Contemporary Art Prize Finalists Artwork Unveiled

Aotearoa’s $50,000 Contemporary Art Prize Finalists Artwork Unveiled Tonight

The Walters Prize is Aotearoa’s most prestigious contemporary art prize, and the opening of its 5th exhibition is being celebrated tonight at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. The winner will receive $50,000 and an all expenses paid trip to New York including the opportunity to exhibit their work at Saatchi & Saatchi’s world headquarters.

The Prize was created to make contemporary art a more widely recognised and debated feature of cultural life in Aotearoa, and is awarded to an outstanding work of contemporary New Zealand art produced and exhibited in the past two years.

The four finalists for 2010 are:

Dan Arps: Explaining Things shown at Gambia Castle, Auckland (7-24 December 2008)

Fiona Connor: Something Transparent (please go round the back) shown at Michael Lett, Auckland (15 April - 16 May 2009)

Saskia Leek: Yellow is the Putty of the World shown at Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland (25 November - 23 December 2009)

Alex Monteith: Passing Manoeuvre with Two Motorcycles and 584 Vehicles for Two-Channel Video shown at ST PAUL St, Auckland (19 June - 7 July 2008)

RadioLIVE presenter, broadcaster and author Karyn Hay is the opening speaker for this evening’s event, along with Gallery director Chris Saines, and Ernst & Young partner and director Stephen Titter.

For the first time, in the exhibition space and on the Gallery website, there are videos of each artist talking about their nominated works.

The Walter’s Prize encourages people to go to www.aucklandartgallery.com to voice their thoughts and opinions about the juror’s choices, the finalist’s works and New Zealand contemporary art.

The winner of the Walter’s Prize 2010 will be announced at a gala dinner on Friday 8 October by this years judge former director of Tate Modern, Vicente Todoli.

Since its inception in 2002, winning artists have been Yvonne Todd (2002), et al. (2004), Francis Upritchard (2006) and Peter Robinson (2008).

Exhibition Opens: 24 July 2010

Exhibition Closes: 31 October 2010

ENDS

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