Kiev
In a press conference in Kiev streamed live on The Art Newspaper’s website and moderated by our founding editor, Anna Somers Cocks, the Ukrainian collector Victor Pinchuk launched the second edition of his foundation’s Future Generation Art Prize, worth $100,000. Any artist under the age of 35 can apply. An application can be downloaded from the website, www.futuregenerationartprize.org until 6 May, and a winner will be chosen in December. Speaking at the conference last month, Pinchuk said: “We want to act as social investors in the arts. Our prize is the equivalent of an incubator or an accelerator for start-up businesses.” Richard Armstrong, the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum in New York and a member of the prize’s board, said the award is “not only generous, it’s efficient and egalitarian. Anyone with access to a computer can put his or her work on view and be considered.” Speaking about the impact that winning a major prize can have on an artist, Damien Hirst, another board member, said it is easy to “underestimate the power of the cash prize as well. It enables artists to have more ambitions and make greater work.” The winner of the first prize, the Brazilian artist Cinthia Marcelle, agreed, saying that the prize allowed her to “involve more people in my team” and to pay them better.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Collector’s prize launched'