“The idea that art can seriously change the world has become questionable, utopian or even impossible. Art is powerless when faced by concrete and urgent social issues, while it remains an effective part of the systems of power and dominance.” — Igor Zabel

ERSTE Foundation established the biennial Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory in 2008. This award supports the work of art historians and theorists in CEE and highlights the notion of arts and culture, encouraging the production of cultural knowledge and exchange between ‘East’ and ‘West’.

Igor Zabel (1958-2005), the name generator for this award, was an influential Slovenian curator, art critic, writer and theorist, the main propagator of his country’s art scene during the 1990s. As the senior curator of Ljubljana’s Moderna Galerija, he established cultural links between Eastern and Western Europe.

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