Henrike Grohs Art Award 2020: applications now open
Henrike Grohs studied ethnology and was Head of the Goethe-Institut in Abidjan from 2013–2016. She co-founded the project Next – Intercultural Projects at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. Between 2002 and 2009, she worked as Project Manager in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s Education programme. In 2009, she was appointed Advisor on Culture and Development at the Goethe-Institut in South Africa. Henrike Grohs passed away at the age of 51 in a terrorist attack in Côte d’Ivoire in March 2013 along with seventeen other people.
The Henrike Grohs Art Award is a roving biennial art prize conceived by the Goethe-Institut and the Grohs family in memory of the former Head of Goethe- Institut in Abidjan, Henrike Grohs.
Applications to the 2nd Henrike Grohs Art Award are now open and will close 15 November 2019, with the prize being awarded at a ceremony in conjunction with Dak’Art – Biennial of Contemporary African Art in May 2020. The prize is awarded biennially to an artist or arts collective living and working on the African continent, and practicing in the field of visual arts. The main prize is awarded by an international jury after a shortlist is compiled by a selection committee. The winning individual artist or collective will receive a cash prize of 20.000€ and a publication produced to the value of 10.000€ on their work. Two artists or collectives will be selected as runners up and will receive a cash prize of 5.000€ each.
The award aims to support emerging artists in their careers, responding to the challenges of practicing on the African continent. Artistic quality is the most important criteria for the award. Cameroonian intermedia artist Em’kal Eyongakpa was the recipient of the inaugural award in 2018 with the international jury of Koyo Kouoh (Artistic Director, RAW Material Company, Dakar), Laurence Bonvin (artist and representative of the Grohs family, Berlin), Raphael Chikukwa (Chief Curator, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare) and Simon Njami (Curator, Paris).
Online applications are now open at www.henrikegrohsartaward.africa. All applications must be made via the online entry form.
About the Goethe-Institut
The Goethe-Institut is the Federal Republic of Germany’s cultural institute, active worldwide. Its mandate is to promote the study of German abroad and to encourage international cultural exchange. Today it is represented in 98 countries and has some 3,300 employees. It contributes widely to the promotion of artists, ideas and works.
Supporting the local cultural scenes and strengthening pan- African dialogue through the arts are part of its mission on the African continent, where it operates 19 institutes in Abidjan, Accra, Addis Ababa, Alexandria, Cairo, Casablanca, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, Khartoum, Kigali, Lagos, Lomé, Luanda, Nairobi, Rabat, Tunis, Windhoek and Yaoundé, as well as liaison offices in Algiers, Kinshasa and Ouagadougou and cultural associations in Antananarivo, Bamako, Cape Town, Harare, Kampala and Maputo.
