It was great to see that Danh Vo was named the winner of the 2012 Hugo Boss Prize 2012 on November 1. The short list included some very strong artists, including the wonderful Trisha Donnelly, who was an important part of our 2009 exhibition The Quick and the Dead and whose work is in the Walker’s permanent collection. Having said that, I’m a bit biased on this one as I’m working with Danh on 9 Artists, a group show that opens here in the fall of 2013. His work is also one of the most recent additions to the Walker collection: Last summer his Tombstone for Phùng Vo (2010) was installed in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, where it remains on view today. It’s a beautiful and complex work that we will likely be talking about more during next summer’s Minneapolis Sculpture Garden 25th Anniversary celebrations.
For more on Vo, watch my conversation with him or read an article on his ambitious project We the People–a life-size cast of the Statue of Liberty, presented in unassembled fragments–currently on display at The Art Institute of Chicago and University of Chicago.