The Slovak artist, Martin Kollar is the first winner of the Prix Elysée 2015. Chosen by a jury of experts from among eight nominees, the winner was revealed to the public during the Nuit des images in Lausanne on Saturday, June 27, 2015. For Martin Kollar, photography is « an intermediary stage, a kind of transitional memory between two times. »
Launched in 2014, the Prix Elysée is a prize that supports production in the field of photography. It is the result of a partnership between the Musée de l’Elysée and Parmigiani Fleurier, offering financial aid and museum support to mid-career artists devoted to photography and books.
In June 2014, eight nominees from among 411 candidates from around the world were selected by the museum. Anoush Abrar, Mari Bastashevski, Philippe Chancel, Annabel Elgar, Agnès Geoffray, Martin Kollar, Marco Poloni and Kourtney Roy each received a contribution of CHF 5000 towards the initial presentation of an original project in the Nominees’ Book , published for the occasion. An exhibition of the nominees’ projects took place at the Musée de l’Elysée from January 30 to May 3, 2015.
«Provisional Arrangement», Martin Kollar’s project
Raised under the illusion of «communism forever», Martin Kollar now belongs to the temporary generation, moving from job to job, from apartment to apartment, relationship to relationship. «My projects are generally linked to limited territories and spaces, whether it be Eastern Europe, the European Parliament or Israel. I spend several years on each of them, until I feel like I’ve considered them from all angles. Then the next idea comes, which usually corrects the previous one. This time, I wanted to do work that isn’t linked to any place, which revolves around temporality and provisionality.»
His project, Provisional Arrangement, conceived in the spirit of a road movie, aims to capture those moments when the permanent becomes provisional. Searching for sites of confrontation between different temporalities, Martin Kollar took his lens for a stroll through the Museum of Military History in Dresden (Germany), among other places. «There, I photographed an installation showing pigeons wearing tiny cameras during the Second World War. They evoke today’s drones. In this case, photography is an intermediary stage, a kind of transitional memory between two times,» the artist explains. «That’s what I want to work on, filling the void, building something in the interstices.»
Martin Kollar will receive CHF 80 000. This sum is to be divided between the realization of the proposed project and the publication of the accompanying book. He will have one year to complete the project, during which he will be assisted by Lydia Dorner, curator assistant at the Musée de l’Elysée. An exhibition of his project will be presented at the museum in Lausanne in September 2016.
