Finalists chosen for $50,000 art award

By LINDA HERRICK

The four finalists have been chosen for this year's Walters Prize, at $50,000 the richest contemporary art award in the country, and the winner will be announced in October.

They are Ronnie van Hout, Jacqueline Fraser, Daniel von Sturmer and the one-woman "collective" known as "et al".

Robert Storr, the prominent New York arts writer, academic and former Museum of Modern Art senior curator, will come to Auckland in October to choose the winner.

The finalists were named by Auckland Art Gallery director Chris Saines, who established the inaugural biennial Walters Prize in 2002 in partnership with principal donors Erika and Robin Congreve, and Jenny Gibb.

In 2002, when photographer Yvonne Todd won the prize at a gala dinner attended by Prime Minister Helen Clark, the remaining finalists received no cash.

This time, extra funding by gallery patron Dayle Mace means they will each receive $5000.

The Walters Prize finalists were chosen on the basis of a work, or body of work, completed during the past two years. Van Hout's entry, No Exit Parts 1 and 2, presents multimedia portrayals of the artist in a series of disconcerting guises. It has been exhibited in Melbourne and the Physic Room in Christchurch.

Fraser's entry, Invisible, which has been exhibited at Cardiff's National Museum and Gallery, was shortlisted for the Artes Mundi Prize in Wales earlier this year.

It is an installation using textiles and epithets to create a cutting commentary on women and fashion.

et al's Restricted Access, first seen at the Govett Brewster in New Plymouth, uses a range of media - and persona - to critique intellectual dependence on technology.

Von Sturmer's The Truth Effect is a video installation making play with a white box.

It has been seen at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne and Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof.

The works will go on display at the gallery from September 18.