Christelle Oyiri Awarded PONTOPREIS MMK 2024

Museum MMK for Modern Art announces Christelle Oyiri as the recipient of the PONTOPREIS MMK 2024. The prize includes an exhibition at ZOLLAMTMMK, opening on 23 February 2024, and an endowment of 10,000 euros paid as a stipend for the recipient.

The jury, consisting of Yasmil Raymond (rector, Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main), Ulrike Groos (director, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart), and Susanne Pfeffer (director, MUSEUMMMKFÜR MODERNE KUNST, Frankfurt am Main), is unanimous: “In her work, Christelle Oyiri explores the tension between erasure and remembrance. By creating new mythologies and revisiting existing ones, Oyiri shows how French culture as well as Caribbean and West African rhythms, iconographies, and visual worlds influence and shape the present. The artist’s clear, free observations and analyses convincingly illustrate how everyday life and art—permeated by historical events and cultural imprints—are transformed into new forms.”

The Jürgen Ponto-Stiftung awards the PONTOPREIS MMK every two years in cooperation with the MUSEUMMMKFÜR MODERNE KUNST. This is an extension of the cooperation that has been in place since 2007, which focuses on directly supporting the artists.

Christelle Oyiri was born in 1992 in the Paris region, where she lives and works. An interdisciplinary artist, she performs worldwide as a DJ and producer of electronic music. Her work has been exhibited at Centre Pompidou, Lafayette Anticipations, Haus der Kunst, Auto Italia (London), LAND (Nomadic Division Los Angeles), Musée Espace Arlaud, Ars Electronica and HeK (Basel).