The Shortlist for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2005
Four photographers have been shortlisted for the £30,000 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2005. The exhibition will be from 8 April – 5 June 2005 at The Photographers' Gallery and the award ceremony will take place on 11 May 2005. In its inaugural year, the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize continues The Photographers’ Gallery’s commitment to showcasing new talent and highlighting the best of international photography practice. With generous support from the new sponsors, Deutsche Börse, the Prize continues as one of the most prominent exhibitions at The Photographers’ Gallery as well as being placed amongst the most prestigious international awards. The four shortlisted photographers are as follows:
- Luc Delahaye (b.1962, France)
- JH Engström(b.1969, Sweden)
- Jörg Sasse (b. 1962, Germany)
- Stephen Shore (b. 1947, USA)
The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize aims to reward a living photographer, of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution to the medium of photography during the past year.
Luc Delahaye
The French photographer, Luc Delahaye (b. 1962) has been awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2005, one of the most prominent exhibitions at The Photographers’ Gallery and a major international arts award.
Isabella Blow presented the £30,000 award to Delahaye during the evening ceremony at the Gallery.
Shortlisted for the exhibition Luc Delahaye-Photographs (5 February – 3 May 2004) at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford, Luc Delahaye’s monumentally sized panoramas evoke the traditions of history painting and also the compositions of mid-19th century war photography. By consistently following major global events his photographs display a commitment to forging the relationship between politics and picture making. Delahaye’s photographs represent the best of reportage photography: he successfully creates images that are aesthetically pleasing and socially fascinating while always remaining relevant to what is happening in the world today.
JH Engström
JH Engström (b.1969, Sweden) JH Engström was selected for the publication Trying to Dance (Journal, 2004). The book confidently and imaginatively blends self-portraits and portraits of friends, interiors and evocative landscapes. Engström builds his pictorial momentum through mixing lyrical colour imagery with graphic, distressed and black and white photography. Trying to Dance powerfully conveys the sense of his emotive and subjective experiences of the people and places around him.
Jörg Sasse
Jörg Sasse (b. 1962, Germany) Sasse was nominated for the exhibition at Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf, Frankfurt, Germany (3 September–3 November 2004). Rather than ‘taking’ photographs, Jörg Sasse, ‘finds’ them. The departure point for his enigmatic works are anonymous snapshots, through which he sorts in their thousands. Sasse then works on the vernacular photographs that he is intuitively drawn to, often focussing in on a small detail within an image. He crops, saturates, blurs and pixelates the photographs he selects, creating new picture tableauxs - ones that have strange and yet familiar qualities to them.
Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore (b. 1947, USA) was selected for his publication Uncommon Places: The Complete Works (Thames & Hudson, 2004). During the 1970s, Shore travelled across the United States, photographing street corners, diners, gas stations and motel rooms of ordinary America – environments that were curious and strangely alien to the New York based Shore. Uncommon Places was first published in 1982 and in 2005 was reassessed and increased the scope of the body of work to include previously unseen works. This reflects the influence on the directions of conceptual colour photography that Stephen Shore’s work continues to hold.