The Museum suspends, The Funding Body cancels
An art prize to help young photographers has been initiated by Museum de l'Elysée in Lausanne and the clothes brand Lacoste. The competition with a fairly good prize-money (25.000 euro) consists of two stages: the first stage involves the nomination of eight artists working with photography and the latter stage the selection of a winner at a specially organised exhibition of the works of the nominees.

The whole constellation had worked smoothly in the year of the prize's initiation, 2010. But its second year has been marked by a turbulent stalemate in which neither the sponsoring body nor the museum are ready for any further discussion.
London based artist Larissa Sansour has been one of the eight nominees for the 2011 Lacoste Elysée Art Prize and was asked to produce a body of work within the thematic framework of ‘le joie de vivre'. Sansour's series of eight photographs and a video piece under the title ‘Nation Estate', had been given ‘green light' after the presentation of three sketches to the board of jury commissioners. But later Lacoste expressed its uneasiness with Sansour's work, demanding changes and at some point asking Sansour to excuse herself from the competition. The Museum at first allied itself with Lacoste, but later came to support the freedom of speech of the artist.

Censorship
It is a somewhat familiar and at the same time new story. In the midst of art's accelerating social and public recognition, its expanding presence and value as a signifier of cultural and social reputation can endanger what stances art is allowed to take. The increase of art's public role is quite significant, in such a way that it has almost become the denominator of the corporations and private sponsors' relationship with society and their role in cultivating a ‘better' world. At the same time international artistic practices are becoming global, while the state oriented funding and award bodies are restrained in the regional/local spheres of activity.
Larissa Sansour had been encouraged to realise a piece that requires a certain freedom, seemingly better fitted for private funding than that of a state (or any national association). Hence, the piece ‘Nation Estate' had an opportunity for realisation within the framework of the Lacoste Elysée Prize. Sansour has been working with this thematic since a couple of years. The work is a suggestive piece where Palestine is depicted at a new location: a high-rise building. In response to the Palestinian bid for nationhood at the UN, Sansour embodies the Palestinian society in a colossal high-rise of concrete floors, finally living the high life. With her reformulation of a new territory and social boundaries, each city is allocated a separate floor while elevators function as checkpoints. ‘Nation Estate' is a form of black humour and ironical sarcasm. Sansour allegedly reflects on the current social, political, economic and sensual state of a country under the rule of violence. ‘Nation State' is a phantasmagorical allocation of a nation, where the remnants of its belonging and its iconographical elements are present on a small scale in the premises of their ‘new' territory.
Whether Sansour's new body of work depicts and triggers a political encapsulation and whether it has a photographic value hardly matter, the fact is that Sansour being an artist born in Palestine and ‘Nation Estate' a work with a pro-Palestinian stance take precedence on the artistic. If this was not the case, then neither the funding body would cancel the prize for once and for all, nor would the museum ally with Sansour suggesting a solo exhibition of ‘Nation Estate'. Both parties meanwhile refuse to engage in a discussion and a transparent expression of their reasons.

Fatos ÜSTEK
Independent Curator & Art Critic
Editor Nowiswere