Friday, March 11, 2011

Walid Raad receives 2011 Hasselblad Award



The Hasselblad Foundation has announced the Lebanese/American photographer Walid Raad as the recipient of the 2011 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. The prize, consisting of SEK 1,000,000 (approximately USD 150,000). An exhibition of Raad's work, will open on 12 November 2011 at the Hasselblad Center at the Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden, where the Foundation has its head office.

The Foundation commented about their decision: 'Walid Raad is one of the most original and singular contemporary artists using photography. He has been widely acclaimed for his project 'The Atlas Group', in which Raad generated original ideas about the relationship between documentary photography, archive and history. In order to document and investigate Lebanon’s contemporary history, Raad developed innovative methods of approaching the imagery of war and the way political and social conflict can be explored in art. Through Raad’s work we are able to question the traditional iconography of war photography and speculate productively on visuality, memory and violence.'

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