The third AKO Curatorial Award, one of a series of five annual Awards presented by the AKO Foundation, was announced on 9 December 2019. The Award, offered to graduates of The Courtauld Institute’s MA Programme Curating the Arts Museum (2018/19), was conceived to support and encourage the development of curatorial skills among recent graduates. It follows a competition for exhibition proposals based on Nicolai Tangen’s pre-eminent collection of modernist art in all media from the Nordic countries.
The Award, a prize of £2500, has been won by Anne Rybka, with a proposal titled Hjem (Home). A proposal by Debbie Meniru, Elemental: Earth Air Water Fire, was highly commended, and awarded a prize of £500.
The Award was judged in Kristiansand by Martin Caiger-Smith, Head of the MA Curating the Art Museum, Dr Barnaby Wright, Deputy Head of The Gallery and Curator of 20th Century Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Else-Brit Kroneberg, Curator, Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Beate Mjaaland (AKO Foundation) and Nicolai Tangen
Anne Rybka’s winning proposal explores how Nordic artists capture, celebrate and question the idea of ‘home’, and how perceptions of home – ranging from intense feelings of belonging to uncertainty and alienation – are constantly changing in an increasingly global and fast-paced society. Artists from all Nordic countries are included, with works in all media from the 1930s to the present day, including by Marianne Heske, Tiina Itkonen, Esko Männikkö, Elina Brotherus, Sune Jonsson and JH Engström. Anne Rybka will work with curators from the Sørlandets Kunstmuseum (soon to be renamed Kunstsilo) in Kristiansand to develop the exhibition, which will be mounted in December 2020.
The jurors found the overall standard of the submissions very strong. Nicolai Tangen commented: ‘In this, the Award’s third year, I continue to be impressed at the quality of the proposals, and the ways in which these young curators find new directions and fresh meaning in the collections. Anne Rybka’s proposal Hjem is an exciting and appropriate theme for our audience at a time when our plans for a new home for the Tangen collection in Kristiansand are soon to reach fruition.’
The Tangen Collection is the largest collection of Nordic modernist art. It has been offered to the town of Kristiansand, in southern Norway, where it will be located, together with the collection of the Sorlandets Kunstmuseum, in a new museum, Kunstsilo, currently under construction on the town’s waterfront. The museum is a complete refurbishment of a former grain silo. Following an open international competition in 2016, the architectural project selected was Silosamlingen, developed as a collaboration between Mestres Wage Arquitectes and MX_SI Architectural Studio in Barcelona. The Museum, which will provide over 4000 square meters of exhibition space, is due to open in the autumn of 2022.