South African artist Nandipha Mntambo is one of the finalists of the 2014 Aimia | AGO Photography Prize.

Aimia | AGO Photography announces four extraordinary artists that have been shortlisted for the 2014 Prize. The Prize, co-presented by Aimia, a global leader in loyalty management, and the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), will award each of the four artists a six-week artist residency in Canada and feature their work in an AGO exhibition opening September 3, 2014. The winner of the 50,000 CAD prize will be chosen by public vote, which begins today at the Prize’s website and Facebook page.

The 2014 finalists are:

David Hartt (Canada)
Elad Lassry (Israel/USA)
Nandipha Mntambo (South Africa)
Lisa Oppenheim (USA)

Together representing the cutting edge of international photography, the four artists engage with broad historical and cultural forces such as war, colonialism, urban planning and advertising. They each have a distinct approach to visualizing the world, creating environments and materials that express diverse and thoughtful ideas about the ways past and present experiences are communicated through images.

A jury of three selected the four finalists from a long list of 22 artists. The jury included lead juror Sophie Hackett, the AGO’s associate curator of photography; Okwui Enwezor, Nigerian-born, German-based scholar, curator, writer and director of Haus der Kunst, Munich; and New York–based photo and video-based artist Laurie Simmons.

The winner of the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize is chosen entirely by public vote. Online voting opens today at aimiaagophotographyprize.com and on the Prize’s Facebook page and is open until 11:59pm on October 27, 2014. Visitors to the AGO can also cast a vote inside the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize 2014 exhibition, on view at the AGO from September 3, 2014 to January 4, 2015. The winner of the 2014 Aimia | AGO Photography Prize will be announced on October 29, 2014.

Nandipha Mntambo was born in Swaziland and lives in Johannesburg. She originally trained as a sculptor and then expanded her practice to include photography, performance and video. Her work investigates such dualities as male and female, attraction and repulsion, animal and human, European and African.

Mntambo makes sculptures from cowhide, using her own body to mould the forms. In many of her videos and photographs, she appears wearing her sculptures, suggesting our capacity as individuals to shape the world around us, while also highlighting the forces that form us, including notions of race, gender and history.

www.aimiaagophotographyprize.com