Doris Salcedo

In 2019, Colombian artist Doris Salcedo (*1958) received the first Possehl Prize for International Art. The internationally renowned artist deals with the effects of violence and marginalisation in her home country and other regions of the world in objects, sculptures and large site-specific installations. According to the international jury, Salcedo finds "poetic images for political systems of domination, racism and systematic inequality" and her work is "highly relevant to our present day." The award was presented to her at the Kunsthalle St. Annen in Lübeck as part of the opening of the exhibition TABULA RASA curated by Dr Oliver Zybok - her first solo exhibition in Germany. Shortly afterwards, she received the Nomura Art Award, the world's most prestigious prize for contemporary visual art.

Fragile art against oblivion

Where others turn away, Salcedo's work begins: in her sculptures and installations, she sensitively addresses the tragic consequences of violence as a consequence of political and economic oppression, guiding the viewer to the emotional level of the victims and their families. The civil conflict in her home country of Colombia, which resembled a civil war and lasted for five decades, is the starting point for many of Salcedo's projects. In works such as "Tabula Rasa", a series of works with tables/objects whose wooden surfaces are criss-crossed with extremely delicate cracks, she addresses the numerous fates of raped women or, in works such as "Disremembered", creates a space for mourning loved ones - in this case American children and young people killed by gun violence. In "Shibboleth" (Tate Modern, London) in 2007, she takes a look at Europe's treatment of migrants and questions the mechanisms of isolation and exclusion in the so-called "first world" with a long, deep crack in the concrete floor of the Turbine Hall. Works such as "A Flor de Piel", a large sheet made of preserved rose petals delicately sewn together, and "Plegaria Muda", wooden tables stacked on top of each other from which fine blades of grass grow, evoke the strength, beauty and fragility of life and at the same time remind us of the sad fates of individual people.

Salcedo's work is not only extremely comprehensive and precise in artistic terms, but also in terms of the practical realisation of her projects. For example, she involves victims of violence in the creation of her works, giving them a voice. The artist lives in Bogotá, where in 2019 she completed an "anti-monument" made from some of the 13,000 weapons handed in by the FARC rebels. Melted down and processed, these now serve as floor slabs for a museum in the centre of the city, as a place to reflect on the long years of violent conflict in Colombia.