The 2020 Katarzyna Kobro Award for Koji Kamoji
The Katarzyna Kobro Award ceremony took place for the 19th time. The purpose of the award is to distinguish and honour the attitudes of progressive and innovative artists. The 2020 laureate was Koji Kamoji.
INFO
Time
During the ceremony, the jury composed of: Jakub Cieszki (chairman), Wojciech Leder, Piotr Lutyński, Małgorzata Szymankiewicz, presented the award to the artist with the following justification:
"For many years, in an extremely consistent and universal way, with distance and calmness, he encapsulates in form and preserves what is ephemeral - thoughts, moods, feelings, transformations and momentary impressions. spiritual values, existential concepts, materiality and metaphysics find a unique form in his art. Thanks to his sensitivity and openness to our culture, we learned that constant searching can become a philosophy of both life and art. After short deliberations, the unanimous decision of the entire jury - for consistent attitude, for the search for harmony, for concentration, sensitivity and modesty, for the strength and universality of the message, for expanding the boundaries of art, for connecting two cultures - we decided to award the Katarzyna Kobro Award to Koji Kamoji - a man with an open hand and transparent message.
Koji Kamoji is one of the most outstanding artists of the Polish avant-garde. Painter, creator of objects and installations. He lives and works in Warsaw. He was born in 1935 in Tokyo. In 1959 he came to Poland and studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (diploma in 1966) in the studio of prof. Artur Nacht-Samborski. Since 1967, he has been collaborating with the Foksal Gallery in Warsaw. In the years 1954-58 he studied at the Musashino Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo (diploma in 1958) in the studio of professors Saburo Aso and Takeo Yamaguchi. Koji Kamoji's work is set in a broad context, from Japanese aesthetics in which he grew up, through avant-garde and Polish traditions the art scene of the second half of the 20th century. His works are characterized by minimalism and the use of simple, readily available materials such as paper, plywood, stones and aluminum. Kamoji is a recipient of the Critics' Award of C.K. Norwid in 1975 and the Cybis Award in 2015. In 2018, the Zachęta National Art Gallery organized a broad retrospective of the artist's works from the 1960s to the latest works.
Previous laureates:
2001 - Zbigniew Dłubak
2002 - Jürgen Blum-Kwiatkowski
2003 - Andrzej Dłużniewski
2004 - Krzysztof M. Bednarski
2005 - Teresa Murak
2006 - Krzysztof Wodiczko
2007 - Jerzy Lewczyński
2008 - Zbigniew Rybczyński
2009 - Andrzej Lachowicz
2011 - Zygmunt Rytka
2012 - Natalia LL
2013 - Cezary Bodzianowski
2014 - Robert Rumas
2015 - Jadwiga Sawicka
2016 - Karolina Wiktor
2017 - Piotr Bosacki
2018 - Cecylia Malik
2019 - Ewa Ciepielewska
The sponsor of the Katarzyna Kobro Award is Rossmann Polska:
