Hasta La Ideas

(Photo: Paul Graham)

Paul Graham has won the 2009 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for a shimmer of possibility (steidlMACK), his 12-part book inspired by Chekhov‘s short stories. Presented annually by The Photographers’ Gallery and sponsored by Deutsche Börse group, the prize recognizes a living photographer who has made the most significant contribution (through an exhibition or publication) to photography in Europe over the past year. Dazed & Confused co-founder Jefferson Hack presented Graham with the £30,000 (approximately $43,000) prize at a ceremony yesterday evening in London. The artists that joined Graham on the shortlist—Emily Jacir, Tod Papageorge, and Taryn Simon—each received awards of £3,000.

Graham, 52, is a British-born master at capturing quotidian America. He has described his earliest photographic forays as an adapted “amalgam of [William] Eggleston and Robert Adams…together with the classic British obsession with Social Critique” and is currently the subject of a solo exhibition on view through May 18 at the Museum of Modern Art. “a shimmer of possibility sees Paul Graham pushing the photographic medium in many ways—through his acute observation of ‘bare’ life and diagnosis of the mood of contemporary America through its smallest details,” said Photographers’ Gallery director Brett Rogers, who chaired the jury. “Few photographic projects ever reach this level of subtlety, sensitivity, and complexity.”

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(Logo: Young Guns 6 winner Craig Ward of Words Are Pictures)

The competition that spotted Stefan Sagmeister, James Victore, and Mike Mills when they were but wee design/art powerhouses-to-be is back for its seventh go-round. Behold the imminent launch of Young Guns 7, the Art Directors Club‘s international, cross-disciplinary, portfolio-based competition to identify the young creative vanguard. By “young,” they mean 30 or under, and by “creatives,” they mean those doing great things in graphic design, photography, illustration, advertising and art direction, environmental design, film, animation, video, interactive design, object design, and/or typography. What’s so special about Young Guns? It recognizes an individual, and considers a body of work, not a single ad or design. Also, you get a really cool cube if you win.

Beginning next Thursday evening and through the final deadline of May 13, Young Guns 7 will be open to ADC members and non-members worldwide (last year’s saw entrants from 38 countries). A jury of 29 past ADC Young Guns including Christoph Niemann, Graeme Hall, and Jennifer Lew will select the 50 winners. And there’s more than that iconic cube to look forward to: for the first time, ADC Young Guns-Moleskine grants will be awarded to top winners ($1,000 to the top-ranked winner and $250 to each of two runner-ups) and winners will have the opportunity to create original artwork for New York’s new Ace Hotel. And speaking of aces, get your entry off to a good start by attending next Thursday’s launch party/ping pong tournament at the ADC Gallery. The winning team scores cash and a free copy of Adobe Creative Suite 4.

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Back in December, we checked in with the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year, the Design Museum’s second annual award giveaway, the shortlisted finalists had just been announced. Now we make the jump across the pond once more, as the winners of the award have been announced. Among them, Shepard Fairey picks up yet another bit of praise in the Graphics category and Make Magazine took home a win for Interactive, thanks the work they’ve put into their website. But the thing we were most happy about was the Product category, in which Singgih S. Kartono won for his Magno Wooden Radio, which we not only covet because it’s so beautiful, but he designed it to be built by local craftspeople in Java. Here’s a bit from its introduction:

The judges commented, “The beautiful Wooden Radio shows clear respect for the material it uses and sensibility to details. More than that, the radio reflects a sense of purpose in the wider design context. The designer has brought together local crafts people, teaching them new skills in making and assembling the radio and by using local wood, has brought a positive and sustainable infrastructure to a small community.”

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Back in October when the judging panel was announced for Travel + Leisure‘s 2009 Design Awards, we made a solemn promise to you, dear readers, that we would return once the winners were announced. And here we are. Judged by an esteemed panel that included Calvin Klein and Michael Bierut, it’s an interesting collection of design-y things, from Best Museum (Spain’s Caixaforum Madrid with its “self-contained wit”) to the Best Public Space (New York’s TKTS Booth for “inventing public space where there was none before”). Perhaps most surprising is the selection for Best Travel Fashion: Norma Kamali‘s Trench Coat, which she designed for Wal-Mart and retails for $30 (and which beat out the honorable mention of Kosuke Tsumura‘s $795 “The Final Home Jacket“). The reason for the selection isn’t available online, so we’ll just have to wait for T+L‘s March issue to be released to find out. We’re also eager to hear more about the inclusion of Zaha Hadid‘s work for Melissa Shoes, which took home Best Travel Accessory.

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Curator and critic Maria Lind, is the fourth recipient of the Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement, a biennial prize awarded by the Menil Collection in Houston to early- to mid- career curators who have made significant contributions to the field of contemporary art. Stockholm-born Lind, 42, is director of the graduate program at the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies and the former director of the International Artist Studio Program in Sweden (Iaspis) and Kunstverein Munchen. She receives a $15,000 stipend and will deliver a public lecture at the Menil on March 13.

“The judges and I were impressed by the fact that Maria comes to the field from many different perspectives and posts—a major international collecting museum, a renowned residency program, and most recently an academic program dedicated to curatorial practice,” said Franklin Sirmans, Menil curator of modern and contemporary art in a statement issued by the museum. “And she has worked very closely with artists in conceiving programs and projects.” Lind was selected by a three-member panel: Dia Art Foundation curator Lynne Cooke, who is also chief curator at Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid; Susanne Ghez, director of the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago; and Udo Kittelmann, director of Berlin’s Nationalgalerie.

The award was established in 2001 to honor renowned curator Walter Hopps, the founding director of the Menil who died in 2005. “To receive an award named after the curator of Marcel Duchamp‘s first museum exhibition is humbling,” said Lind. “I like to think that it means recognition for a curatorial approach and sensibility that rethinks formats while walking hand-in-hand with art and artists.”

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