Hugo Boss Prize Awarded to a Photographer for First Time

Hugo Boss stepped out of the box this year when selecting the winner of the Hugo Boss Prize, its biannual sponsorship award for contemporary artists. It has chosen Deana Lawson, a photographer, as the 2020 recipient.

Lawson, who is American and based in Brooklyn, will receive $100,000 and her work will be presented in a solo exhibition at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in the spring of 2021.

“The Hugo Boss Prize marks a highlight in our partnership with the Guggenheim Museum and we are proud that it has been at the core of our arts program for almost 25 years,” said Yves Muller, chief financial officer and spokesman of the managing board of Hugo Boss AG. “We would like to extend our sincerest congratulations to Deana Lawson and express our gratitude to the jury and the Guggenheim Museum for their dedication and support in this project.”

“Lawson is the first photographer to be recognized with the award in its history, and her contribution to the medium and the larger cultural landscape is profound,” added Richard Armstrong, director of the Guggenheim Museum and Foundation. “We are grateful for our partnership with Hugo Boss, which spans over two decades and has played a critical role in shaping the Guggenheim’s contemporary program.”

Lawson was selected from a short list of six finalists, which included Nairy Baghramian, Kevin Beasley, Elias Sime, Cecilia Vicuña and Adrián Villar Rojas. This year, in recognition of hardships presented by the pandemic, Hugo Boss will award each finalist $10,000.

Since its establishment in 1996, the Hugo Boss Prize has gone to Matthew Barney (1996), Douglas Gordon (1998), Marjetica Potrč (2000), Pierre Huyghe (2002), Rirkrit Tiravanija (2004), Tacita Dean (2006), Emily Jacir (2008), Hans-Peter Feldmann (2010), Danh Vo (2012), Paul Chan (2014), Anicka Yi (2016) and Simone Leigh (2018). The winners are chosen for the innovative and influential fields of work.

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