Recently the VIP art fair announced a new initiative to launch graduating artists in the art market. A panel of six internationally recognised jurors was appointed to select 200 artists from a pool of nominations and open call applications from renowned MFA and equivalent progammes.
The jurors have trawled through the MFA talent pool and selected three artists who will receive the prizes. Susana Perrottet, a Peruvian video artist studying at Schule Fur Gestaltung in Zurich, wins the top honour and a prize of $15,000. In second place is Chris Hood of the San Francisco Art Institute, who will receive $10,000. Third place went to Emanuel Straessle, also studying at the Schule fur Gestaltung. Each of the prizes is to be shared evenly with the students' schools.
"The work was wildly inconsistent " said White Column's Matthew Higgs, one of the six judges. "And I thought it was quite interesting. It didn't seem to subscribe to any kind of hierarchical structure that exists within certain high-profile MFA programmes."
The other jurors were artist Diana Al-Hadid and O Zhang, Kate Fowles (ICI), Jens Hoffman (Wattis Institute) and Joachim Pissaro (Hunter College).
