University
of Applied Arts Vienna: Monica Bonvicini receives the Oskar Kokoschka Award 2020
10.01.2020
Presenting the prize to the
artist on February 28, 2020 at the University of Applied Arts Vienna
“The Oskar Kokoschka Award 2020 goes
to the Berlin based artist Monica Bonvicini. On behalf of the jury I would like to cordially congratulate Monica Bonvicini.
I am very pleased to honor an artist who left deadlocked disciplines and media long ago and who always refers to socio-political
conditions in her work”, announced jury chairman Gerald Bast, rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Bonvicinis
artistic work is of high socio-political relevance and insistently invites to reflect upon social conditions. Monica Bonvicini
applies different media such as sculpture, installation, video and photography in herwork – always crossing or leaving particular
borders. In doing so she creates environments that make spacial developments and power structures accessible and tangible.
Bonvicini questions the relationship of gender roles, power and control and discloses them. In her work, language is of vital
importance, not only but also whilst using a dry sense of humour.
Since the 1990s, the work of the
acclaimed Venice-born artist (*1965) has been presented in numerous exhibitions and biennials all over the world. From 2003
to 2018 Bonvicini taught at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna as a professor for performative art und sculpture. Since 2017
she is teaching at the Berlin University of the Arts. Her work was exhibited several times in Vienna.
The Oskar
Kokoschka Award is one of the most important prizes for fine art in Austria. A ten-member jury headed by the rector of the
University of Applied Arts Vienna biennially awards the prize, endowed with Euro 20,000.- by the (former called) Federal Ministry
for Science and Research in 1980. The Oskar Kokoschka Award is granted for outstanding contributions in the field of fine
arts. The award ceremony is usually held on the birthday of Oskar Kokoschka. This year, due to organisational reasons, it
takes place on Friday, 28th of February 2020 at 10.30 a.m. (instead of 1st of March).
The first Oskar Kokoschka
Award was given to Hans Hartung in 1981. Since then Mario Merz, Gerhard Richter, Siegfried Anzinger, The Artists from Gugging,
Agnes Martin, Jannis Kounellis, John Baldessari, Maria Lassnig, Valie Export, Ilya Kabakov, Günter Brus, Martha Rosler, William
Kentridge, Raymond Pettibon, Yoko Ono, Peter Weibel, Andrea Fraser, and finally 2018 Martha Jungwirth have been awarded.
