Birgit Jürgenssen Prize 2008 awarded to Ulrike Köppinger

Award ceremony | 25 April 2008, 6.00 p.m.
Welcoming speech | Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen, Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Ceremonial address in memory of Birgit Jürgenssen |  Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein, art historian, Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Eulogy for the award-winner | Dorit Margreiter, artist, Professor for Video and Videoinstallation, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Presentation of the award |Andrea Ecker, Head of the Art Department in the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture

As a teacher and member of various academic boards, Birgit Jürgenssenwas closely bound up with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and,throughout many years, had a determining influence on the institution.From the early 1980s on, she was involved in establishing aninterdisciplinary platform forging a link between painting andphotography in the context of the master class of Arnulf Rainer and,subsequently, that of Peter Kogler. Until her untimely end, therelationship and contact with her students remained a crucial concernfor her as a teacher.

For her work as an artist which, going farbeyond the boundaries of a single medium, comprises such differentforms of expression as drawing, performance, photography, video, andobjects, Birgit Jürgenssen received the Federal Chancellery's award inrecognition of her merits as a photographer shortly before her death.She could not be present at the award ceremony, and it is thanks to herpartner Hubert Winter's wish that the amount of 11,000 euros awarded toher was donated to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna as a prize forstudents.

According to an agreement between the FederalChancellery, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and Hubert Winter, theBirgit Jürgenssen Prize amounting to a sum of 2,000 euros will thus beawarded in remembrance for the artist for the fifth time this year. Itis awarded annually to a student of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna forher/his achievements in the media sphere, taking works of artisticphotography, video and (digital) media art into special consideration.

Thejury, which comprises Matthias Herrmann, Dorit Margreiter, PeterNoever, and Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein, has unanimously decided to award this year'sBirgit Jürgenssen Prize to Ulrike Köppinger.

Birgit-Jürgenssen-prizewinner:
2004: Pirmin Blum
2005: Marlene Haring
2006: Andreas Duscha
2007: Björn Kämmerer
2008: Ulrike Köppinger