Artists with extraordinary talent win the $75,000 Alpert Award in the Arts for Dance, Film/Video, Music, Theater and Visual Arts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Santa Monica, May 10, 2013:
The Herb Alpert Foundation and California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) have awarded the 19th annual Alpert Award in the Arts to six exceptional mid-career artists. The award, a prize of $75,000,recognizes past performance and future promise to artists working in Dance, Film/Video, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts. Herb Alpert, the legendary musician and artist who created the Herb Alpert Foundation with his wife Lani Hall and gave the first Alpert Award in the Arts in 1995, says, “All of this year’s winners represent the essence of the Alpert Award. They take aesthetic, intellectual and political risks, and challenge worn-out conventions. They’re unafraid of the unknown.”
The 2013 Winners are:
Julia Rhoads, Dance: choreographer, director, performer; Chicago, IL
Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Film/Video: anthropologist, artist, filmmaker; Cambridge, MA
Alex Mincek, Music: composer and saxophonist; New York, NY
Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, Theatre: directors of Nature Theater of Oklahoma; New York, NY
Sharon Hayes, Visual Arts: artist and performer; New York, NY
Irene Borger, Director of the Alpert Award in the Arts, describes why each of the 2013 artists was chosen.
“The Film/Video panel selected anthropologist, artist, and filmmaker Lucien Castaing-Taylor, for his visceral, emotionally engaging, aesthetically rigorous, and spiritually moving work, and for his defiance of genre categorization through documenting our world with a spirit of experimentation and adventure.”
“The Theatre panel is honoring co-directors Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska for the scale of their theatrical ambition, their aesthetic innovation, and the way they systematically challenge and reinvent their artistic identity with each project. They admire the joyful play, formal rigor, and transcendence that marks Nature Theater of Oklahoma's work.”
“Artist and performer Sharon Hayes was named the winner of the Visual Arts prize for they way her collaborative processes embody the Alpert Award's dedication to engagement and generosity. Her commitment to giving voice to others, and reflections on the nature of history, and the power of public voice are provocative and timely.”
“Composer and saxophonist Alex Mincek was honored with the Music Award for creating a sound world at once original and informed, for his searching spirit combined with solid accomplishment, and, with his fresh and diverse mix of influences, creating a musical space relevant to the moment.”
“Julia Rhoads, choreographer, director, performer, is being recognized by the Dance panel for the unique hybrid of theater and post-modern dance, and mesmerizing, thought-provoking, full-throttle dancing made in service of witty and engaging works that confront issues of gender, violence, class, sexuality, and issues of ownership and appropriation in the digital age.”
Over the years the distinguished Alpert Award panelists have selected a group of artists who have gone on to extraordinary careers after winning the Alpert Award including Zhou Long, 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner in Music; Suzan-Lori Parks, a Pulitzer winner for Drama 2002; four MacArthur Fellows and 22Guggenheim Fellows.
2013 ALPERT AWARD PANELISTS:
DANCE PANEL
Ann Carlson*, choreographer/individual artist; Palo Alto, CA
Wendy Perron, editor-in-chief, Dance Magazine; New York, NY
David Rousseve*, artistic director, David Rousseve Reality; professor of choreography, World Arts and Cultures/Dance, University of California; Los Angeles, CA
FILM/VIDEO PANEL
Margarita De la Vega-Hurtado, independent film person; Houston, TX
Bill Morrison*, filmmaker; New York, NY
Astria Suparak, director and curator, Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University; Pittsburgh, PA
MUSIC PANEL
Edmund Campion, composer, University of California, Berkeley; co-director, Center for New Music and Audio Technologies; Berkeley, CA
Mary Ellen Childs, composer; Minneapolis, MN
Anthony Davis, composer, University of California; San Diego, CA
THEATRE PANEL
Kim Euell, playwright and dramaturg-at-large; Iowa City, IA
Gideon Lester, director of Theatre Programs, Bard College; Co-curator, Crossing the Line Festival; New York, NY
Eric Ting, director and associate artistic director, Long Wharf Theatre; New Haven, CT
VISUAL ARTS PANEL
Paul Ha, director, MIT List Visual Arts Center; Cambridge, MA
Kay Larson, art critic and author, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists; Accord, NY
Lawrence Rinder, director, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; Berkeley, CA
*Past Alpert Award winners
“The Herb Alpert Foundation is delighted to honor these courageous, independently minded artists,” said Foundation President Rona Sebastian. “Begun in 1995, on the heels of the NEA’s cut backs of individual artists’ grants, the Alpert Award was designed to acknowledge the importance of our artists and their significant contributions to society. CalArts has been the ideal partner to carry out Herb Alpert’s vision for building a new and innovative arts award program. CalArts shares our vision of the transformative power of the arts.”
“The awards recognize that a vital culture requires artistic experimentation on the highest level,” said CalArts President Steven Lavine. “A remarkable number of awardees have achieved heightened prominence during the years following the awards and this is due to the foundation’s continued acknowledgement and support of truly significant artists. Moreover, year in and year out, CalArts students benefit when these exemplary artists come to campus for the residence that is a component of the awards.”
Herb Alpert concludes, “CalArts is a really creative place where people push the edges and come up with things that are different from what we’ve seen and heard in the past. It’s exciting to think about how winners of the Alpert Award will push CalArts students even farther.”
The Alpert Award in the Arts recipients will receive their awards at a brunch on May 10th held at the Herb Alpert Foundation in Santa Monica. For more information about the Awards, please visit:
2013 Alpert Award in the Arts press photographs:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/malob17jazpns18/cNjn2SD6UW
Lucien Castaing-Taylor's film, "Leviathan," is opening in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills on Friday, May 10th. Lucien will be doing a Q&A at the 7:30 pm screening. http://laemmle.com/films/36905
Laemmle Music Hall 3
9036 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA 90211
310.478.3836
CalArts media requests, contact: Margaret Crane, CalArts Media Relations Manager,
caroline@c4global.com Tel: 310 899 2727