Jaar – Alfredo Jaar : the 11th Hiroshima Art Prize

Established in 1989 by the City of Hiroshima, site of the first atomic bombing in human history, the Hiroshima Art Prize aims to appeal to a wider world about the “Spirit of Hiroshima,” which seeks everlasting world peace through contemporary art. The prize is awarded every three years. This year we present an exhibition by Alfredo Jaar, winner of the 11th Hiroshima Art Prize, at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art.*

After studying architecture and filmmaking, Jaar (born in 1956 in Santiago, Chile) moved to the US in 1982, establishing a base in New York. In the early ’80s, Jaar gained international recognition for his artworks, which included photographs, lightboxes, installations and public projects. Since that time, Jaar has consistently adopted a journalistic perspective based on thorough investigations of historical events and tragedies, and social inequalities around the world. His work is distinguished by large scale, multisensorial installations which incorporate architecture, photography, film and special effects.

In 1995, the artist created a work related to Hiroshima for After Hiroshima: Special Exhibition for the 50th Anniversary of the Hiroshima A-bombing, which was held at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2013, he also created works based on his research of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima. This exhibition, Jaar’s first full-fledged museum exhibition ever held in Japan, functions as a career-spanning survey which includes some of the most important works created by the artist as well as new works that approach Hiroshima as a contemporary issue.