Over 20 years ago, two talented young artists were awarded the Baloise Art Prize for the first time. Since then, two artists have been honoured each year at Art Basel by an international jury of experts. They each receive 30,000 Swiss francs. In addition, Baloise acquires works of art by the prize winners and donates them to two important European museums; currently the MUDAM (Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean) in Luxembourg and the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin.

In 2020, the pandemic made it impossible to present the works of the 2019 winner, Xinyi Cheng, to the museum in a ceremony. For this reason, the works of two artists were officially presented at the beginning of the week: Xinyi Cheng and Cameron Clayborn, who received the Baloise Art Prize in 2021.

Xinyi Cheng was awarded for her portrait painting, which captivates with a refined combination and colouring. Cheng’s paintings are always representation and fantasy at the same time. In 2020, the works of the award winner could be seen in the exhibition “The Horse with Eye Blinders” at the Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin, which was temporarily closed due to the pandemic.

The first solo exhibition in Europe by Cameron Clayborn, “nothing left to be”, shows, among other things, the two sculptures from the “homegrown” series, which are being gifted by Baloise to the Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin. The texture as well as the surface move visitors to take a closer look at the works. The interplay of distance and proximity, massiveness and fragility, physicality and abstraction characterises Clayborn’s sculptural works. His works can be seen at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin until 22 January 2023.