NEW HEADS – FONDATION BNP PARIBAS ART AWARDS

A new award in Geneva for emerging artists:

Geneva University of Art and Design and the Fondation BNP Paribas Switzerland are pleased to announce the creation of NEW HEADS - FONDATION BNP PARIBAS ART AWARDS — an award to support HEAD – Geneva’s graduating artists, who are among the most promising of their generation.

For the award’s inaugural edition, HEAD – Geneva and the Fondation BNP-Paribas Switzerland have entrusted Giovanni Carmine — curator and current director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen — with the twofold task of selecting twelve artists among the future graduates of HEAD – Geneva’s Master programme in Visual Arts, and creating an exhibition scheduled to open in September 2012 at HEAD – Geneva’s curatorial institute, LiveInYourHead.

This will provide the shortlisted artists with the opportunity to showcase and promote their work, thus gaining exposure to a large and diverse audience and to art and culture professionals. The exhibition catalogue, which will be free of charge and widely distributed, will present analyses of the works and a presentation of the exhibition in addition to bringing substantial exposure to the emerging artists and their projects.

A panel including five professionals and experts particularly attuned to the emerging Swiss and European art scene will select two nominees out of the shortlisted artists. A third award will be granted by the BNP Paribas collaborators, and a fourth by the public.

Each of the four laureates will receive a 12000 CHF grant — a substantial and essential financial aid which will provide an excellent springboard for their art production and their wider participation in the professional art world. The artists will also be given the opportunity to enter their works as part of the prestigious collection established by the Fondation BNP Paribas Switzerland.

This new award, which stems from close collaboration between a business foundation and a university, will provide outstanding support to these young graduates in their transition from art students to taking their first steps as professionals. The NEW HEADS - FONDATION BNP PARIBAS ART AWARDS will run for the next three years and, through the singular perspectives of the guest curators, will help sketch out the contours of the emerging Swiss and European scene and highlight its main issues and implications.

Giovanni CARMINE

Giovanni Carmine was born in 1975 in Bellinzona, Switzerland, and has been director of Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen since March 2007. He lives and works in Zurich and Saint Gallen. He is a curator and art critic and has worked at Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zurich and has organised exhibitions in various institutions, including 999 (1999) and Updating Landscapes (2003) for the Centro d’Arte Contemporanea Ticino, the exhibition Body Proxy on Norma Jeane (Helmhaus Zurich, Swiss Institute New York and Kunstverein Freiburg 2004/2005), as well as the painting trilogy Fois Gras (Swiss Cultural Institute, Paris, 2007). In 2011, he was co-organiser, with Brice Curiger, of the 54^th Venice Biennial. He has also pursued numerous independent projects such as Unloaded (2002) in former Swiss Army bunkers (www.artbunker.ch) and the mobile platform Zimmerfrei (www.zimmerfrei.li). He writes for several magazines and journals (Kunst-Bulletin, Frieze, Parkett, Flash Art International), and has contributed to various catalogues and overseen various editorial projects.

Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD)

Located in the heart of the city, HEAD – Geneva is widely recognized as a centre of excellence in the fields of visual arts and design, both at the European level and beyond. It was established in 2006 from the amalgamation of two institutions, both over two hundred years old: the School of Fine Arts and the School of Applied Art.

HEAD – Geneva offers a wide range of high level courses in the two broad, and equally weighted, subject areas of Visual Arts/Cinema and Design. The various studio projects, the lectures and seminars, the commissioned work conducted in close collaboration with the professional art, film and design worlds, and the workshops run by international guest artists and designers, all contribute to the dynamics of a teaching environment which is conceived as a space for freedom and personal and social responsibility. Diverse research, and experimentationbased aesthetic practices and substantial technical means – both traditional and innovative – are articulated with theoretical courses which allow students to both develop their knowledge and enhance their ability for plural, critical reflection.

Know-how and critical reflection form the two mainstays of HEAD – Geneva’s anti-dogmatic educational approach which focuses on developing a critical understanding of the contemporary world. Attuned to today’s cultural, social and professional environment, the teaching at HEAD – Geneva encourages close dialogue between its lecturers and its students, with the latter considered the real actors of their creative career.

The Fondation BNP Paribas Switzerland

For over twenty years the Fondation BNP Paribas Switzerland has been involved in restoration projects for works belonging to the permanent collections of various museums, including Kunsthaus Zurich, the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva, and the Fondation Beyeler in Basel. Beyond the restoration initiatives, the Foundation also supports educational programmes through the cultural mediations that promote wide public access to both the works and the restoration craft. The Foundation will be collaborating on this project with Geneva’s Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (MAMCO) from 2012 onwards. It will also be supporting the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, as part of a restoration initiative for the museum’s Charlie Chaplin archive. In the cultural sphere, the Foundation supported the publishing of the “Musées Suisses” collection — a series including twenty or so publications, the last of which being the book for the Fondation Beyeler.

The foundation has also provided ongoing support to the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, as the founding and main partner of the group of young soloists-in-residence, thus providing the latter with a unique platform to kick off their careers.

Press release
NEW HEADS ­ FONDATION BNP PARIBAS ART AWARDS : a new award in Geneva for emerging artists (PDF - 106.4 kb)