Alert! William Kentridge was named Artist of the Year at the Apollo Awards 2015 at a ceremony at RSA House in London, England recently.
The Apollo Awards, which have existed in some form since 1992, “celebrate outstanding achievements in the art and museum worlds, recognising success and rewarding ambition across historical and contemporary fields”. They are awarded in seven categories: Personality, Artist, Acquisition, Exhibition, Digital Innovation, Book and Museum Opening.
Kentridge was heralded as “one of the most important artists working today”. Thomas Marks, editor of Apollo, hosted the prize-giving ceremony.
Read his speech:
Our artist of the year award goes to a figure who had a considerable public impact in 2015, whether through exhibitions, major commissions or for stirring the public and critical imagination through their work and ideas. This year, the winner is an artist of unbridled ingenuity and unstinting integrity, who engages forcefully with the history of his materials and with the truly stubborn stuff of history itself. William Kentridge has been – it is for once accurate to say – almost globally heralded this year, with exhibitions in London, Amsterdam, Beijing, Mexico City, Cape Town, and beyond. So heralded, in fact, so much so, that he is in Krakov tonight collecting another award for his services to animation. But I am delighted that his daughter, Alice Kentridge, is here this evening to pick up this award on behalf of her father.
In an article for Apollo, co-founder and editor of The White Review Ben Eastham outlined the significant achievements that merited the accolade for Kentridge:
William Kentridge
Several bold exhibitions staged this year have revealed South African artist William Kentridge’s remarkable range, and have confirmed his position as one of the most important artists working today
This was the year in which William Kentridge’s (b. 1955) public profile, in this country at least, caught up with his vaunted critical reputation. One catalyst for that shift was a major exhibition of the artist’s work at Marian Goodman Gallery – remarkably the first of its kind in London for over 15 years – which revealed the exceptional range of an artist whose printmaking, drawing, animation, theatre, and film has followed its own unique path, irrespective of contemporary fashions, over the past 25 years.
The full list of Apollo Award 2015 winners:
Personality of the Year
Maria Balshaw
Artist of the Year
William Kentridge
Museum Opening of the Year
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Exhibition of the Year
Silent Partners: Artist and Mannequin from Function to Fetish
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Book of the Year
Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes
Ken Jacobson and Jenny Jacobson (Bernard Quaritch Ltd)
Digital Innovation of the Year
The Million Image Database
Institute for Digital Archaeology
Acquisition of the Year
The Wolsey Angels, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Book details
- Accounts and Drawings from Underground: The East Rand Proprietary Mines Cash Book, 1906 by William Kentridge, Rosalind C Morris
EAN: 9780857422057
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- The Soho Chronicles : 10 Films by William Kentridge by Matthew Kentridge
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EAN: 9780857421760
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- Six Drawing Lessons by William Kentridge
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EAN: 9780674365803
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- No, It Is by William Kentridge
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EAN: 9780987042903
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- A Universal Archive: William Kentridge as Printmaker by Rosalind Krauss
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EAN: 9781853323010
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- William Kentridge: The Refusal of Time by Peter Galison, Catherine Meyburgh, Philip Miller
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EAN: 9782365110075
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- William Kentridge by Kate McCrickard
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EAN: 9781854379726
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Image courtesy of Apollo