2007 the collaborating partner is Gasworks, London’s most acclaimed studio complex. Mia Jankowitcz, Residency Coordinator, Gasworks, said, “We look forward to welcoming Mario to Gasworks. His proposal made it clear how much he appreciated the opportunity this UK residency offered.”
Mario Garcia Torres’s project will be presented for the first time at Frieze Art Fair 2007, sponsored now for the fourth year by Deutsche Bank. The award is an opportunity to
reach a wide audience of international gallerists, collectors, curators and other artists, and in 2006 over 60,000 visits were made to Frieze. Matthieu Laurette, an artist who presented a Frieze Commission at the fair in 2005, was also on the judging panel, saying, “I know from experience that realising a commission at Frieze Art Fair is both a
considerable pleasure and a real challenge. I believe that Mario Garcia Torres with his 70’s conceptual art heritage and very personal contemporary twist is an artist who will embrace the opportunity and develop a very particular and strong work which will stand out from all the fizz of the fair.”
Mario Garcia Torres expressed his delight at being the recipient of The Cartier Award 2007, “London and the fair are very important arenas for the discussion of art. Being able to work in that context and to conceive the fair as a production setting will certainly render more complex the project’s implications, which is both challenging and stimulating.”
— End.
Editors’ Notes
Selection Committee
Kitty Anderson, Associate Curator, Frieze Projects
Hervé Chandès, Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, Paris
Mia Jankowicz, Gasworks, London
Matthieu Laurette, Artist
Mario Garcia Torres
Mario Garcia Torres was born in 1975 in Mexico. He graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 2005, and lives and works in Los Angeles, California, USA. Garcia Torres took part in the ninth Baltic Triennale CAC in Vilnius, Lithuania, and will also take part in the exhibition Escultura Social in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in June 2007.
The Cartier Award
The Cartier Award is an extraordinary opportunity for artists to realise a major new work at Frieze Art Fair as part of Frieze Projects. Works may be site-specific installations,
performance, film, video or print. The award provides project production costs of up to of £10,000, an artist’s fee of £1,000, and a three month residency at Gasworks from mid September to mid December 2007 including accommodation, per diems and travel expenses. The award is open to non-UK based artists within 5 years of graduating from an undergraduate or postgraduate degree.
Frieze Projects
Frieze Projects is an arts programme, curated by Neville Wakefield, which takes place during Frieze Art Fair, and comprises Frieze Commissions, Frieze Talks and The Cartier Award. Details of the Frieze Projects programme will be announced in July 2007.
Cartier and The Cartier Award
Cartier is the Associate Sponsor of Frieze Art Fair supporting Frieze Projects and The Cartier Award. Their dedicated support expresses the spirit of the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art.
Gasworks
Gasworks is a contemporary arts organisation in South London housing 12 artists’ studios and includes a programme of exhibitions, residencies, international fellowships and educational projects.
Frieze Art Fair
Frieze Art Fair takes place from 11 – 14 October 2007 in Regent’s Park, London. Frieze Art Fair is the UK’s largest art fair and one of the leading contemporary art fairs in the world. Over 63,000 people visited Frieze Art Fair in 2006.
