Young Masters Art Prize 2012 – Curatorial Statement

Below is the introduction to the Curatorial Statement that was included in the Catalogue for the Young Masters Art Prize 2012:

As a curator, this year’s Young Masters Art Prize has posed some significant challenges: a group of diverse artists from across the world, each with a unique relationship to the Old Masters and to art history, to be presented in two contrasting spaces. For the 2012 edition of the Prize, the two exhibitions will examine the shortlisted artists’ work in relation to the art-historical genres that traditionally define the art-historical canon. The genres used to categorise painting ranked from allegory, history and still life to landscape, animal and portraiture. The 26 shortlisted artists have responded to the past, sometimes adhering to art-historical traditions, often breaking and reinventing them for our contemporary epoch. Others look at contemporary methodologies such as appropriation, narrative, site-specificity and kitsch, in a riposte to the structured conventions of the past.

Each artist possesses an interest in the discourse between past and present, taking inspiration from themes, concepts, skill, technique and media, both working within the rules of the Old Masters and breaking conventions in order to create something new and innovative. The works that are presented for the exhibitions are diverse across genres, media and themes…

To view the full text, download the catalogue here