Press Release

Art Prize 2011 awarded to Josse Bailly

10.3.2011

Josse Bailly, a 33-year-old alumnus of the Haute Ecole d'Art et de Design Genève (Geneva University of Art and Design), is the winner of the Nationale Suisse Art Prize 2011, convincing the jury of experts with his small-format oil paintings from the series "Jeu et guerre". Presented this year for the eighth time, the sponsorship award targets students of the visual arts and media at Swiss universities of applied sciences. The prize consists of CHF 15,000 in cash along with an exhibition at LISTE 16, the international Young Art Fair in Basel (14–19 June 2011). This year, for the first time, the jury selected the prize-winner from among the artists participating in the "Plattform 11" exhibition in Zurich.

A world of images both pleasurable and menacing

Born in 1977, Josse Bailly completed his art studies at the Geneva University of Art and Design. The wellspring of his small-format paintings and his drawings is an obsessive preoccupation with the aesthetics of the hard rock and heavy metal scenes of the 1960s and 1970s. Josse Bailly takes possession of this past, using it to create his own world of original, inimitable images. What at first glance seems like naive art, reveals itself on closer inspection to be something both playful and multilayered, with Bailly referencing the history of art from Max Bill and Philip Guston to comic strips.

The jury

The members of the jury of this year's Art Prize are: Nikola Dietrich, curator of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Basel, Bernhard Fibicher, director of the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts (Cantonal Museum of the Fine Arts) in Lausanne, Olivier Kaeser, co-director of the Centre culturel suisse de Paris (Swiss Cultural Centre Paris) and Madeleine Schuppli, director of the Aargauer Kunsthaus (Aargau Museum of Art).

The Art Prize – a leg-up for young artists

In 2004, Nationale Suisse created the first national sponsorship award for graduands of the visual arts and media at Swiss universities of applied sciences. The prize underscores the company's longstanding commitment to Swiss art. Rather than promoting artists who have already made a name for themselves in the art scene, the prize fosters young up-and-coming talents just embarking on their careers. The prize money is designed to give the artist a financial leg-up in his or her career in art, and by financing an exhibition for the winning artist at LISTE 16, the international Young Art Fair, the Art Prize gives the artist an opportunity to reach a broader public.

Nationale Suisse's commitment to art

Nationale Suisse insures artworks and has been a collector of contemporary Swiss art for over 60 years. Buying works of contemporary art is part of the company's effort to support and promote the Swiss art scene. The collection of Swiss art that has arisen in this way is already one of the most important of its kind. While the company's collection focuses primarily on paintings, drawings and photographs, the scope of the sponsorship prize for young art is deliberately broader, so as to promote the new ideas and art forms of the next generation of Swiss artists.

The works of Josse Bailly are on show at "Plattform 11" until 19 March 2011.

Plattform 11:

Exhibition 10–19 March 2011 Free entry Open Mon-Fri, 2:00-7:00 p.m. Sat/Sun, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Address ewz-Unterwerk Selnau Selnaustrasse 25 8001 Zurich www.kunstwollen.ch

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Information
Sophia Schor	Andreas Karcher
Media Relations	Head of Art Department
Tel. +41 61 275 23 86	Tel. +41 61 275 23 38
Fax +41 61 275 22 21	Fax +41 61 275 26 56
sophia.schor@nationalesuisse.ch	andreas.karcher@nationalesuisse.ch
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www.nationalesuisse.ch

 

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Media release Art Prize 2011 (in German)	PDF

 

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