Guggenheim Announces Short List for Hugo Boss Prize 2016

Finalists for Milestone Twentieth Anniversary Are Tania
Bruguera, Mark Leckey, Ralph Lemon, Laura Owens, Wael Shawky, and Anicka
Yi

(NEW YORK, NY—October 22, 2015)—Six finalists have been selected for
the Hugo Boss Prize 2016, the biennial award established in 1996 to
recognize artists whose work is among the most innovative and
influential of our time. Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Jennifer and
David Stockman Chief Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and
chair of the jury, today announced the finalists chosen by a panel of
international critics and curators. Over the past two decades juries
have identified and selected as finalists paradigm-shifting artists from
around the world, recognizing the achievements of both emerging and
established figures, and setting no parameters in terms of age, gender,
or medium.

The following artists are finalists for the Hugo Boss Prize 2016:

• Tania Bruguera (b. 1968, Havana)

• Mark Leckey (b. 1964, Birkenhead, UK)

• Ralph Lemon (b. 1952, Cincinnati)

• Laura Owens (b. 1970, Euclid, Ohio)

• Wael Shawky (b. 1971, Alexandria, Egypt)

• Anicka Yi (b. 1971, Seoul)

“Promoting the most innovative cultural production continues to be at
the core of the Guggenheim’s institutional mission, and for the past
twenty years, the Hugo Boss Prize has given us the opportunity to
identify and honor artists who make a lasting impact on the landscape of
contemporary art,” said Nancy Spector. “We are grateful for the
sustained enthusiasm of Hugo Boss for a project that acknowledges
today’s most prescient creative voices.”

The prize, administered by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, has
become an integral part of the Guggenheim’s contemporary art
programming. The winner is awarded a $100,000 cash prize and featured in
a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The
Hugo Boss Prize catalogues, which have evolved over the years into
ambitious collaborations between curators, artists, and designers, form a
key component of the program’s legacy. The Hugo Boss Prize 2016 winner
will be announced in the fall of 2016, and the exhibition will be held
in 2017.

“The Hugo Boss Prize has developed into a renowned accolade over the
past two decades, and we are proud to celebrate its 20th anniversary
next year. Together with the Guggenheim Foundation, we have since
honored many excellent and successful artists,” said Claus-Dietrich
Lahrs, Chairman and CEO, HUGO BOSS AG. “Our sincerest congratulations go
out to our nominees for 2016.”

The Hugo Boss Prize 2016 Short List

Tania Bruguera
(b. 1968, Havana) lives and works in various cities depending on the
location of her long-term projects. In her politically driven,
performance-based social practice, Bruguera activates communities
through participatory projects that she categorizes as arte útil (useful art). Bruguera’s activism calls attention to injustice and advocates social change, as in Immigrant Movement International, which operates as a community center representing the interests of immigrant populations in Queens, New York.

Solo exhibitions of Bruguera’s work have been presented at the Malmö
Konsthall, Sweden (2015); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (2013);
Queens Museum of Art, New York (2013); Tate Modern, London (2012);
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2010); Beirut Art Center (2007);
Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2006); Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana
(2004); San Francisco Art Institute (2002); and Centro de Arte
Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, Havana (1996), among other venues. Bruguera’s
art has been included in group exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale
(2015); Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2014); Revolution Not Televised,
Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2012); Riwaq Biennial, Ramallah,
Palestine (2009); Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2008); Moscow Biennial
of Contemporary Art (2007); Istanbul Biennial (2003); Documenta, Kassel,
Germany (2002); SITE Santa Fe Biennial (1999); Johannesburg Biennial
(1997); São Paulo Biennial (1996); New Art from Cuba, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1995); and Havana Biennial (1994).

Mark Leckey
(b. 1964, Birkenhead, UK) lives and works in London. Leckey’s fluid
practice ranges across video, sculpture, music, performance,
installations, and the exhibition format. His work unravels the entwined
forces of desire, imagination, and cultural allegiance that shape our
everyday experience, absorbing both rarified and lowbrow references into
a unique artistic vocabulary.

Leckey’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Secession,
Vienna (2015); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2015); Kunsthalle Basel (2015);
WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels (2014); Hammer Museum, Los
Angeles (2013); Serpentine Gallery, London (2011); Institute of
Contemporary Art, London (2009); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
(2008); Tate Britain, London (2003); and Migros Museum für
Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2003). Leckey’s work has also been included in
group exhibitions such as Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of
Art, Pittsburgh (2013); Venice Biennale (2013); Ghosts in the Machine, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2012); Push and Pull, Tate Modern, London (2011); Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2010); Pictures in Motion: Artists & Video/Film,
Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2010); Turner Prize, Tate Britain, London
(2008); Yokohama Triennial (2008); Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London
(2006); Istanbul Biennial (2005); Manifesta, San Sebastián, Spain
(2004); and Protest & Survive, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2000).

Ralph Lemon
(b. 1952, Cincinnati) lives and works in New York. Lemon is a
choreographer, writer, director, and visual artist whose
interdisciplinary performance projects draw on political histories and
personal relationships to illuminate the complexity and raw beauty of
the human experience. Lemon combines dance, film, text, music, and
sculptural installation in evocative programs that explore themes of
identity, loss, and the body.

Lemon is Artistic Director of Cross Performance. His most recent projects include Scaffold Room (2015); Four Walls (2012); and How Can You Stay in The House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?
(2008–10), a work that features live performance, film, and visual art
and toured the United States. Lemon has curated the performance series Some sweet day at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012) and I Get Lost at Danspace Project, New York (2010). His solo visual art exhibitions include 1856 Cessna Road, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2012); How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2010); (the efflorescence of) Walter, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans (2008), The Kitchen, New York (2007), and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2006); and The Geography Trilogy,
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, Middletown,
Connecticut (2001). Group exhibitions featuring Lemon’s work include Move: Choreographing You, Hayward Gallery, London (2010) and The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (2010).

Laura Owens
(b. 1970, Euclid, Ohio) lives and works in Los Angeles. For the past
two decades, Owens’s influential work has questioned the parameters and
possibilities for making and viewing a painting today. She has
continually shifted the terms of her practice, incorporating figuration,
abstraction, digital techniques, and gestural mark making into
multivalent compositions that confound expectations of pictorial space.

Owens’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Secession,
Vienna (2015); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2011); Kunsthalle Zürich (2006); Camden
Arts Centre, London (2006); Milwaukee Art Museum (2003); Aspen Art
Museum, Colorado (2003); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2003);
and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2001), among other venues.
Owens’s art has also been featured in group exhibitions such as The Forever Now, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2014); The Spectacular of Vernacular, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2011); Undiscovered Country, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2004); Whitney Biennial (2004); Public Offerings, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2001); Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh (1999); and Vertical Painting Show,
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (1997). She is the founder of 356 S.
Mission Rd., a contemporary art exhibition space in downtown Los
Angeles.

Wael Shawky
(b. 1971, Alexandria, Egypt) lives and works in Alexandria, Egypt.
Shawky works in multiple mediums—notably film, performance, sculpture,
and drawing—to locate the roots of current geopolitical realities in the
distant and heavily mediated past. Describing himself as a translator
of cultural narratives and assumptions, he draws on mythical and
historical sources to create indelible visual experiences that oscillate
between pathos, humor, beauty, and horror.

Shawky has had solo exhibitions at MATHAF: Arab Museum of Modern Art,
Doha, Qatar (2015); MoMA PS1, New York (2015); Serpentine Gallery,
London (2013); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2013); Kunst-Werke Institute
for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2012); Townhouse Gallery for Contemporary
Art, Cairo (2009 and 2008); and Kunsthalle Winterthur, Switzerland
(2007). Shawky’s work has been featured in major group exhibitions such
as the Istanbul Biennial (2015); Manifesta, Saint Petersburg, Russia
(2014); Sydney Biennial (2014); Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates
(2013); Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2012); Documenta, Kassel, Germany
(2012); Marrakech Biennial, Morocco (2012); Egyptian Pavilion,
Alexandria Biennial (2009); Riwaq Biennial, Ramallah, Palestine (2009); Tarjama/Translation,
Queens Museum of Art, New York (2009); Riwaq Biennial (2007); Istanbul
Biennial (2005); Venice Biennale (2003); and International Cairo
Biennial (1996). In 2010 Shawky established MASS Alexandria, a studio
and study program for artists in Egypt.

Anicka Yi
(b. 1971, Seoul) lives and works in New York. Yi combines and contrasts
organic and synthetic materials in distinctive, immersive installations
that explore hybridity and entropy as their perishable elements rot,
decay, and ferment. Yi’s visceral, alchemical concoctions arrest the
senses; some of her projects incorporate food items and cooking
processes, while others are designed to emanate carefully calibrated
scents.

Yi has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel
(2015); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2015);
The Kitchen, New York (2015); and Cleveland Museum of Art (2014). The
artist’s work has been included in group exhibitions such as Under the Clouds, Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2015); THEM, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2015); Taipei Biennial (2014); Lyon Biennial (2014); Love of Technology, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2013); das Ding!, Swiss Institute, New York (2013); Looking Back, the 6th White Columns Annual, White Columns, New York (2011); SKIN SO SOFT, Gresham’s Ghost, New York (2011); 179 Canal / Anyways, White Columns, New York (2010); and Today and Everyday, X Initiative, New York (2009).

Hugo Boss Prize Jury

The 2016 jury is chaired by
Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief
Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The jurors are Katherine
Brinson, Curator, Contemporary Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Dan
Byers, Mannion Family Senior Curator, Institute of Contemporary
Art/Boston; Elena Filipovic, Director / Chief Curator, Kunsthalle Basel;
Michelle Kuo, Editor in Chief, Artforum International; Pablo León de la
Barra, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Latin America, Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum.

History of the Prize

Since its inception in
1996, the Hugo Boss Prize has been awarded to ten innovative and
influential contemporary artists: American artist Matthew Barney (1996);
Scottish artist Douglas Gordon (1998); Slovenian artist Marjetica Potrč
(2000); French artist Pierre Huyghe (2002); Thai artist Rirkrit
Tiravanija (2004); British artist Tacita Dean (2006); Palestinian artist
Emily Jacir (2008); German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann (2010); Danish
artist Danh Vo (2012); and American artist Paul Chan (2014). The related
exhibitions have constituted some of the most compelling presentations
in the museum’s history.

Previous finalists include Laurie Anderson, Janine Antoni, Cai
Guo-Qiang, Stan Douglas, and Yasumasa Morimura in 1996; Huang Yong Ping,
William Kentridge, Lee Bul, Pipilotti Rist, and Lorna Simpson in 1998;
Vito Acconci, Maurizio Cattelan, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, Tom
Friedman, Barry Le Va, and Tunga in 2000; Francis Alÿs, Olafur
Eliasson, Hachiya Kazuhiko, Koo Jeong-a, and Anri Sala in 2002; Franz
Ackermann, Rivane Neuenschwander, Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooij,
Simon Starling, and Yang Fudong in 2004; Allora & Calzadilla, John
Bock, Damián Ortega, Aïda Ruilova, and Tino Sehgal in 2006; Christoph
Büchel, Patty Chang, Sam Durant, Joachim Koester, and Roman Signer in
2008; Cao Fei, Roman Ondák, Walid Raad, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, and
Apichatpong Weerasethakul in 2010; and Trisha Donnelly, Rashid Johnson,
Qiu Zhijie, Monika Sosnowska, and Tris Vonna-Michell in 2012; and Sheela
Gowda, Camille Henrot, Hassan Khan, and Charline von Heyl in 2014.

To see a time line and a video on the history the Hugo Boss Prize, as well as an overview of past prize catalogues, visit guggenheim.org/hugobossprize.

About HUGO BOSS AG

Since 1995, HUGO BOSS has
provided critical support to many Guggenheim programs. In addition to
the Hugo Boss Prize, the company has helped make possible retrospectives
of the work of Matthew Barney (2003), Georg Baselitz (1995), Ross
Bleckner (1995), Francesco Clemente (1999–2000), Ellsworth Kelly
(1996–97), Robert Rauschenberg (1997–98), and James Rosenquist
(2003–04); the presentation Art in America: Now (2007) in
Shanghai; the Felix Gonzalez-Torres (2007) and Ed Ruscha (2005)
exhibitions in the U.S. Pavilion of the Venice Biennale; and the
exhibition theanyspacewhatever (2008–09) at the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum. At the 54th Biennale di Venezia in 2011, the fashion
and lifestyle group HUGO BOSS was the lead sponsor of the Allora &
Calzadilla exhibition in the U.S. Pavilion. For more information, visit group.hugoboss.com/en/group/sponsoring/art-sponsoring or hugoboss.com/us/magazine/arts.

About the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to
promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the
modern and contemporary periods, through exhibitions, education
programs, research initiatives, and publications. The Guggenheim network
that began in the 1970s when the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New
York, was joined by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, has since
expanded to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (opened 1997), and the
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (currently in development). The Guggenheim
Foundation continues to forge international collaborations that
celebrate contemporary art, architecture, and design within and beyond
the walls of the museum, including the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art
Initiative and The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art
Initiative. More information about the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
can be found at guggenheim.org.

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