The Chilean multidisciplinary artist Alfredo Jaar received this Saturday in the town of Sant Lluís, located on the Spanish Balearic island of Menorca, the IV Albert Camus Mediterranean Prize for his moving work about the upheaval of the world.
An international Jury, chaired by the philosopher Javier Gomá, valued the work of this universal artist who transcends territories and cultures, whose work stands out as being “in constant resonance with the upheavals of the world and opens the doors to possible futures.”
The jury understands that Alfredo Jaar, like the French Nobel Prize winner, does not conceive of art as “a solitary pleasure, but as a means to move the greatest number of people”, the result of a work of respect for others and commitment to service of social justice.
Born in Chile in 1956, Jaar is a visual artist, architect and filmmaker whose work challenges the conventions of representation and addresses complex sociopolitical issues, a concern that he has exhibited in museums and biennials around the world, such as those in Venice, Sao Paulo and the Kassel Documenta.
His individual exhibitions include those at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1992); Whitechapel, London (1992); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1994); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1995); and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2005), although recently important exhibitions of his work have also been held in Lausanne, Milan, Berlin, Helsinki, Hiroshima and Cape Town.
Jaar joins the list of winners of the Camus Awards, a record opened in 2018 by the plastic artist Mona Hatoum. He was followed in 2020 by the philosopher Edgar Morin for his work as a transdisciplinary thinker and in 2022 by the French writer Mathias Enard.
During the course of the gala, which was attended by Catherine Camus, daughter of the philosopher who gives name to the contest and the room where the prize was awarded, and the former Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, promoter of the award, the III was also awarded. Albert Camus Incipiens Mediterranean Prize.
This corresponded to the Egyptian photographer Mohamed Mahdy, for ‘Here the doors don’t know me’, about the erosion and gentrification of small communities.
This year’s ‘Trobades Camus’ also programmed dialogues and reflections out loud to rethink the world through different voices, such as references to the Palestinian genocide by the photographer Tanya Habjouqa or the words of the philosopher and director of the March Foundation, Javier Gomá, for whom “disgust” has become the driving force that helps moral progress and awareness on issues such as, for example, the tragedy of immigration in Europe.
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