Article translated by Amritee Mahabir

Ever since the media and commercial exchanges have amplified the horizon of the art world, which was previously confined within the limits of schools and academies, it gave life to a complex and organised trade system for the diffusion of contemporary art. It boosted one of the most powerful means of conditioning in the artistic world through the institution of a whole series of “mediators” (artists, users, gallerists, collectors, etc.). Nowadays, we take care of key figures like professionals who are the real producers of artistic events and perhaps of the artists themselves or of true and proper movements within the systems of communication. These operators are the undisputed administrators of contemporary art production, since power, especially in economic terms, lies in their hands, and allows artists to get to know and guide their own success.

Within the contemporary art sphere, an artists’ career could take off or be put in the limelight through various paths. Certainly besides the art circuit system maintained by the most powerful gallery owners (like Saatchi or Gagosian), it is another means of getting known. In fact, many artists implement a sort of competition with a vengeance into their career, going from one award to another, from one notification to another, enacting a sophiscated award-winning career. Among the most celebrated awards is the Turner Prize presented by the Tate Gallery in London, that since the moment it emerged in 1984, it included many international artists among is winners representative of the English panorama: from Damien Hirst to Chris Ofili, and Anish Kaapor, Tony Cragg, Gilbert&George and Richard Long.

Other than this prestigious acknowledgement the Roswitha Haftmann Foundation of Zurich gives a prize too, considered as the most generous in Europe with a sum equal to 150 million Swiss francs (around 136,000 dollars). And for the 2008 edition the Scottish artist Douglas Gordon was the winner who will receive the prize on May 8^th.

Let’s also remember the very new Max Mara Prize for Women organized by the Maramotti collection in collaboration with London’s Whitechapel. Also celebrated is the American Hugo Boss Prize, the contemporary art award managed by the Guggenheim Museum, and sponsored by the fashion house which floods New York with attention every two years in a glitzy awards ceremony. Until the first edition in 1996, the award went to the biggest contemporary celebrities like Matthew Barney or Rirkrit Tiravanija.

In our brief overview of competitions, awards and notifications that constitute an artists’ career, we certainly shouldn’t ignore the Wolfgang Hahn Prize, a yearly award given by the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and endowed with a large sum of 100 million euros (equal to 158,000 dollars). The winner of the fifteenth edition was recently announced and will be awarded next April 14^th. It is Peter Doig, the Scottish artist who since 2002, has lived in Port of Spain on the island of Trinidad. The acknowledgement that in past editions went to artists of calibre such as Richard Artschwager, Pipillotti Rist, and Isa Genzken, was assigned by an international jury which – among others – the director of the Whitechapel gallery, Iwona Blazwick was also part of.

Doig – from whom the museum will also acquire a work for their permanent collection – is truly constructing his own career to perfection. He was discovered by Saatchi and gained fame in the art market in February 2007 when London’s Sotheby’s sold his oil painting “White Canoe” for 5,732,000 pounds (estimated at 800,000-1,200,000 pounds). Thanks to this sale he became the most recognised living artist. Currently the Scottish artist is the leader of a retrospective at the Tate Britain. The exhibition will later pass on to the Musèe d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and to the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. We can say that Peter Doig was missing this award to fit into the ”Olympus” of contemporary art celebrities.