The Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation has selected German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher to receive the 2004 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. The prize, consisting of SEK 500,000 and a gold medal, will be presented at a ceremony held in Göteborg, Sweden, on November 20, 2004. A new exhibition of Bernd and Hilla Bechers’ work, curated and organized by the Hasselblad Center, will be opened in conjunction with the ceremony.
The Foundation’s decision to award the 2004 prize to Bernd and Hilla Becher was motivated with the following statement:
Bernd and Hilla Becher are among the most influential artists of our time. For more than forty years they have been recording the heritage of an industrial past. Their systematic photography of functionalist architecture, often organizing their pictures in grids, brought them recognition as conceptual artists as well as photographers. As the founders of what has come to be known as the ‘Becher school’ they have brought their influence in a unique way to bear on generations of documentary photographers and artists.
This year’s prize committee, which submitted its proposal to the Foundation’s board of directors, comprised:
Mr. Filippo Maggia (chairman), Curator, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy,
Mr. Daniel Birnbaum, Professor and Rector, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt, Germany, Ms. Sandra S. Phillips, Senior Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA, Ms. Gilane Tawadros, Director, Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA), London, United Kingdom and Mr. Bas Vroege, Director, Paradox, Edam, The Netherlands.
