The shortlist for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2023 has been released. This year’s shortlisted artists have been said to push the boundaries of photography today. Along with the other shortlisted artists for the prestigious photography prize, it is said that Samuel Fosso and Frida Orupabo are “blurring the relationship between photographer and subject and unpicking the ethics of being a photographer, to explore gender and sexuality, violence, injustice and the Black experience”. The four selected artists are using photography as a medium to come up with complex and multidimensional projects.
Shortlisted projects are currently on view in a show at The Photographers’ Gallery in London. The exhibition which opened on 3 March 2023 will be on view till 11 June 2023. Then the exhibition will tour to the Muzeum Fotografii w Krakowie in Poland from 30 June to 17 September 2023.
The winner will be announced at an award ceremony at The Photographers’ Gallery on 11 May 2023. The winner will get £30,000 while the other finalists will receive £5,000 each.
The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Award is presented annually to a living artist of any nationality who has contributed significantly to the field of photography in Europe over the previous year, either through an exhibition or a publication. It was set up by The Photographers’ Gallery in London in 1996. It is known as one of the most prestigious prizes in the world of photography. The prize highlights significant trends of contemporary photography while showcasing the works of the artists shaping the current international photography scene.
For the 27th edition, the shortlisted artists were selected by a jury of five:
- Anne-Marie Beckmann, Director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation;
- Thyago Nogueria, Head of Contemporary Photography at Instituto Moreira Salles;
- Natalie Herschdorfer, Director of Photo Elysee, Lausanne;
- Mahtab Hussain, artist; and
- Brett Rogers, OBE, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London, as voting chair.
Samuel Fosso was shortlisted for his exhibition “Samuel Fosso” at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (10 November 2021 – 13 March 2022).
Image courtesy of the artist
Cameroonian born Nigerian photographer Samuel Fosso (b. 1962) has dedicated his artistic practice to self-portraits and performative photography. With almost 50 years experience, Fosso’s retrospective exhibition comprises more than 300 prints. The exhibition presents iconic series of his lesser-known works, as well as archival material and unpublished images, principally displayed in large-scale ensembles.
Fosso, who was born and raised in Nigeria, escaped the Biafran War as a young boy. He was adopted by an uncle in Bangui, Central African Republic, in 1972. He founded his Studio Photo Nationale in 1975 when he was just thirteen years old. Soon he began a series of self-portraits alongside his commercial work.
“Playing the role of key historical figures and social archetypes in front of the camera, Fosso embodies a powerful way of existing in the world, and a vivid demonstration of photography’s role in the construction of myths.”
Frida Orupabo was shortlisted for her exhibition “I have seen a million pictures of my face and still I have no idea”, at Fotomuseum Winterthur (26 February – 29 May 2022).
Image courtesy of the artist
The sculptural collages and digital works of Frida Orupabo (b. 1986) are multi-layered formations exploring questions of race, sexuality and identity. Orupabo, a Norwegian Nigerian artist and sociologist, grounds her inquiry in her own experience of cultural belonging.
Orupabo is an artist and sociologist whose research is based on her own experience of cultural belonging. She uses visual material circulating online that spans colonial-era photographs and ethnographic relics to contemporary imagery to create hand-crafted works that rearrange and re-make the archive. The resulting images resemble disjointed Black people with primarily female bodies. The figures are first dislocated. Then in a complex and poetic motion that simultaneously critiques one-dimensional representations of Black existence, the dislocated figures are pieced back together layer by layer.
She bestows ambivalence, complexity, and contradiction. Her collaged cut-outs capture our attention and inspire multiple interpretations of the stories and lives of the individuals they represent, many of whom are completely missing from the archives. In this manner, Orupabo calls attention to the important role that photography plays in the development and perpetuation of violent colonial power relations.
