Two gorgeous 2009 Szpilman Award candidates:
The runner-up, Alexander Thieme with his Embedded

… and this year’s winner, Hank Schmidt in der Beek, with In den Zillertaler Alpen






Can you spot me?
What am I, within this overwhelming sight?
Am I a humble creature? Do I not see myself?
Or is it but a false humility, a false erasing of the onlooker’s look?
–
I was told twice in the last two days that one should not make art in anyone else’s name but her own.
You want it – you have it.
Hank Schmidt In Der Beek, you have just made my day.

Other candidates can be found here. Also check out their blog.

Kamila Szejnoch’s work Swing is the winner of this year’s Szpilman Award (“awarded to works that exist only for a moment or a short period of time”). The Swing was suspended on one of Warsaw’s largest (and scariest) monuments, the monument to the Berling Army Soldier. (for posters in the same vein and for Szejnoch’s commentary, see here).

Two other works I particularly like from among the finalists are Sai Hua Kuan’s Space Drawing
and Kate Mitchell’s I am Not A Joke: