Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs have received the Swiss Federal Design Award

The gallery KUNSTAGENTEN, together with Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, are very happy to announce the artists’ selection for the Swiss Federal Design Award 2011, presented by the Swiss Federal Office for Culture.

The Berlin-based Swiss artists Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs received the award for works from their series The Great Unreal, produced between 2006 and 2008. The works of all the prize-winning artists and designers will be presented from October, 19th 2011 - February 12th 2012 (Opening: October 18th, 6 pm) in an exhibition in the Musée de design et d'arts appliqués contemporains in Lausanne. A catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition.

The series The Great Unreal was created during a journey through the US made by the artist duo, following a studio scholarship in New York awarded by the city of Zürich. The photographs portray an encounter between the real and the fictive, the documentary and construed, images and illusions, perception and imagination: We see a group of French fries gathered like a group of tourists on a cliff at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Models of streets made of cardboard have been positioned between the camera and the horizon in such a way that they appear like real, endless highways. In the tradition of Joel Sternfeld or Stephen Shore, Onorato & Krebs hit the road in order to play with the images and myths that shape our view of the "American Way of Life". The images represent a fascinating disassociation from reality that is never generated by means of digital manipulation but frequently by a direct intervention in the visual space. This occurs so subtly that it self-referentially questions the role of photography as a sober means of documenting reality.

The comprehensive artist’s book, published in 2009 by the Edition Patrick Frey, has already won several prizes, including “The Most Beautiful Swiss Books 2009”, awarded by the Swiss Federal Office for Culture.

With the Swiss Federal Design Award competition, the Swiss Federal Office for Culture has honoured young talented artists and designers from a wide range of areas including graphic design, fashion, photography, product- and industrial design and landscape architecture since 1918. The winners can choose between sponsorship awards in the form of CHF 25 000 or working residencies in Switzerland or abroad.

Taiyo Onorato (*Zürich, 1979) and Nico Krebs (*Wintherhur, 1979) studied photography at the Zurich University of the Arts. Their common interest in the manipulation of reality, in the play with proportions and perspectives, led to the amalgamation of the artists as a duo in 2003. In the following years their works were shown at the Kunstmuseum Thun (2006), the Kunsthaus in Aarau (2009) and the Fotomuseum Winterthur (2009), to mention just a few. International recognition led to the duo being offered solo exhibitions at the PS 1 MoMA (2006), the Swiss Institute (2008) in New York and in the EX 3 Art Centre in Florence (2010).
This year the artists have a solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany. Group exhibitions take place at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn and at the MUDAM, Musée d’Art Moderne, Luxembourg.

Gallery for contemporary art in Berlin-Mitte

FELDBUSCHWIESNER GALERIE | Linienstrasse 155 | D- 10115 Berlin
Presscontact: Daniela Esposito | esposito@kunstagenten.de | +49 30-69504142

This release was published on openPR.