The Art Gallery of Ontario announces Erin Shirreff as winner of the 2013 Aimia | AGO Photography Prize, it was announced at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) on November 7. Shirreff was selected by public vote to receive the 50,000 CAD prize.
A record number of votes―more than 25,000―were cast during the ten-week voting period, which closed on Novemeber 5, 2013. Runners-up Edgardo Aragón (Mexico), LaToya Ruby Frazier (United States) and Chino Otsuka (Japan/United Kingdom) each receive a 5,000 CAD stipend dedicated to the research, creation and production of new work. All four artists receive six to eight-week fully funded residencies across Canada, to commence in early 2014.
Shirreff, who now lives and works in New York City, has gained recognition for her unique interweaving of photography, video and sculpture. Her work raises questions about the often-paradoxical relationship between time and space and the image. Recently her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; White Cube, London; and Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario. Her work is also in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, among others.
The artists were selected via an international nomination process, which solicited nominations from senior artists and curators from around the world. A jury of three international experts in photography and contemporary art, led by Elizabeth Smith, the AGO’s former executive director, curatorial affairs, selected the shortlist from the pool of nominations. The other jurors were Urs Stahel, founding director of Fotomuseum Winterthur, and Algerian-born artist Kader Attia.
Voting began on August 27 at AimiaAGOPhotographyPrize.com and on the Prize’s Facebook page. The public also had the opportunity to vote at the AGO inside the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize 2013 Exhibition, on view at the AGO until January 5, 2014.
The exhibition features two of Shirreff’s long-duration videos, Lake and Moon, both of which extend and explore the act of looking. Constructed from hundreds of individual photographs captured in her studio, these works collapse time and place as they fluctuate between natural and artificial effects, stillness and motion. Lake features an image of the Okanagan Valley, near Shirreff’s hometown of Kelowna, B.C.
“There was an incredible amount of talent among this year’s shortlisted artists and we were thrilled to see the enormous response from the public, who voted by the thousands, in record numbers,” said Matthew Teitelbaum, Director and CEO of the AGO. “In partnership with Aimia, the prize is truly innovative in its accessibility and broad support of Canadian and international contemporary photography.”
“Together with the AGO, we are committed to stimulating a meaningful dialogue about contemporary photography and the artists who create it here in Canada and around the world,” said Vince Timpano, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada, Aimia. “We offer our sincerest congratulations to Erin Shirreff and all of the shortlisted artists.”
Previous winners of the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize, formerly known as The Grange Prize, include Jo Longhurst of the U.K. (2012), Gauri Gill of India (2011), Canadian photographer Kristan Horton (2010), Marco Antonio Cruz of Mexico (2009) and Canadian photographer Sarah Anne Johnson (2008). For more information and updates about the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize, please visit AimiaAGOPhotographyPrize.com and follow @AimiaAGOPrize on Twitter.
About the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize
The Aimia | AGO Photography Prize is Canada’s leading photography prize and one of the largest arts and culture prize programs in the world. The prize awards more than 85,000 CAD directly to artists working in photography each year, and is comprised of an annual exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, an online exhibition at AimiaAGOPhotographyPrize.com, international artist residencies, public programming, as well as an extensive national scholarship program.
www.aimiaagophotographyprize.com