absa l' atelier award winners 2010

8/8/2019 Absa L' Atelier Award winners 2010

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2010 Absa LAtelier Art Awards winners

ding colour by Ilka Van Schalkwyk. Van Schalkwyk coveted top prize for her new media installation.


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10 Absa LAtelier Art Awards winners announced amidst 25th anniversary celebrations

South Africas young artists have once again proved their mettle in a sterling display of homegrown

creativity in the prestigious Absa LAtelier Art Awards competition, which this year celebrates itshistoric 25th year anniversary as the longest-running competition of its kind on the continent.

Unlike the previous years, this years pool of submissions was undoubtedly about identity and howthey experience the country we are living in.

Much of the selected work seems to have subversive strategies, not in loud and shocking ways, but

rather in strangely guarded tones.

Ilka van Schalkwyk and Bongumenzi Ngobese have been named the respective first and second

place winners out of more than 100 finalists, which were chosen by a national selection panel led by

Gwen Miller. Merit Awards were awarded to Abri de Swardt, Philiswa Lila, Collen Maswanganyi and

Hanje Whitehead.

Pretoria-based Van Schalkwyk scooped the coveted top prize for her new media installation,

Reading colour. The judges described the piece as a cerebral affair reflecting intellectual games of

texts that in themselves rebel against prescriptive institutions. Like the referenced songs and

literary texts that were defiant in their strategies, this visual text becomes subversive of the social

body. The work is a marvellous example of an open text with multi- layered meaning.

Durbanite Ngobese was awarded the Gerard Sekoto Award for the most promising artist with an

income of less than R60 000 per annum, for his mixed media piece Kwa-Mamkhize. The panel said

Ngobeses hidden parcels under the table signified secrecy, a lifestyle of makeshift storage systems

of a society in flux. This is a social order of migrants, who have to tak e up their belongings and

make them fit into any vehicle or, metaphorically, any culture, to be able to move on. The work

holds so many possibilities of engagement in relation to our current society, the panel said.

As part of her prize, Van Schalkwyk wins R110 000 in cash and a six-month sabbatical at the Cit

Internationale des Arts in Paris, courtesy of Absa. Ngobese wins a three-month sabbatical at the

Cit, French language classes and nationwide touring exhibitions sponsored by the French Embassy,

French Institute and the Alliance Franaise. Both prizes include airfare and free access to galleries

and museums in Paris.

All four merit award winners receive R25 000 and each of the top ten finalists, including Van

Schalkwyk, Ngobese, the four runner-ups as well as Vincent Bezuidenhout, Sibusiso Duma, Maja

Marx and Lyle van Schalkwyk, receive a R2 000 bonus prize.

The Absa LAtelier Art Awards is Africas pre -eminent annual art competition. It has earned itself

the reputation for being the most influential art competition on the continent, not only because of

the incredible opportunities afforded by the main prizes, but also because of the unrivalled

exposure the artists receive.

This really is a special year in the history of the Absa LAtelier Art Awards. Weve celebrated our

25th anniversary with the most amazing creative expression from South Africas most talented

young artists. The standard of work is excellent; this years pool of submissions was undoubtedly

about identity and how they experience the country we are living in. I want to pay tribute to them

as they change our ordinary world into a creative one, said Cecile Loedolff


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The competition is open to young artists between the ages of 21 and 35, and attracts entries from across

the country, which are open to public viewing during the regional judging rounds.


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Kwa-Mamkhize by Bongumenzi Ngobese, Second Place winner who was awarded the Gerard Sekoto Award


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Merit Award winner Hanje Whitehead


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Merit Award winner Collen Maswanganyi


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it Award winner Philiswa Lila


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it Award winner Abri de Swardt

absa l' atelier award winners 2010

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