1st Prize Winner
Jan Håfström was born in 1937 in Stockholm and lives in Stockholm and on the island of Gotland. In the late 1950s, he studied literature and philosophy at Lund University, and took private lessons in drawing and painting in Copenhagen. In 1963, Håfström was admitted at the University College of Fine Arts in Stockholm, and three years later, in 1966, he had his first exhibition of paintings at Galleri Observatorium in Stockholm. The same year, he spent three months in the USA and Mexico. In 1976-77, he had a studio at PS1 in New York, where he also had exhibitions. Håfström has represented Sweden twice at the Biennale in Venice – in 1980 together with Ola Billgren, and in 1990. In 1994, the Rooseum – Center for Contemporary Art in Malmö organised a major retrospective exhibition of his works, and the exhibition was also shown in 1995 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
Throughout the 1990s, Jan Håfström has had several solo exhibitions both in Sweden and abroad. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was also involved in making film and was an art critic for the Swedish daily papers Dagens Nyheter and Expressen. He has contributed numerous essays and texts to catalogues and magazines. The Carnegie Art Award 2001 exhibition presents three new paintings from a series made after a powerful encounter with works by Gauguin and Matisse, and after witnessing a dramatic death shooting in St. Petersburg, in which two characters remembered from his childhood recur – the alter-ego of the Phantom, Mr Walker, and Mr Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The works incorporate a wide spectrum of fragments of memories and references and could be said to summarise his entire oeuvre. Jan Håström also participated in the first Carnegie Art Award exhibition in 1998.
2nd Prize Winner
Carolus Enckell was born in 1945 in Helsinki, where he now lives. Between 1966-69, he studied at the Vapaa Taidekoulu in Helsinki, where he was also a teacher between 1970-85, and principal in 1987-95. In the 1960s, Enckell was the primary influence in introducing the new American painting in Finland, by means of essays and lectures. He did several study trips to Morocco and South America in the 1980s, and in 1981, he participated in the Foreign Visitors Programme in the USA. Enckell has repeatedly resided at the Finnish Institute in Rome and was a visiting professor at the University College of Fine Arts in Stockholm in 1996-97.
Enckell has been involved in many projects for the decoration of public spaces, among which the new University Library in Jyväskylä in 1974 and the Bank of Finland in Helsinki 1985 deserve special mentioning. In 1997, he was awarded the Edstrand scholarship, and in 1999 he received the Cultural Award of the Foundation for Swedish Culture in Finland. The same year, Enckell worked for a period in Berlin, presenting a solo exhibition at Berliner Künstlerprogramm, DAAD. Working within the limitations of the monochrome, Enckell constantly challenges himself. He has produced serial works over a long time, and since the early days of his career he has investigated the spiritual dimension in abstract, monochrome painting. Carolus Enckell also participated in the first Carnegie Art Award exhibition in 1998.
3rd Prize Winner
Johan Scott was born in Mariehamn, on the island of Åland in 1953. In 1973 he moved to Stockholm, where he studied at the University College of Fine Arts in 1976-81. His tutors included Ulrik Samuelson and Dick Bengtsson. In 1978, he held his first exhibition, together with Håkan Rehnberg and Gregor Wroblewski, at the Thielska Gallery in Stockholm. In the exhibition, they collectively investigated a number of issues relating to theory of knowledge. This project was pursued in a second exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1980. In 1983-84, Scott was in New York on a PS 1 scholarship and held a solo exhibition. In the winter of 1988, he worked in Florence, and this sojourn was seminal to his future artistic endeavours. In 1992, he received the prestigious Ars Fennica award.
Scott has also been engaged in stage design and decoration in both Finland and Sweden, and has been a professor at the University College of Fine Arts in Stockholm since 1997. The works of Johan Scott are inspired by classical paintings from the history of art, as well as by the reality he observes and experiences around him. Colour plays a crucial part in his paintings, and he specifically avoids colours that obviously refer to objects in the visible world. Rather than containing a narrative, Scott’s works investigate the boundaries of language.
Scholarship
Jens Fänge was born in 1965 in Gothenburg, and lives in Stockholm. He studied at the Valand University College of Art in Gothenburg in 1989-94. In 1997-98, he stayed in New York on an IASPIS scholarship at the ISP (International Studio Programme) and consequently participated in numerous exhibitions in New York. Fänge is represented in several Swedish museums, and since 1999 he has been teaching at the Malmö Art Academy.
Jens Fänge’s works contain a plethora of objects taken from the world of fairytales, everyday life and popular culture, reproduced in detail and floating in a slightly surrealist way on the pale surface of the canvas. The paintings in this exhibition, titled Themes of voyage, fright and play, have a recurring theme: the lower body of a man dressed in green knee-breeches, striped socks and 18th century style shoes, who appears to be sucked, rapidly and unexpectedly, into the centre of the painting between sheer, ornate curtains – a theatre stage? – or straight into the actual painting in a sinuous whirl of paint.