The Friends of Moderna Museet Sculpture Award 2011: Sofia Hultén

The jury gave the following statement concerning this year’s award winner:

“The Moderna Museet Sculpture Award 2011 goes to Sofia Hultén for her innovations in the extended field of sculpture. Hultén works in a conceptual tradition, with a singular receptiveness to the sculptural potential of individual objects and spaces. Her oeuvre is a testimony to her genuine sensitivity to both physical materials and the hidden facets of human existence.”

In recent decades, the traditional boundaries between conventional artistic techniques have been dissolving. In consequence, the jury's work has involved studying a number of cross-disciplinary practices with a three-dimensional emphasis, whether in the form of individual sculptures or installations using various media. Berlin-based artist Sofia Hultén (b. 1972) currently uses a variety of techniques – processed objects, videos, photos – and often combines them in installations. In her work If you want to hide a tree, go to the forest (2010), she has reproduced found wood slats so faithfully that it is virtually impossible to tell the original from the copy. In other works, she imitates everyday chores or documents methodical examinations of ordinary things in her surroundings on video. In the video work Mutual Annihilation (2008), Hultén has painstakingly refurbished a found chest of drawers, only to restore it to its original state of dilapidation.

The Friends of Moderna Museet Sculpture Award 2011 ceremony took place at Moderna Museet on 8 November, when Sofia Hultén also took part in a discussion. Sofia Hultén’s work was exhibited most recently at Moderna Museet in the Moderna Exhibition 2010. As from the date of the Award ceremony, selected works by Sofia Hultén will be shown at Moderna Museet throughout the winter.

In connection with the Award, a richly illustrated book will be published, with an introduction to Sofia Hultén and her oeuvre by Moderna Museet curator John Peter Nilsson. This publication is now available in the Moderna Museet Shop.

The Jury of the Sculpture Award 2011 comprised the chairman of the Friends of Moderna Museet, Lena Josefsson, director of Moderna Museet Daniel Birnbaum, art critic Anders Olofsson, artist Carin Ellberg, and director of Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall David Neuman.