Basel, June 15, 2004. For the sixth time, the Baloise Group is awarding the Baloise Art Prize at the international art fair, Art 35, in Basel. The two prizes of CHF 25,000 each will be presented by a jury of renowned experts.

In addition Baloise acquires a group of works by the award winners and donates these works to two important museums in Europe, the Stedelijk Museum Voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, and the Hamburger Kunsthalle. The members of this year's jury are Christian Boros, Collector, Wuppertal; Peter Doroshenko, Director, Stedelijk Museum Voor Actuele Kunst, Gent; Christoph Heinrich, Director of the Galerie der Gegenwart, Hamburger Kunsthalle; Adam Szymczyk, Director of the Kunsthalle Basel and Martin Schwander, Fine Art Advisor of Baloise, Chairman of the jury.

The Baloise Art Prize has been awarded to Aleksandra Mir and Tino Sehgal. The jury characterizes the work exhibited by the award winners as follows:

Aleksandra Mir links into a wide variety of social processes. Her works are exercises in the province of daily life, and for each of them, she devises a new, distinctive procedure. For her project 'The Big Umbrella', she had a gigantic, fully functional umbrella constructed, which was large enough for 16 people. Equipped with this oversized item, she travelled to various cities and gathered experience—not only on the weather but above all on fellowship, solidarity and isolation. In her actions, photographs, objects and documents, Aleksandra Mir humorously chronicles everyday life and cohabitation.

Aleksandra Mir, *1967, Lubin, Poland, lives and works in New York City.
Art Statements Stand F4, Jousse entreprise, Paris

Tino Sehgal designs situations. His works consist of instructions for actions that can be carried out by one or several people. The artist does not title his works, nor does he publish the instructions on which they are based. Instead he explores social processes, conventions and the allocation of roles, thus questioning the coordinates that define the system of "art": idea, visualisation, originality, producer, viewer, owner, market value, etc. The human voice, language, movement and interaction are the artistic materials with which Sehgal stakes out a radical position within the field of conceptual art. Divested of all objectivity and materiality, his ephemeral poetic interventions leave an enduring afterglow in our minds.

Tino Sehgal, *1976, London, lives and works in Berlin.
Art Statements Stand F8, Jan Mot, Brussels, in cooperation with the gallery Johnen & Schöttle, Köln