Book news: Printed Matter announces Awards for Artists

Printed Matter has announced the winners of their 4th annual Awards For Artists. Designed to encourage and support artists’ book projects, the award winners are selected through a peer review process, with twenty artists nominating 2-3 candidates each. A jury reviewed the nominees and selected the winners. This year the jury included AA Bronson, Chrysanne Stathacos and David Horvitz. Last year, funded by the Warhol Foundation, ten winners received $2500 each, but this year the five winners�Agnes Prammer, Christopher Schulz, Micki Watanabe Spiller, Beriah Wall and Ofer Wolberger�will only receive $2000 each. Let’s hope next year funding increases.

About the award winners (from the press materials):

Agnes Prammer, born in 1984, is an artistic photographer based in Austria. She holds degrees in Commercial Photography and Communication Design and is currently in her final year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Her work centers on portraits within photography, text-related art and artist books.

Christopher Schulz is an art book maker known for his unconventional pictorial magazine, Pinups. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, most notably: Queer Zines (2008), Learn to Read Art: A History of Printed Matter (2009), The NY Art Book Fair (2008�2011), and BOOKIE (2011). In 2012 he worked with Visual AIDS on their Play Smart campaign, and is working on new publications to be released later this year.

Micki Watanabe Spiller�s work examines the narratives of space, through sculpture as well as artist’s books. Most of the past works have been one of a kind constructions, or having a very small edition of 2 to 3 objects. Recently, Micki began a public art project at her local Laundromat. This literacy project uses art to engage the neighborhood kids with her artist book, in the form of a treasure hunt coloring book. Otherwise, she juggles her time between going to museums with her 3-year-old son, teaching and trying to get to the studio.

Ofer Wolberger lives and works in Brooklyn, NY where he publishes books under his own Horses Think Press. He received his MFA in Photography and Related Media from The School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2001. He was a finalist for The Royal Monceau Photography Prize in 2011 and his work was recently featured in a solo exhibition at the Anne R. Worrell Fine Arts Center in Bristol, Virginia. He is presently working to complete a series of 12 self-published artist books, of which Covers is the most recent.

Beriah Wall is currently resting on his laurels and restoring his health on a small island in the tropics, and pursuing a hobby of small, vague abstract paintings. Sept. 8-9, 2012, he will be participating in the Brooklyn Museum’s GO community curated open studio extravaganza. The coins will continue.

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