Ars Viva 2011/12 Sprache / Language: Erik Bünger, Philipp Goldbach, Juergen Staack

The spoken and the written word have long since found their way into the visual arts: as epigrams, marginal notes, quotes, collaged text fragments, or part of a performance, a video, or a sound installation. In particular since the advent of Conceptual Art, language has even been regarded as the actual and independent material and medium of the visual arts. Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy at the Federation of German Industries has been supporting artists in the areas of architecture, music, literature, and the visual arts since 1953. In 2011/12, a visual arts prize was offered on the theme of “language.” A jury chaired by Dr. Arend Oetker decided in favor of three prize winners, whose works were presented to the public in Essen and Riga and are now being shown in Bremen. “The artists use their media to plumb the limits of language-related possibilities, for instance at the intersection between sound and photography. They set out on a kind of ‘search for traces’ and reflect on access to language and forms of its being passed down at numerous levels.”