LINNAMO PRIZE AWARDED FOR THE FIRST TIME – VISUAL ARTIST JAMES PREVETT SELECTED AS THE FIRST RECIPIENT OF THE AWARD
Press release 24 November 2021 6 p.m. | Olga and Vilho Linnamo Foundation and Forum Box cooperative
In collaboration with the Forum Box cooperative, Olga and Vilho Linnamo Foundation awards for the first time the Linnamo Prize, a new fine arts award worth 15 000 euros. The first prize is awarded to the Helsinki-based sculptor James Prevett (b.1977) in recognition of committed exploration in artistic practice. The award committee elaborates the selection as follows:
“The sculptor James Prevett’s art practice can be described as contemporary sculpture in a state of constant change. He embraces that which is going on around him and often the end result is something unpredictable and surprising. Instead of being limited to an embodied practice with materials, Prevett’s art combine elements of research and social action, focusing on situations, spaces and the people engaging in them. What resonates underneath all this is a profound fascination for the social significance of art, for that which is created by activating and engaging with one’s surroundings and its participants with a view to new and unfamiliar configurations of the everyday. By expanding both the spatial and the social reach of sculpture from the institutions of the art world towards the city space, the domestic realm, as well as the range of social media, James Prevett’s work has provided the field of contemporary sculpture in Finland with inspiring and invigorating new perspectives.”
JAMES PREVETT
James Prevett is a British artist living and working in Helsinki since 2013. He creates things to gather around – objects, events, text, video that are often combined as sculpture. Prevett is interested in sculpture as means to explore the limits of minds and bodies, both personal and communal. His work draws on many influences from music to poetry to the histories of monuments. Prevett enjoys collaborating with other people, embracing the creativity and unpredictability that comes with making things together. He thinks everybody can and should ‘make’, and that this can bring unexpected beauty to the world.
Prevett has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally in countries such as Finland, Thailand, Singapore, USA, Austria and Brazil. He was part of a team of artists, musicians and architects selected to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2006. His ongoing series Patsastellaan: Parties for Public Sculpture invites artists to make something new for an existing public sculpture in Helsinki. He is currently a Sculpture Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki.
Images:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jujLtPi94E8Eed2UqBLiwXMzOTpBRCzh?usp=sharing
Further information:
Olga and Vilho Linnamo Foundation
Marko Karo
Chairperson
+358 50 547 1836
Member of the jury
Jani Ruscica
+358 40 708 5361
Links: https://jamesprevett.com/