Enel Contemporanea Award 2011

In a juried competition, Carsten Höller's winning work will go on show at Rome's MACRO this fall.

Carsten Höller is the winner of the Enel Contemporanea Award 2011, the prize organized by Enel within the Enel Contemporanea project, now in its fifth year, that leads to the production of artworks on the theme of energy by artists of different nations. The jury (gathered on 2 June in Venice, in coordination with the opening of the 54th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia, of which Enel is the Main Sponsor), selected the winner from three renowned artists of international stature—Carsten Höller (Belgium), Bruce Mau (Canada) and Paola Pivi (Italy)— invited to submit a project by the Artistic Director of the Award, Francesco Bonami. The jury was chaired by Gianluca Comin, Director of External Relations of Enel, and included representatives of some of the world's most prestigious art institutions: Joseph Backstein (Commission of the Biennial of Contemporary Art of Moscow), Luca Massimo Barbero (Director of the MACRO, Rome), Iwona Blazwick (Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London), Massimiliano Gioni (Artistic Director of Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan), Ivo Mesquita (Chief Curator of the Pinacoteca do Estado of Sao Paulo), Jack Persekian (Director of the Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem).

The winning work, "Double Carousel with Zöllner Stripes", will be donated and shown in the fall at MACRO—the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. In the large Enel hall of the museum, visitors will be able to interact with two moving carousels created by the artist. The carousels move very slowly, in opposite directions, allowing people to freely get on and off, as if they were enormous windmills or millwheels on which seated persons approach and are separated by the constant rotating motion. Around them, visual lines in an apparently intersecting pattern create an overall destabilizing effect, in an experience that distorts spatial perceptions.

Previous editions of Enel Contemporanea have featured the works of eight international artists: in 2010, the "butterfly house" by the Dutch art duo Bik Van der Pol, seen at the opening of the new MACRO—Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. In 2009, the outdoor installation by the American artist Doug Aitken on the Isola Tiberina in Rome. In 2008, an eco-sustainable waiting room by the American artist Jeffrey Inaba was installed at the Policlinico Umberto I of Rome (a permanent work), while an itinerary of images, neon lights and video projections by assume vivid astro focus was installed amidst the ruins at Largo Argentina in Rome, and a hidden garden by the group A12 was placed in the Venice Lagoon, during the 11th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennial. In 2007, in Rome, a large work/construction site by the Italian artist Patrick Tuttofuoco was seen at Piazza del Popolo, as well as an interactive fountain by the Danish artist Jeppe Hein in the Garbatella neighborhood, and an evocative lunar eclipse by the English artist Angela Bulloch over the Ara Pacis.

Two carousels moving in opposite directions, allowing people to freely get on and off; around them, visual lines in an apparently intersecting pattern create an overall destabilizing effect.

Enel Contemporanea Award 2011

In a juried competition, Carsten Höller's winning work will go on show at Rome's MACRO this fall.

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