June 10, 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller win two prizes at the 49^th Venice Biennale

Canadian Commissioner Wayne Baerwaldt and Plug In Gallery (Winnipeg) together with contributing partner the Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff) are pleased to announce that Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller have been awarded two major prizes at the 49^th Venice Biennale.

Cardiff and Miller were awarded "La Biennale di Venezia Special Award" for their work The Paradise Institute. The Prize was bestowed for "involving the audience in a new cinematic experience where fiction and reality, technology and the body converge into multiple and shifting journeys through space and time." This is the first time Canadian artists have received this honor at Venice. The international jury included Ery Camara (Senegal/Mexico City), Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (New York/Rome), Manray Hsu (Taipei), Hans Ulrich Obrist (Zurich/Paris), and Virginia Perez-Patton (San José, Costa Rica).

On Friday, June 8^th Cardiff and Miller were also notified that they received the Benesse Prize from the Japanese Benesse Corporation. The Prize, established at the Biennale in 1995, honors "an artist (or group) who tries to break new artistic ground with an experimental and pioneering spirit" (Benesse Corporation Press Release). Past recipients of the Prize include CAI Guo-Qiang (China), Alexandros Psychoulis (Greece) and Olafur Eliasson (Iceland/Denmark). Members of the jury included Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (PS 1, New York), Donna De Salva (Tate Modern, UK), Udo Kittelmann (Kunstverein, Cologne), Sunhee Kim (Gwangiu City Art Museum, South Korea), Akiko Miki (Palais de Tokyo, Paris) and Yuji Akimoto (Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, Japan).

The commissioner and artists kindly appreciate the support of the many sponsors for this project, including the Canada Council for the Arts, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the National Gallery of Canada, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, the Government of Manitoba, the City of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Foundation, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Campbell Family Holding Inc., PADAC Foundation, the Henry N.R. Jackman Foundation, the Charles Engelhard Foundation, Border Crossings Magazine, Canadian Art Magazine, the Canadian Embassy (Rome, Berlin), American Friends of Canada (New York), Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts and our many private sponsors.