Shortlisted for the 2017 Arendt Month of photography award were: Samuel Gratacap ( first laureate ), Jure Kastelic, Aida Silvestri, Daniel Mayrit, Panos Tsagaris. The price ceremony was held on April 26th at the Arendt & Medernach premises / headquarters in Luxembourg-Kirchberg.
Each of these has investigated the political undertones of this years theme “Looking for the Clouds – Contemporary Photography in Times of Conflicts”.
- Samuel Gratacap; Gal. @Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris
- photo: Jure Kastelic
- photo: Aida Silvestri
- photo: Daniel Mayrit
- art: Panos Tsagaris
The young French Samuel Gratacap is interested in problems related to migration and places of transit. His work, which is both sensitive and objective, stands at the crossroads of photojournalism and contemporary art.
The Slovenian artist Jure Kastelic also deals with the image in relation to time. The photographs of his series “Death Reporters” are taken from television stills who concentrate on the very moment the presenter announces the number of victims during catastrophic events worldwide. In this way, he deconstructs media communications strategies This is also the case in the work of Daniel Mayrit, whose hazy portraits (taken by surveillance cameras) are images of some of the most influential people in London. They contradict the “glamorous” image of these personalities, who are suddenly the target of surveillance cameras, exactly like criminals.
In the series of magazine covers entitled “For Between Light and Darkness We Stand”, the Greek artist Panos Tsagaris interrupts the flow of news by replacing it with a symbolic work reflecting what he calls “the gradual disconnection from materiality and the slow awakening of higher consciousness.”
In a completely different way, the work of Aida Silvestri, originally from Eritrea, is part of a personal and altruistic quest focused on the fate of African refugees, which she presents in the form of blurred portraits and with the traces of their routes embroidered directly onto the photographs.
Discover the 5 artists selected by Arendt for the EMOP exhibition “Looking for the Clouds” at Arendt House, and listen to them explaining their work