AwardApril 1, 2020
Francis Alÿs Awarded with the Rolf Schock Prize in Visual Arts
The Swedish Royal Academy of Fine Arts has named Belgian artist Francis Alÿs the winner of the Rolf Schock Prize in Visual Arts. The academy confirmed the prize was given in recognition “for a body of work that is as profound as it is extensive. Francis Alÿs’s congenial, metaphorising idiom affords deepened insights into chaotic conflicts while at the same time drawing attention to shortcomings in our daily representation of events. With seriousness and acuity, Francs Alÿs addresses real, tragic situations and circumstances which in his poetic renditions become universal and find their way into our hearts. His extensive projects, such as moving mountains and building bridges between continents, always denote the individual human step or measure. In this way Francis Alÿs makes a space for us as participants rather than viewers when we are confronted by his works.” The award consists of approximately US$40,000.
Francis Alÿs was born in 1959 in Antwerp, Belgium, and lives in Mexico City. He studied architecture at the Institut Saint-Luc in Tournai and technology at the Istituto di Architettura in Venice before settling in Mexico in 1986. As architect and artist, he works in a broadened field, with expressions that span painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, film and performance. Francis Alÿs’s artistic oeuvre is characterized by an exploration of boundaries, escape routes, power and vulnerability, in which the works address issues of a socio-political and anthropological nature, and of geopolitics.
The Rolf Schock Prize was created in honor to the Swedish artist and philosopher Rolf Schock (1933-1986), and besides the art included the categories of music, mathematics, logic and philosophy.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded in the mathematics category to Nikolai G. Makarov of the California Institute of Technology and the laureates for philosophy and logic are emeritus professors of Stockholm University Dag Prawitz and Per Martin-Löf. The Royal Swedish Academy of Music named Hungarian pianist György Kurtág as the winner of the prize for music.
The award ceremony will take place on October 19 in the auditorium of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm.
Francis Alÿs was born in 1959 in Antwerp, Belgium, and lives in Mexico City. He studied architecture at the Institut Saint-Luc in Tournai and technology at the Istituto di Architettura in Venice before settling in Mexico in 1986. As architect and artist, he works in a broadened field, with expressions that span painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, film and performance. Francis Alÿs’s artistic oeuvre is characterized by an exploration of boundaries, escape routes, power and vulnerability, in which the works address issues of a socio-political and anthropological nature, and of geopolitics.
The Rolf Schock Prize was created in honor to the Swedish artist and philosopher Rolf Schock (1933-1986), and besides the art included the categories of music, mathematics, logic and philosophy.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded in the mathematics category to Nikolai G. Makarov of the California Institute of Technology and the laureates for philosophy and logic are emeritus professors of Stockholm University Dag Prawitz and Per Martin-Löf. The Royal Swedish Academy of Music named Hungarian pianist György Kurtág as the winner of the prize for music.
The award ceremony will take place on October 19 in the auditorium of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm.
