Beijing, April 20, 2009 — Ou Ning, the Director of Shao Foundation, joins the jury of this year’s Benesse Prize at the 53rd Venice Biennale.

Initiated by the Benesse Corporation in 1995, Benesse Prize is awarded to young artists who are opening new horizons outside the current paradigm with an experimental spirit. All the artists and works in the Biennale, including those in each pavilion and the special exhibitions, are open for consideration. The judging process is executed separately from the official judging, and a new jury group is organised for each Prize. Besides Ou Ning, this year’s jury consists of Hans Ulrich Obrist (Co-Director of Exhibitions and Programmes, Director of International Projects, Serpentine Gallery), Tom Eccles (Executive director, Centre for Curatorial Studies), and Fram Kitagawa (General Director of Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial).

Past recipients of the Benesse Prize include Cai Guo-Qiang, Alexandros Psychoulis, Olafur Eliasson, Janet Cardiff, Georges Bures Miller, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tacita Dean and Adel Abdessmed.

The Benesse Prize is a part of ‘NAOSHIMA: Art and Architecture Projects in the Seto Inland Sea’ to be presented by Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation this June at the Venice Biennale. The event consists of a symposium, exhibition, the annual awarding of the Benesse Prize, and an overview of the latest projects by Tadao Ando, Kazuyo Sejima, and Ryue Nishizawa in the Seto Inland Sea area.

The symposium this year will be conducted on June 3, with theme of ‘how to revitalise the Naoshima and the Seto Inland Sea region by creating a cultural sphere based on architecture and art’. Guest speakers include architects Tadao Ando, Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa, and Hiroshi Sambuichi, as well as Soichiro Fukutake — the Chairman and CEO of Benesse Corporation. Francesco Dal Co, one of Italy’s most prominent architectural historians, will be moderating the discussion.

The exhibition, which aims at a retrospective of the art projects in the Naoshima and the Seto Inland Sea area in the past twenty years, will run through June 7 to June 21. In addition to learning about art and architecture, visitors to the exhibition will have a chance to experience the area through the natural environment and local culture on the islands.

In the past editions, one of the features of the Benesse Prize was that the artist was chosen based on the understanding that he/she would be considered to create a commissioned work in Naoshima. Last time, the possible site for the commission was extended to Echigo-Tsumari. This year, it would be further extended to the seven islands in the Seto Inland Sea as part of the Setouchi International Art Festival, which will be launched in July 2010.

Click here to download the original press release by Benesse Corporation.