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N
ow in its 22nd year, the Deutsche Börse
Photography Foundation Prize (previously
known as the Citigroup Photography Prize) is
awarded to a living artist who has made a
significant contribution to photography in the year
preceding the deadline. Previous winners include Paul
Graham, Rineke Dijkstra, Juergen Teller and Robert
Adams. The Deutsche Börse Group has been collecting
and promoting contemporary photography for 20 years
(its collection comprises more than 1,800 works) and
has a passion for discovering and supporting new
talent, so it’s only natural that this has become one of
the most prestigious international arts awards around.
The £30,000 prize money certainly helps too.
The four artists shortlisted for this year’s prize are
Laia Abril, Susan Meiselas, Arwed Messmer and Mark
Ruwedel, with topics ranging from state and gender
politics to social injustice, human rights and conceptual
approaches to image making. Abril was nominated for
her book On Abortion (published by Dewi Lewis), a
visual history of abortion and the repercussions of lack
of access to legal, safe or free procedures. The book
won the Paris Photo/Aperture Foundation Photobook
of the Year Award 2018 and forms the first chapter of
the artist’s ongoing series A History of Misogyny. Abril’s
nominated work is displayed on the fourth floor of the
Photographers’ Gallery, with an essay by Helen Lewis
(deputy editor at the New Statesman) offering further
insight in the exhibition catalogue.
Mark Ruwedel – who was nominated for his
exhibition Artist and Society (which ran at Tate Modern
in London) – is showcased on the fourth floor.
Incontestably thorough, Ruwedel spent more than four
decades exploring North America and producing work
that describes how geological, historical and political
events have left their mark on the landscape. The
images on display here were taken between 1995 and
2012, with subjects ranging from abandoned railways
and nuclear testing sites to empty desert homes.
Ruwedel is interested in the craft of printing and the
idea of the photograph as object, as a result some of his
handmade artist’s books are included in the exhibition.
On the fifth floor, Arwed Messmer’s intriguing look
at the far-left extremist organisation the Red Army
Faction (often referred to as the Baader-MeinhofON SHOWThe shortlisted entries for the
Deutsche Börse Photography
Foundation Prize cover subjects
ranging from state and gender politics
to social injustice and human rights.
Tracy Calder previews the pictures at
the Photographers’ Gallery in London.NEWS© Laia Abril, 2018© Arwed Messmer: Compilation design and editing of the photographic material. Source: AM_PHS_SCHUPO_FILM 1933_19A_20A
Berlin Police Historical Collection Kurfürstendamm, Berlin, 12.04.1 968