Irish-born Richard Mosse wins this year's £30,000 Deutsche Borse Photography Prize

Richard Mosse has been awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014. The announcement was made this evening at The Photographers’ Gallery in central London, with the award presented by British artist Richard Wentworth.

Each year, the £30,000 cash prize is awarded to “a photographer of any nationality for their significant contribution to the medium of photography, either through an exhibition or publication in Europe”, in the last 12 months.

Mosse was nominated for his multimedia installation exhibition The Enclave at Venice Biennale, Irish Pavilion (1 June – 24 November 2013). In the work, Mosse photographs landscapes in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where 5.4 million people have died of war-related causes since 1998. Shot on discontinued military surveillance film, the resulting images register an invisible spectrum of infrared light, rendering the jungle warzone in disorientating, psychedelic hues. The project attempts to find an alternate way of communicating what is a complex and horrific cycle of violence.

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Mosse was chosen from a shortlist that included photographers Alberto García-Alix, Jochen Lempert, and Lorna Simpson, who each receive £3000. Spanish photographer and video artist García-Alix was nominated for his publication Autorretrato/Selfportrait, La Fabrica Editorial (2013), which features black and white self-portraits. German-born Lempert was nominated for his exhibition Jochen Lempert at Hamburger Kunsthalle (22 June – 29 September 2013). New York-born Simpson was nominated for her exhibition Lorna Simpson (Retrospective) at Jeu de Paume, Paris (28 May – 1 September 2013).

Of Mosse’s win, Brett Rogers, director of The Photographers’ Gallery and non-voting jury chair said: “The jury praised the manner in which Mosse combined form and content to draw attention to a conflict, which despite costing the lives of millions of people, has largely gone unnoticed by the West. While building upon traditional forms of documentary, the resulting hyper-real images and multichannel films open up new possibilities for story-telling and engagement with the subject of contemporary conflict.”

The award was judged by a jury comprising Kate Bush, curator; Jitka Hanzlová, artist; Thomas Seelig, director and curator, Fotomuseum Winterthur; and Anne-Marie Beckmann, curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany.

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014, featuring work by all four shortlisted artists, is on show at The Photographers’ Gallery until 22 June. It will then travel to the Deutsche Börse headquarters in Frankfurt and Eschborn.

An eBook version of the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2014 catalogue is also available to buy. Co-published with Mack’s Mapp editions, it includes additional material to the printed version, such as video interviews with the artists and a virtual tour of the exhibition.

For more information visit The Photographers’ Gallery

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