Palestinian-British artist Mona Hatoum has received the 2011 Joan Miro Prize for her great skill in connecting personal experience with universal values, Press TV reported.
This year's Joan Miro Prize jury was comprised of director of the Musee National d'Art Moderne Alfred Pacquement, former director of the Tate Modern VicenteTodoli, director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Poul Erik Tojner and director of Fundacio Joan Miro Rosa Maria Malet.
The jury awarded the prize to Hatoum because she "has pioneered in opening up art practices to non-Western realities while showing the connections between Western high culture and transnational political and cultural events."
"After Hatoum, the art world has become a far more open and less self-centered arena, a process that is still in expansion and consolidation," they said.
"Hatoum's commitment to human values of concern to all cultures and societies is similar to Miro's view of mankind after his experience of three devastating wars."
Organized by Fundacio Joan Miro of Barcelona in collaboration with Obra Social "la Caixa", the biennial award is worth €70,000 and among the highest awards among current art prizes.
Olafur Eliasson (2007) and Pipilotti Rist (2009) are among the previous winners of the prize, Artdaily reported.
One of the world's most outstanding artists, Hatoum will be granted the prize during a ceremony in the Fundacio Joan Miro auditorium on April 7, 2011.
She will also receive a titanium trophy specially designed by Andre Ricard and inspired by natural forms.
"I am extremely honored to have been chosen as the recipient of this year's Joan Miro Prize," Hatoum said upon learning of the jury's decision.
"Reading the Jury's statement was a heartening experience. I am sincerely grateful for their very appreciative comments and appraisal of my work and for attributing a great significance to my contribution to the art world."
Best known for her sculptures, installations, performances and videos, Mona Hatoum has displayed her work at many important museums and art centers such as the MoMA in New York, the Tate in London, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
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