Photo reportage from the exhibition 'The Back Room' by Vika Prokopaviciute at Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, E-Werk Freiburg

In memory of the Freiburg artist Hans-Günther van Look (1939-2007), the Van Look Foundation awards the Van Look Prize for Visual Arts at the E-Werk every two years. Previous winners have been Andreas von Ow, Zora Kreuzer and Uta Pütz. This year, the expert jury has chosen an artist from Vienna who analyzes the process of painting and image making like a researching scientist. Her non-figurative pictorial spaces seem to be located in the digital and to follow certain algorithms. In this way, she fulfills two criteria that are decisive for the awarding of the prize and are derived from van Look’s artistic work: on the one hand, the artistic examination of the subject of space and its various possibilities of interpretation and, on the other hand, an artistic working method in the sense of an „artiste-chercheur“. This refers to an artist personality who, like a scientist, continuously asks himself questions and seeks solutions in the process of working.

The Van Look Prize is financed by donations, membership fees and, above all, by the rental of paintings from the artist’s estate. Renowned foundations, companies and collectors rent works by Van Look and thus support artists of the next generation (www.vanlook-stiftung.de).

Vika Prokopaviciute
The Back Room
Van Look Preis 2023
April 1–30, 2023
Galerie für Gegenwartskunst
E-Werk Freiburg
Photography: : Marc Doradzillo

Exhibition view

Exhibition view

Exhibition view

Exhibition view

Hallway, 2023, oil and acrylics on linen, 154 x 100 cm

Mono-Patchwork, 2022, oil and acrylics on linen, 200 x 130 cm

Ceiling, 2023, oil and acrylics on linen, 200 x 130 cm

Exhibition view

Passage, 2023, oil and acrylics on linen, 154 x 100 cm

Open, Still, Yet, 2023, oil and acrylics on linen, 130 x 200 cm
Photo: Kunstdokumentation.com

Monolith, 2023, oil and acrylics on linen, 130 x 200 cm

Exhibition view