Julian Turner. warum nicht

Julian Turner, born in 1985 in Hamburg, is the second winner of the Kapsch Contemporary Art Prize, which is awarded to promote young artists living mainly in Austria. The prize was first presented in 2016 by the Kapsch Group together with mumok.
 
“Planned imperfection” is at the heart of Turner’s multimedia works, in which he cites and humorously challenges the conventions of the art business. With Bar du Bois – a hybrid of an exhibition space, a working bar, and a collaborative art project – the artist has created a format that can be continuously developed and that undertakes a social transformation of the exhibition space.

In his first museum exhibition, warum nicht, Turner explores the concept of the display – presentation forms used in museums and elsewhere – as well as various collecting processes. How do we collect, what do we collect, and why do we collect? Or perhaps the question is why not? How do we present our collections? Or why not? Invisible imperfection is the focus here – the process becomes the exhibited object.

Kapsch Contemporary Art Prize 2017
The winner was selected by an international jury, consisting of mumok director Karola Kraus, Georg Kapsch, CEO of the Kapsch Group, Achim Hochdörfer, director of the Brandhorst Museum in Munich, Eva Kernbauer, professor for art history at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and Sylvia Liska, president of the board of the Friends of the Secession. They nominated Julian Turner as the second Kapsch prizewinner.