9=10. The winners

Robert Ireland

Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2003]
Born in Dallas (USA) in 1964. Lives and works in Lausanne

After studying at the ECAL (1982-1987), Robert Ireland developed his work as an artist in a variety of fields: in tandem with his work as a visual artist, he was part of collectives running exhibition spaces (M/2 at Vevey, KunstProjekt in Zurich), took part in many collective and solo exhibitions (Shedhalle, Zurich; Helmhaus, Zurich; Filiale, Basel; Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne; Fri-Art, Fribourg, Musée de Pully, etc.), worked on public art projects, and published various theoretical essays (Hors propos; Souvenance; Le paysage envisagé, etc.), as well as critical essays on artists. His work can equally well take the form of paintings, drawings or installations, and explores the notions of image, traces, system, memory, all backed by an in-depth knowledge of the history and theory of art.

Publication : Robert Ireland. Speaking of Pictures, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, 2004 (fr.). CHF 20.-

Bernard Voïta

Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2004]
Born in Cully in 1960. Lives and works in Brussels

After studying at the HEAD (Silvie and Chérif Defraoui’s class), Bernard Voïta settled in Brussels in 1989 where he has lived and worked ever since. It is mainly through the medium of photography that Bernard Voïta explores the question of the transposition of space on to a two-dimensional surface. He does not use photography to record external reality, but to give an account of spaces built for the sole purpose of being photographed, so puzzling over the question of reality and how it is perceived. In his latest works he integrates the space in which the viewers disport themselves, with the latter being literally reflected in the constructed spaces of his images. Bernard Voïta has been awarded a great many distinctions, in particular the Swiss Art Awards (1988, 1990, 1995), the Kiefer-Hablitzel Bursary (1990), the Barclay prize (1990), the Manor prize (1994), and the BCG prize (1997).

Publication : Bernard Voïta: TRAX, with an essay by Ralf Beil, éditions Fink, Zurich, 2005 (French/German). CHF 15.-

Yves Mettler

Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2005]
Born in Morges in 1976. Lives and works in Paris and Berlin

A graduate of the HEAD, and with a Master’s degree in “experimentation Arts et politique” (Sciences Po, Paris) and another in Social Science (EHESS, Paris), Yves Mettler questions urban spaces and their history, usually taking everyday places such as stations, barracks, bridges, concert halls or public squares as his starting point. His work takes the form of drawings, video and computer-based works, as well as three-dimensional installations, often accompanied by sound. The winner of the Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2005] and the 2006 St. Gallen MANOR Prize, in recent years Yves Mettler has held solo exhibitions in Vienna, Bern, Geneva and Lucerne, and taken part in a great many collective exhibitions  both in Switzerland and abroad.

Publication : Yves Mettler, My Flowers Aren't Always Hiding Secrets, with essays by Ralf Beil, Konrad Bitterli, Peter Hubacher, Stephen Zepke, Verlag für moderne Kunst, Nürnberg, 2006 (French/German). CHF 36.-

David Hominal

Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2006]
Born in Evian in 1976. Lives and works in Berlin

David Hominal graduated from the ECAL in 2000, and was awarded the Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2006]; the following year he presented his first solo exhibition entitled You Will Never Walk Alone at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts. Paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations appear side by side in his work to form an “enlarged painting” where the references to pictorial tradition are interspersed with references derived from popular and “underground” culture. In parallel with this work, the artist develops his
practice of performance and experiments with video. In 2009-2010 David Hominal spent two years at the prestigious Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. He has taken part in a great many collective exhibitions both in Switzerland (Bern, Zurich, Geneva) and abroad (Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris), and was accorded a major solo exhibition at the Centre d’art contemporain in Geneva in 2010.

Publication: David Hominal. You Will Never Walk Alone. With essays by Philippe Pirotte et Nicolas Pages, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, 2007 (Fr./Engl.). CHF 20.-

Anne-Julie Raccoursier

Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2007]
Born in Lausanne in 1974. Lives and works in Lausanne and Geneva

A graduate of the HEAD and the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, Anne-Julie Raccoursier engages in video work lying at the intersection between the capture of reality and spectacular staged scenarios. Always starting from existing realities, the artist then reworks her images, reframes them, dictates their rhythm, isolates elements, intervenes in the sound. The protagonists in her videos are generally individuals filmed in a group situation, in special representational contexts – whether dealing with children simulating war games, adults trying out being stars for a night, a gang of bikers performing improbable choreographic stunts, or crowds of spectators. Since being awarded the Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2007], Anne-Julie Raccoursier has had a solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus Langenthal, and her work has been shown in Zurich, Paris, Shanghai and Beijing.

Publication : Anne-Julie Raccoursier. Non-Stop Fun, with an essay by Nicole Schweizer, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, 2008 (Fr/Engl.). CHF 25.-

Jean Crotti

Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2008]
Born in 1954 in Lausanne. Lives and works in Lausanne

Jean Crotti’s work is part of a long-term research project focusing on the human figure started at the beginning of the 1980s. In 2008 Jean Crotti was awarded the Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2008] for two large portraits on card executed in coloured crayon. Drawing is his preferred means of endowing the Other with a presence, and trying to capture an image that is evasive. All his graphic art attests to his ceaseless exploration of the portrait – portraits of men or adolescents drawn with coloured pencil on supports as varied as paper, cardboard used for packaging, storage bags, blankets, or, more recently, on bedspreads where monumental nudes are deployed. All these works are made from images taken from the Internet, reworked, and projected on to different supports.

Publication : Jean Crotti. Se perdre dans ses yeux, with an essay by Marco Costantini, Editions Niggli, 2009 (fFrench/English). CHF 28.-

Elisabeth Llach

Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2009]
Born in 1970 in Neuchâtel. Lives and works in La Russille (VD)

Since graduating from the ECAL in 1995, Elisabeth Llach has developed a body of work mainly in the field of graphic art and painting, with forays into the field of performance. Preferring paper as a support, she makes wide use of the flow of images from the press, and in particular women’s magazines, but also sometimes borrows figures from art history. With these images she builds an essentially female universe that is akin to a sort of theatre of cruelty, or seems to come from a story that is perverse in tone by someone like Lewis Carroll. She develops her collections of images in series that are given titles like “Ne t’inquiète pas” or “Öl”, leaving their interpretation as open as the collection of images is flexible.

Elisabeth Llach's installation was realized in collaboration with Gilles Furtwängler and Denis Savary.

Publication : Elisabeth Llach: Alles wird gut – Tout ira bien, with essays by Alice Henkes and Catherine Pavlovic, éditions Sang Bleu, Lausanne, 2010 (French/English/German). CHF 25.-

Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz

Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2010]
Born in Lausanne in 1972. Lives and works in Berlin, as a duo with Renate Lorenz

After training at the HEAD, Pauline Boudry has lived in Berlin for more than ten years. She develops her artistic practice in the field of film and video on the one hand, and in the field of music on the other. One of the recurrent themes in her work relates to the links between work and sexuality, whether dealing with the “work” of the construction of sexual identities, or work as a place where these identities are manufactured and reproduced. The artist explores images from archives, and makes visible a form of “queer archaeology” where the questions of gender and ethnicity intersect, and where the circumstances and appearances of non-standard and transgressive identities are questioned. Among her recent shows have been solo exhibitions at the Swiss Institute in New York in 2009, the Centre d’art contemporain in Geneva en 2010, and the 2011 Venice Biennale.

Publication : Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Temporal Drag, with essays by Mathias Danbolt, Diedrich Diederichsen, Elizabeth Freeman, Denis Pernet, Marc Siegel and an interview of the artists with Andrea Thal, Hatje Cantz, 2011 (French/English). CHF 32.-

Luc Aubort

Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2011]
Born in 1971 at La Chaux-de-Fonds. Lives and works in Lausanne

Since graduating from the ECAL in 1998, Luc Aubort has developed a body of pictorial work in the field of geometric abstraction. Abstract forms or ornamental motifs are set out on various supports – canvases, walls, pieces of wood – and at scales that vary according to the circumstances. Often, the forms escape from the support, or the support is transformed to follow the meanders of the motifs. The abstraction of the forms thus acquires a very special materiality, a phenomenon underlined by the series “Choses”, for which the artist was awarded the Prix du Jury of Accrochage [Vaud 2011]. The organic or ornamental motifs of these little found objects are repeated on a larger scale on the canvases, in an interplay of to-and-fro and exchanges of influences.

Publication : Franges. Luc Aubort, with an essay by Claude-Hubert Tatot, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, 2011 (French/English). CHF 25.-