UC Irvine’s Daniel Joseph Martinez Awarded the Coveted Berlin Prize by The American Academy In Berlin

UC IRVINE’S DANIEL JOSEPH MARTINEZ AWARDED THE COVETED BERLIN PRIZE BY THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN BERLIN

IRVINE, Calif. (May 17, 2016) --  Daniel Joseph Martinez, Artist and Donald Bren Professor of Art UCI’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts, has been awarded the Berlin Prize by the American Academy in Berlin. The highly coveted prize is awarded annually to scholars, writers, composers, and artists from America who represent the highest standards of excellence in their fields. A total of 23 fellows are chosen for this illustrious prize by an independent selection committee. Martinez will complete his fellowship in the fall of 2016.

“We look forward to welcoming another group of outstanding fellows to the Academy,” said Academy president Gerhard Casper. “By working with their peers and partner institutions in Berlin and presenting their projects to the public, they will actively contribute to the exchange of ideas between the US and Germany.”

Daniel Joseph Martinez's Berlin Fellowship will focus on an interrogation of war and architecture, contemplating the disappearance of Western civilization in an age of intelligent machines. Martinez uses photography, painting, site-specific installation, printed works, performance, and public interventions to raise politically inflected questions.

“I am extremely honored to have been chosen for the prestigious Berlin Prize. It will open up new horizons and unknown possibilities of research and experimentation,” stated Martinez. “Being in Berlin will be very exciting and I look forward to meeting other artists and scholars, with whom I’ll be able to exchange ideas in a landscape that’s both historic and at the heart of contemporary Europe.”

The Berlin Prize provides recipients with the time and resources to step back from their daily obligations to work on academic and artistic projects they might not otherwise pursue. During his semester-long fellowship, Martinez will receive a monthly stipend, partial board, and accommodations at the Academy’s lakeside Hans Arnhold Center in Berlin-Wannsee.

About Daniel Joseph Martinez
For more than 35 years, Los Angeles born artist Daniel Joseph Martinez (b. 1957) has been honing his politically inflected practice, which critic Jeffrey Kastner has characterized as "unapologetically prob[ing] uncomfortable issues of personal and collective identity, seeking out threadbare spots in the fabric of conventional wisdom." Martinez’s practice takes the form of photography, painting, site specific installation, printed works, performance and public interventions to question issues of personal and collective identity, vision and visuality, and the fissures formed between the appearance and the perception of difference. Martinez’s work has been exhibited at prestigious museums and galleries worldwide. His work is displayed in public collections both in the United States and abroad including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, New York; Museum of Modern Art in New York; Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; and the Orange County Museum of Art - just to name a few. Martinez received the distinguished Herb Alpert Award for midcareer artists in 2014 among other notable honors. His latest installation “YOU DRINK HEMLOCK, I SHALL DRINK IT WITH YOU or A BEAUTIFUL DEATH; player to player, pimp to pimp. (As performed by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade)” is currently on display at Roberts & Tilton Gallery in Culver City through May 21, 2016. Additionally two current exhibitions in Paris One at the Mona Bismarck American Center and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin.

About the American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin was established in 1994 by Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke and other distinguished Germans and Americans to foster greater understanding and dialogue between the United States and Germany. A private, nonprofit, nonpartisan center for advanced research in a range of academic and cultural fields, the Academy awards semester-long fellowships to about two dozen emerging or established scholars, writers, and professionals each year. It also brings American thought leaders to Berlin for briefer visits for a robust exchange of views between the peoples of Germany and the United States. For more information, please visit www.americanacademy.de.

About UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts
As UCI’s creative laboratory, the Claire Trevor School of the Arts explores and presents the arts as the essence of human experience and expression, through art forms ranging from the most traditional to the radically new. The international faculty works across a wide variety of disciplines, partnering with others across the campus.  National-ranked programs in art, dance, drama, and music begin with training but end in original invention. Students come to UCI to learn to be citizen-artists, to sharpen their skills and talents, and to become the molders and leaders of world culture. For more information, please visit www.arts.uci.edu.

Posted Date: 
Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - 00:00