FRANKFURT, Germany, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Trustees of the
Peace Prize of the German Book Trade has chosen German artist Anselm Kiefer
to be the recipient of this year's Peace Prize. The award ceremony will take
place during the Frankfurt Book Fair on Sunday, October 19, 2008 in the
Church of St. Paul in Frankfurt, Germany.
The Board of Trustees issued the following statement with regard to their
choice: "The German Publishers' and Booksellers' Association has chosen to
award the 2008 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to Anselm Kiefer. In so
doing, the association and its members have chosen to honor an artist of
global importance who has consistently sought to confront us with a
disturbing moral message of that which is ruinous and volatile. Kiefer
appeared at an ideal moment in history to transcend the post-war dictate of
non-committal and non-concrete representation. In many ways, Kiefer acted
like an ingenious and conscious conqueror, seizing upon the means of an
expressive, texture-rich form of painting and transferring these means - much
like the spoils of war - to his own world of images. At the very center of
his work stands an artistic present that is eroded and shattered, one that is
presented with speechlessness and an extremely short-tongued rhetoric. The
incredibly strong resonance that Kiefer's work has received results from his
ability to create a visual vocabulary for both timeless and acute themes and
thereby simultaneously transform the viewer into a reader. The extent to
which Kiefer deals with literature and poetry is demonstrated not only by his
installations, which constantly allude to great works. Kiefer also made the
book itself - the book as a form - into a decisive vehicle of expression. His
monumental lead works appear as shields against a defeatism that dares to
deny a future to books and reading."
The Peace Prize has been awarded since 1950 and is endowed with a sum of
EUR 25,000. Previous recipients include Orhan Pamuk, Susan Sonntag, Jurgen
Habermas, and Mario Vargas Llosa.
http://www.friedenspreis-des-deutschen-buchhandels.de.
Borsenverein des
Deutschen Buchhandels e.V.
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SOURCE Boersenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels
Borsenverein des, Deutschen Buchhandels e.V., Kommunikation, PR und Marketing,
Referat, Presse und Information, Grosser Hirschgraben 17-21, 60311 Frankfurt
am Main, Postfach 10 04 42, 60004 Frankfurt am Main, Telefon: +49(0)69-13
06-292, Telefax: +49(0)69-13 06-294, E-Mail: presse@boev.de,
http://www.boersenverein.de
