Ann Wolff has been awarded the European Culture Prize by the PRO EUROPA 2011 Foundation in recognition of her exceptional artistic achievements. This is the first time that the prize has been won by a Swede.
Ann Wolff’s work is regarded as an enrichment in the world of sculptural arts/plastic arts and shows perspectives that have been taken up and developed by numerous artists at international level.
As one of the most important pioneers of the studio glass movement in the 1970s, she has contributed considerably not only to its growth but also to making the medium known outside Europe.
Ann Wolff uses references to European traditions in her work. A constant thread running through the artist’s multifaceted oeuvre is glass, a material which she uses in solid, cast sculptural forms. She has been working in this material since the mid-1960s, producing powerful and simultaneously delicate artworks – both figurative and abstract masterpieces in color and transparency. She is one of the most significant artists working in this medium: her works can be found in important museums and public collections worldwide.
The foundation, which gives the prize its name, describes the latter as one of the most important European cultural prizes; one which is awarded to outstanding individuals for their continuous contribution to European culture.
The prize is traditionally awarded under the patronage of the President of the Parliamentary Committee of the European Parliament. It will take place on December 12, 2011 at 17.30 in the University of Strasbourg. The eulogy will be given by Adrienne Goehler, former Senator for Cultural Affairs in Berlin.
The sculptress Ann Wolff is one of the important names in the European studio glass movement of the late seventies. At the end of the nineties, her work took off in a new direction, the results of which were exhibited to wide public acclaim in Europe, Japan and the USA.
Within the last eight years she has produced a both new and, in its way, innovative body of work,which alternately puts forward such themes as the individual figure in relation to the pair and group of figures, but also work with abstract-geometric shapes related to the human form and space. The artist delivers a virtuoso performance in playing with the very distinct, intrinsic conditions inherent in her chosen material “glass”: contoured and tactile surfaces, reversals of inner and outer, construction of space with solids, but also interpenetration of layers and forms become meaningful: the sculpture possesses an intangible quality which – following a hidden trail – reveals inner landscapes.
A new catalogue-book is published in March 2010 on the occasion of two wide-ranging exhibitions; it offers an insight into the artistic way of thinking, into the creative process itself.
