Deutsche Börse prize shortlist

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize aims to reward a contemporary photographer of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution (exhibition or publication) to the medium of photography in Europe in the previous year.

The Prize was originally set up in 1996 by The Photographers’ Gallery in London to promote the best of contemporary photography. Deutsche Börse has sponsored the £30,000 prize since 2005. The Prize showcases new talents and highlights the best of international photography practice. It is one of the most prestigious prizes in the world of photography. The Photographers’ Gallery and Deutsche Börse were shortlisted for Arts & Business International Award 2008 for their cooperation in the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012

The four shortlisted artists for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012 are Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams.

Work by the shortlisted photographers will be shown in an exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery, Summer 2012, followed by its presentations at C/O Berlin, Forum for visual dialogs and at the Deutsche Börse headquarters in Frankfurt.

Sean O’Hagan writing in The Guardian gives his view of the 4 shortlist photographers/artists or should that be artist/photographers?

“The 2012 Deutsche Börse photography prize shortlist is an intriguing one, not least because of the range of styles and subject matter broached by the four nominees. Interestingly, two of the photographers, Japan’s Rinko Kawauchi and South Africa’s Pieter Hugo, are nominated for work presented in book form, while both of the photographers nominated for their exhibitions, Britain’s John Stezaker and Christopher Williams from the US, are not photographers per se, but conceptual artists who use photography in their practice…………………..Decision time. The judges’ verdict seldom chimes with my wishful thinking – Jim Goldberg’s win, this year, was the exception to that rule – but, for the record, my heart says Kawauchi, but my head says Hugo. As is often the case with the Deutsche Börse prize, I may well be shaking my head in bemusement when the winner is announced next year.” read more here

Detail of Christopher Williams’s Bergische Bauernscheune, Junkersholz, Leichlingen, September 29th, 2009, 2010. Photograph: 1996-98 AccuSoft Inc

Detail of John Stezaker’s Marriage (Film Portrait Collage), XLIII, 2007. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and The Approach, London

Rinko Kawauchi, Untitled, from Illuminance, 2009. Photograph: Rinko Kawauchi

Detail of Pieter Hugo’s Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, 2009. Photograph: Pieter Hugo/Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York