............................................
Announcement
............................................
About the Prize
............................................
Regulations
............................................
Jury
............................................
Application form
............................................
Contact information
............................................
עברית
............................................

 

ANNOUNCEMENT

Shpilman Art and Culture Foundation Endows Biennial Prize To Catalyze Groundbreaking Work in Photography

First Recipient To Be Selected in August 2010
Jerusalem, November 18, 2009—The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, today announced that it has established the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography, which provides photographers and scholars with the support needed to pursue new ideas and work in the medium. The first of its kind, the prize is awarded for the creation of new rather than the recognition of previously completed work. It will be presented every two years to an artist or scholar who aims to expand the boundaries of the medium. Recipients will receive a cash prize of €30,000 ($45,000) to support the realization of new work, which will subsequently be published or exhibited by the Museum. The first Shpilman Prize recipient will be selected in August 2010.

The prize is created and supported with an endowment gift of $1 million from the Shpilman Art and Culture Foundation, which will expand the core activities of the Museum’s Noel and Harriette Levine Department of Photography, while also contributing to the Museum’s ongoing endowment campaign in memory of founder Teddy Kollek. The Shpilman gift also matches a challenge grant from the Schusterman Foundation, which sought to encourage Israeli support by pledging $1 million toward the endowment campaign if matched by a donor in Israel.  The Schusterman Foundation is also supporting the Museum’s concurrent Campus Renewal Project with a gift of $5 million, also offered on condition that it be matched by donors in Israel.

“We are deeply grateful to the Shpilman family for its broad vision and generous support of this new prize, which is unique in that it will encourage artists to expand the boundaries of photography as a creative medium,” said James S. Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. “This gift is unprecedented for our Photography Department, and it extends the Museum’s over 40-year commitment to the medium in an important way.”

“This prize is the first of its kind in Israel to be awarded to encourage and support the creative enterprise of photographers from around the world,” said Shalom Shpilman, chair of the Shpilman Art and Culture Foundation. “As one of the world’s preeminent resources in the field of photography, the Israel Museum is the perfect institution to partner with us in the creation and implementation of this new award.”

Recipients of the prize will be selected by a jury of leading international photography experts, chaired by Nissan N. Perez, Horace and Grace Goldsmith Senior Curator of the Israel Museum’s Noel and Harriette Levine Department of Photography.  Inaugural jury members will include:

• Dr. Shlomo Lee Abrahmov (Yakum) – Photographer and teacher, Holon Institute of Technology, and Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, representing the Shpilman family
• Mr. Peter Galassi (New York) – Chief Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art
• Ms. Marta Gili (Paris) – Director, Jeu de Paume Museum
• Prof. Hanan Laskin (Tel Aviv) – Founder, Photography Department, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design; academic advisor to art schools and other cultural institutions in Israel.  

Prospective candidates may include artists and scholars in photography with an established record of past achievements who intend to create new work or undertake new research in the field. Proposals must include a statement on the nature of the work that applicants would want to develop in the future. Candidates must be nominated by a peer in the field. Applications must be received by April 2010.

Inquiries concerning the Shpilman Prize can be addressed to shpilmanprize@imj.org.il.

Shalom Shpilman and the Shpilman Foundation for Art and Culture
Shalom Shpilman is a philanthropist and businessman based in Tel Aviv with a long-standing interest in the promotion of photographic scholarship and discovery. He is currently in the midst of establishing an international photography institute which will aim to promote photographic literacy, encourage research, provide academic education for scholars, and develop an exhibition space for contemporary photography. Mr. Shpilman has established a scholarship program for excellence in photography in Israeli academic institutions and lectures on the medium at high schools and college campuses across Israel.

Mr. Shpilman is Chairman and Co-Founder of the global real estate group REDSTONE and was previously Founder and Chairman of KFC Financial Services Group NV from its inception in 1998 until 2006. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial and Management Engineering and a Master of Science degree in Operations Research from the Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology.

Photography at the Israel Museum
Since its opening in 1965, the Israel Museum has maintained a strong focus on the exploration and exhibition of photography and is among the first encyclopedic institutions to have established a dedicated department for photography in the 1970s.  In 2005, the Department became the Noel and Harriette Levine Department of Photography, recognizing a major endowment gift from New York photography collectors and benefactors Noel and Harriette Levine.

Today the department’s collection includes over 55,000 works from the earliest days of photography through the present, with special concentrations of important examples by the medium’s pioneering 19th-century practitioners and of photography of the Dada and Surrealist movements.  The collection also features in-depth representations of such historically significant artists as Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Andre Kertész, and Man Ray. As part of its commitment to collecting and preserving Israel’s photographic heritage, the Museum has also acquired comprehensive bodies of work by some of the region’s most important practitioners.

In addition to the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography, the Museum’s Photography Department also awards the Gérard Lévy Prize for a Young Photographer and the Kavlin Photography Prize for life achievement.  

The Department also promotes contemporary Israeli photography through an active acquisition program, as well as through individual and group exhibitions dedicated to the work of Israeli photographers.

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
The Israel Museum is the largest cultural institution in the State of Israel and is ranked among the leading art and archaeology museums in the world. Founded in 1965, the Museum houses encyclopedic collections ranging from prehistory through contemporary art. They include the most extensive holdings of Biblical and Holy Land archaeology in the world, among them the Dead Sea Scrolls. In just over forty years, the Museum has built a far-ranging collection of nearly 500,000 objects through an unparalleled legacy of gifts and support from its circle of patrons worldwide. It has established itself as an internationally valued institution and a singularly rich cultural resource for Israel, the Middle East, and the world.

The Museum is nearing completion of a $100-million campus enhancement project, designed by James Carpenter Design Associates and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects to transform and unify the facilities on its landmark 20-acre campus. The Museum has continued operations throughout the duration of the project, which will be completed in the summer of 2010.