4. Deste Prize 2005

The opening of the 4th Deste Prize exhibition will take place tonight, Thursday, 19 May, at 8.30 pm, at the Deste Foundation’s Centre for Contemporary Art.

The Deste Prize was established in 1999 as part of the Foundation’s policy of supporting and promoting contemporary art in Greece and is awarded every two years to a Greek artist living and working either in Greece or abroad. Through this prize, Deste hopes to endorse the spirit of exploration, ingenuity and ambition so essential to the Foundation’s mission and to the vitality of contemporary art.

The six (6) short-listed artists for the 4th Deste Prize are:

Dora Economou (1974, lives and works in Athens) Dimitris Foutris (1972, lives and works in Athens) Christodoulos Panayiotou (1978, lives and works in Limassol) Poka-Yio (1970, lives and works in Athens) Stefanos Tsivopoulos (1973, lives and works in Amsterdam) Kostis Velonis (1968, lives and works in Athens)

The exhibition will be presenting works of the six (6) short-listed artists that have been unanimously selected by the Selection Committee, consisting of: Orestis Doumanis – Publisher-Director, Design + Art in Greece & Architecture in Greece, Christoforos Marinos – Art Critic-Curator, Gregory Papadimitriou – Collector, Maria Papadimitriou – Artist, Yiannis Toumazis – Director, the Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre and Augustine Zenakos – Art Critic, To Vima Newspaper.

An international five-member Jury, consisting of Nicolas Bourriaud - Co-Director, Palais de Tokyo, Urs Fischer - Artist, Pauline Karpidas -Collector, Scott Rothkopf - Senior Editor, Artforum magazine, as well as Dakis Joannou, President of the Deste Foundation, will select and announce the winner of the Prize in mid-September 2005. The Deste Prize is accompanied by a grant of €10.000.

This year marks the fourth presentation of the Deste Prize. Since its inception the Prize has been awarded to: Panayota Tzamourani (1999), Georgia Sagri (2001) and Maria Papadimitriou (2003). The exhibition of the 4th Deste Prize will also mark the closing of Deste´s first permanent site in Neo Psychico, which was inaugurated in May 1998, as the Foundation will be moving to its new space in Nea Ionia at the end of the year.

The 4th Deste Prize is sponsored by Cosmoline, a member of the INTERAMERICAN Group of Companies, which has through its President, Mr. Dimitris Kontominas, offered continual support to this institution.

Pressetext

4th Deste Prize 2005 for Contemporary Greek Artists

Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Kostis Velonis, Dimitris Foutris, Poka-Yio, Dora Economou