This year, the Kaiserring of the city of Goslar goes to two artists: The Russians Yuri Albert and Vadim Zakharov accepted the award in the Kaiserpfalz in Goslar. The undoped award is one of the most important prizes for modern art in Germany.
“Your contribution to a slowly emerging understanding between the art scenes between Eastern Europe and the West is of crucial importance,” said the art historian and former director of the Lichtenstein Art Museum, Friedemann Malsch, in his laudation. The jury wrote in its verdict that they had set groundbreaking new impulses in international conceptual art.
Albert and Zakharov, who work independently of each other, are known as critical artists, said Goslar’s mayor Urte Schwerdtner (SPD), who is also a member of the jury. “They disapprove of the war of aggression against Ukraine initiated by Putin.” But awarding both of them is not a political decision.
Work underground
According to the city of Goslar, the artists born in the Soviet Union in 1959 are among the most important representatives of the second generation of so-called Moscow Conceptualism.
In Moscow’s underground artistic scene, which was excluded from the Soviet Union’s state art establishment, they organized, among other things, small, short art exhibitions in apartments. Albert and Zakharov have lived in Germany since the 1990s, with regular longer stays in Albert’s hometown of Moscow.
The city of Goslar has been awarding the Kaiserring every year since 1975. The two award winners are scheduled to receive the award on October 7, 2023. In 1994, two artists, Bernd and Hilla Becher, received the prize. The ring consists of aquamarine set in gold and engraved with the seal of Emperor Henry IV.
