A fundamental prize for a new artistic career
What the winners say about the EDP Foundation New Artists Award.
By Luísa Soares de Oliveira
“It was very important for me. I came from a university background. I didn't know anyone outside of school, and suddenly I find myself exhibiting at Serralves. Me, exhibiting at Serralves! It really was the start of my career. That year, the jury was international and included, for example, Adriano Pedrosa and Marta Guzman, who was going to be the curator of Manifesta San Sebastian in 2005, and who invited me and Maria Lusitano to take part in it. It was the big moment when my work was presented internationally. The gallerist Elba Benitez also came and invited me to work with her. And I did in fact go to work with her. Cecilia Alemani also visited the exhibition, which led to an invitation to New York. All this happened to me because of the award.
You have to know how to take advantage of opportunities, to commit yourself, but also to use the award for what comes next. In my case, it helped me move to the Netherlands. It wasn't just my national career that started here, but also my international one.” These are the words of Carlos Bunga, winner of the 2003 EDP Foundation New Artists Award, and they reveal the importance he has acquired in the Portuguese artistic context.
Long before graduating from university with a degree in fine arts, any new artist is already aware of the opportunities that artistic prizes for their age group can provide.
In this context, the EDP Foundation New Artists Award is particularly important. Since 2000, when it was founded, it has rewarded 13 artists and one duo (João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva, since disbanded). What most stands out in this list is the quality of the winners. All of them, without exception, continue to develop a coherent, demanding body of work which, even if the prize didn't have that function, is now visible within and beyond borders. And this uniformity can only be attributed to one factor: the quality of the jury that selected and awarded each one.
The award has gone through various stages before reaching its current format. Until 2005, it was awarded annually and then every two years. At first, applications were by invitation, but today they are free, with the most recent editions receiving hundreds and hundreds of proposals from which a maximum of nine are selected. In the past, receiving the prize meant holding a solo exhibition produced by the EDP Foundation, an obligation which is no longer the case. Finally, the juries also change from edition to edition, seeking to respond with their personal sensitivities to the changes in the artistic practices among younger artists, and to the different artistic responses that each of them is trying to give to the world in which we live.
We spoke to some of the winners to find out, even at a distance of many years, what it meant to win what is the most important award for new artists in Portugal. Joana Vasconcelos was the first winner, in 2000, and remembers perfectly how she spent the money she received. “I bought a video camera and made a movie, www.fatimashop, which was shown in a solo exhibition at Galeria 111,” she said. The movie was a road trip movie to Fátima along the EN1 on a Piaggio motorcycle with a trailer, which was basically a parodic critique of the coexistence between “religious spirituality and consumerist materialism. I also made an object that few people remember: a CD-ROM,” she added.
Joana Vasconcelos also mentions the opportunities that the award brought her: “I was able to have my first solo exhibition at Carpintaria, a space that no longer exists and which was located where MAAT is today. The exhibition was titled Medley, and I showed pieces I had in my studio there – and the first catalogue! So yes, the Award was very important and triggered many things in my work.”
Another artist who mentions the award allowing them to realise a specific project is Gabriel Abrantes, who was the recipient in 2009. His work for the group exhibition consisted of a video installation, Too many daddies, mommies and babies, which was projected onto three different locations in Lisbon: Lumiar Cité, the Zé dos Bois gallery and EDP itself. In each place, you could see the scenography, which he had built himself, and the video. The public could visit the exhibition at any of the venues. He tells us: “I used the prize money to make the next movie, which was filmed in Brazil. It was called A History of Mutual Respect, co-authored with Daniel Schmidt, and it won Best Short Film at the Locarno Film Festival. So the money was reinvested in my work.” But Gabriel Abrantes highlights other very positive points that came out of it: “It strengthened my ties with the curators of the collective – Delfim Sardo, Nuno Crespo and João Pinharanda, but also with José Manuel dos Santos, who had been part of the jury; as well as my friendship with some of the artists who had also been selected. Until then, I'd only had three solo exhibitions, all at Galeria 111.”
Vasco Araújo, the 2002 winner, also highlights the exhibition he held after winning the award: “The award was perhaps one of the first revelations and recognitions of my work. It was also the first opportunity to have a solo exhibition in an institution in Portugal. I was able to carry out a large-scale installation with all the resources required, which gave me a lot of visibility.” At the time, he had to deduct a portion of the prize money for tax purposes, a problem that was solved in future editions; with what was left over, he invested in other works.
In 2008, with the format of the competition already adopted, André Romão received the prize and explains why he considered it a major moment in his career: “It was massively important. I was very young at the time, and it was the first time I had worked with institutions, with curators, with budgets... There was a legitimisation of my work that was very important. It was a unique moment. I didn't have my first solo show until 2010. And I used the money to survive. To continue being an artist without having to get another job. It was very important for our generation.” Indeed, since then, several award-winners have mentioned the freedom of not having to have a job to eat thanks to the prize.
Claire de Santa Coloma, who received it in 2017, also mentions this: “The prize meant great recognition in Portugal by Portuguese institutions and collectors. Until then, my gallerists were mainly able to sell my pieces to international collections. I was now recognised as a Portuguese artist! That year, I did a lot of travelling and also used the money for personal things. For me, money is a way of making a living from art and not having to get a job, which is basically a waste of time. And then I had my first institutional exhibition. It was money for production and that sort of thing.”
Adriana Proganó (winner of the 2022 prize) also mentions this, saying that, as an artist, you never know if you're going to receive 1000 euros in a month or in six months' time. “It gave me a lot of visibility. Suddenly everyone knew who I was! But at the time I was already working with a gallery and my work was selling well. It was really the visibility.”
Visibility is a word also used by Diana Policarpo, the 2019 winner, who added that she was now able to focus exclusively on her projects. “It coincided with a change of studio from London to Lisbon, which allowed me to work for a year on further research and realise an artistic project. The value of the prize actually allows artists to work for a year or, in my case, to pay for studies,” she concluded.
Luísa Soares de Oliveira is a visual arts critic and writes according to the old spelling.