Since 1999, the Baloise Group has been honouring two young artists per year with the Art Prize. The prize of CHF 30’000 is awarded by an international jury of renowned experts. In addition, the Baloise Group acquires a group of works by the award winners and donates them to two important museums. in Europe: Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the MUDAM, Musée d'Art Moderne, Luxembourg. The works of Sara Cwynar will be presented to the second museum.
The Baloise Art Prize has become a prestigious accolade. The awards are presented to the winning artists and galleries at the high-profile Art Basel international fair. In addition to this publicity, the artists are also given the opportunity to have their works displayed in a distinguished art museum. Baloise invites its top customers to these endowment events and uses them to strengthen links with the local cultural media.
Since 2008, Mary Reid Kelley has made eight films – from the script, props and costumes to filming and editing – in collaboration with Patrick Kelley. The trained painter realized very early on that she could not express all she wanted to with painting alone. Her black-and-white films are artistic syntheses that combine moving pictures with highly allusive, humorous poetry within an aesthetic that seems almost expressionistic. In This is Offal, the artist touches on a serious theme – a young woman's suicide – in a playful manner. She presents an intriguing quarrel between the organs and body parts of the dead woman, which all have different opinions about the reasons for her act and the consequences of it, and give one another the blame. Mary Reid Kelley caricatures certain literary clichés and refers to famous writers like Thomas Hood, Edgar Allan Poe and Albert Camus.Mary Reid Kelley - Winner of 2016
From left: Chairman of the Jury Martin Schwander, Head of Collection Marie-Noëlle Farcy, Baloise CEO in Luxemburg Romain Braas and Baloise Chairman Andreas Burckhardt