French artist Sophie Calle from Paris has been selected as the 30^th winner of the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. The prize, consisting of SEK 1,000,000 (approximately EUR 100,000) a diploma and a gold medal will be presented to Sophie Calle on Saturday 30 October 2010 at a ceremony at the Göteborg City Theatre. In conjunction with the ceremony an exhibit of the award winner’s work, Sophie Calle – 2010 Hasselblad Award Winner will open at the Hasselblad Center at the Göteborg Museum of Art.

The Foundation’s citation:

For more than three decades, French artist Sophie Calle has been questioning and challenging the relationship between text and photography, private and public personae, truth and fiction, in a groundbreaking, utterly original way. Her conceptually oriented work depicts human vulnerability and examines the interrelationship between identity and intimacy as well as the construction of official history. It evokes narrative, affect and emotion in ways that at the same time touch the viewer deeply and makes her reflect on the possibilities as well as limits of photography. Her contribution to the understanding of the medium of photography has inspired younger generations of artists.

This year’s prize committee, which submitted its proposal to the Foundation’s board of directors, comprised:

• Claude W. Sui (chair), Curator and Head of the Forum of International Photography of the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums, Mannheim, Germany,
• Ariella Azoulay, Teaching Contemporary Philosophy and Visual Culture, Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies Program, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel,
• Vladimir Birgus, Curator, Historian of Photography, Professor and Head of the Institute of Creative Photography of the Silesian University in Opava, Prague, Czech Republic.
• Sergio Mah, Professor at University Nova of Lisbon, Portugal and the current Artistic Director of Photoespaña,
• Mette Sandbye, Associate Professor at Copenhagen University (Department of Art and Cultural Studies), Art Critic at Weekendavisen, Denmark

Award winner of past years