This year, Ashley Hans Scheirl is awarded the Grand Art Prize of the State of Salzburg in the visual arts category. The prize, endowed with 20,000 euros, is awarded on a four-year cycle, alternating with literature, music, and performing arts.
“Scheirl is among Austria’s most significant artistic figures and a central pioneer of the international queer and transgender scene,” states a press release from the State of Salzburg. “The award aims to honor a visual artist with merits in Salzburg for a consistent and sustained artistic body of work,” explained Stefan Schnöll, the deputy governor (ÖVP).
Scheirl’s work is characterized by the “multifaceted and consistent engagement with the various media such as painting, video, photography, installation, film and performance,” and it “lays bare the fragility of the human body with sharpness and humor,” according to the State of Salzburg. “Scheirl’s contributions to documenta 14 in Kassel/Athens and the Austrian Pavilion’s programming at the Venice Biennale 2022 demonstrate her broad, international artistic recognition,” the jury explained.
Ashley Hans Scheirl was born in 1956 in Salzburg and first gained recognition in the 1980s and early 1990s with short experimental films. After that, Scheirl turned more decisively to painting and toward pushing the boundaries between media and genres. “Trans-gender, trans-medium, trans-genre became the guiding principle of Scheirl’s practice,” the press release notes.
Marcy Ellerton
