The winner of Swedbank Art Award 2009 is Jonas Gasiūnas from Lithuania
The head of jury Iris Müller-Westermann from Moderna Museet, Sweden, says: "It was extremely difficult to make a decision this time. All of the nominated artists are working on a very high professional level. Jonas Gasiūnas is merging in his paintings the personal with the collective memories. He is using strong icons from the past well known to all those who share the same collective memories. In painting with SMOKE Gasiūnias is reestablishing memories in the form of images, which are at the same time almost vanishing again — they are real and unreal at the same time.
His paintings are attempts against a common amnesia — against forgetting about and loosing contact with the socialist past — that means against loosing the roots which is very important in order to face and shape the future."
The five nominees were: Voldemārs Johansons (Latvia), Tõnis Saadoja (Estonia), Jonas Gasiūnas (Lithuania), Magnus Wallin (Sweden), and Viktor Alimpijev (Russia).
Members of the international jury were: Iris Müller-Westermann (Moderna Museet, Sweden), Norbert Weber (freelance curator, Germany), Magdalena Lewoc (National Museum in Szczecin, Poland), and Eha Komissarov (Kumu Art Museum, Estonia).
Throughout the years, the artist's active functioning during the previous year has played an essential role in choosing the winner, along with the innovativeness and international accessibility of the artist's work.
The Swedbank Art Award was founded in 2000 and has been organized as an cooperation project between Swedbank and Kumu Art Museum. This year the exhibition of the nominees will take place in Riga Art Space, Riga City Exhibition Hall. The previous prize winners have been Marko Laimre, Ene-Liis Semper, Marko Mäetamm, Artūras Raila, Gints Gabrāns, Mark Raidpere, Valdas Ozarinskas and Miks Mitrēvics.
