András holds a PhD in art history from the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest (1998). She started her career at the Hungarian National Gallery where she worked in the area of avant-garde art (1977–1979) and at the Corvina Editorial House (1980–1986). From the end of the 1980s until recently, András lived with her family between the US and Hungary and was for several years New York correspondent for different Hungarian art magazines. In the 1990s, András turned to the contemporary art scene in post-socialist Hungary and began to actively participate as a visionary art critic, theorist, and curator.

Among András’s main research interests are gender studies and feminist art history writing. In 1995, she collaborated in a year-long exhibition series entitled Water Ordeal which was dedicated to women artists. One of the most important impacts of this exhibition was that women artists represented Hungary at the Venice Biennial in 1997. András’s exhibition essay “A Painful Farewell to Modernism: Difficulties in the Period of Transition” (1997) launched her international career as an author and thinker. Many of her important scholarly undertakings focus on how Western theories can be transformed for the local and Eastern European context. Instead of advocating for inclusion of Eastern European art into the Western canon as “a belated, distorted variation”, she argues for locality and sheds light on the differences and specificities in the use of theory and art practices in different localities and geographies. András is also a critical analyst of the post-socialist condition and, since the right-wing Fidesz party took power in Hungary in 2010, she has written and lectured extensively on nationalism and populism in connection to art and culture.

András has extensively travelled, researched, and lectured in Central and Eastern Europe, the region being the center of her activities. She has contributed to numerous publishing projects and conferences crucial for the understanding the condition of contemporary art in Central and Eastern Europe: among others, to the After the Wall: Art and Culture in Post-Communist Europe conference and catalogue (Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 1999) where her long-run professional collaboration with art historians Bojana Pejić and Piotr Piotrowski started. She was also a researcher and member of the advisory board of the exhibition Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe (MUMOK, Vienna, 2009, curated by B. Pejić).

András edited the anthology Transitland: Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe 1989–2009 (2009) and co-edited Silenced: The History and Representation of Violence in Wartime (2022, in Hungarian). She is the author of the following works: Cultural Crossdressing: Art on the Ruins of Socialism (2009) and Imaginary Transgression: Contemporary Art and Critical Theory in Eastern Europe (2023), both in Hungarian. The two books were combined and translated into Czech as Crossdressing: Art on the Ruins of Socialism and on the Pinnacles of Nationalism (2023). Her numerous reviews and articles are published in the magazines ArtMargins, e-flux, Idea, Third Text, springerin, and others.

A dedicated educator and researcher, András has worked in institutions and on programs such as the international seminar series Writing Art History in East-Central Europe organized at the Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2010–2011) and the Entangled Art Histories/Connecting Art Histories seminar series supported by the Getty Foundation (2018–2022; 2023–2024). She was a visiting professor at the history department of Central European University (2016–2022) and is a member of advisory board of Piotr Piotrowski Center for Research on East-Central European Art (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań). This year, the Academy of Arts and Design in Bratislava awarded her with an honorary doctorate.

Her socially engaged and critical curatorial practice includes Imagined Communities, Personal Imagination: Private Nationalism Budapest (Budapest, 2015). She was co-curator and theorist of the exhibition series Universal Hospitality (Vienna, 2016; Prague, 2017), and served as a steering member of the Eastern Sugar project, a European collaborative project (2019–2021).

Most importantly, Edit András has contributed for more than thirty years to new paradigms in contemporary art history writing and theory in Central and Eastern Europe. By combining different perspectives, such as cultural and gender studies, feminist and postcolonial theory, decolonizing thinking and critical museology, András developed her writing as a form of cultural translation that stands for a more nuanced and localized implementation of critical theories and considers regional specificities in art history writing.

As a scholar and curator András did not compromise herself to gain institutional power positions. Hence, it is all the more remarkable what a strong impact her work has had for a multitude of (women) artists, researchers, and curators, and how she has facilitated intergenerational and intercultural dialogue and solidarity.

With her great enthusiasm and exceptional professional expertise, Edit András has become a remarkable agent in the field of contemporary art in Central and Eastern Europe who raises awareness of the importance and subversive power of art and culture that is ever more needed in the current era of intensifying violent, oppressive, and discriminatory politics.

Hošić received a PhD from the Department of Art History at the University of Zagreb in 2011. He continued his studies at Ghent University in Belgium (2013–2014), and at the College for Creative Studies and Wayne State University in Detroit, USA (2019–2020). He has been a guest lecturer at several universities in Europe and the US and currently teaches art history and modern art and design at the Textile Department of the University of Bihać.

Hošić’s field of interest is broad, ranging from art to fashion, from notions of public space to ecology. He is currently working with several colleagues on Creative Ecologies, a public art project dealing with the environmental challenges of the present time. He has also delved into the study of violence and crisis, especially in the context of the Balkans. His analyses are original and creative, moving fluidly from the macro-political to the micro-political and connecting the subjective with the collective. His exhibitions and texts reflect and develop these interests, showing, for example, how clothing shapes identities and responds to national identities. This continuous scale-jumping is extremely relevant today when the world is no longer governed by a single pattern and where modern cartographies have been replaced by personalized maps of technology. Not only has Hošić reflected on all of these contemporary themes with a critical precision, but he has done so based on his work in a specific territory and with many artists with whom he collaborates intensively and sustainably.

Some of his most memorable exhibitions are: What is Abstraction? (Bihać, 2007), Art and Terrorism (Bihać, 2009), Clothing as a Symbol of Identity (Bihać, 2012), Artefacts of the Future Past (Bihać, 2017), and In Search of Other Place of Belonging (Bihać, 2021). His international projects include also the Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina that he curated at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013). He has edited several publications, including Design and Crisis (2020), Retrography of Design (2017), and Crisis, Arts, Action (2015). In 2024, Hošić’s book Slika krize: Kulturne i umjetničke prilike u Bosni i Hercegovini 1990–2020 (Image of Crisis: Cultural and Artistic Circumstances in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1990–2020) was published.

Hošić is an essential figure in the world of contemporary art and culture, not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina but also in the wider region. His activity is inexhaustible. The work of Hošić and his collaborators at KRAK is followed with great attention from other parts of Europe. The jury decided it is of the utmost importance to award Hošić this grant because it will help to consolidate one of the most important curatorial, educational, and community-oriented projects in the region.

Ţichindeleanu (b. 1976, Campulung-Moldovenesc, Romania) is an inspiring and versatile philosopher and cultural theorist, curator, translator, editor, author, and educator dealing with critical social theory, philosophy of the senses, decolonial thought, transnational politics, artistic practices in Eastern Europe, and the cultural histories of socialism and postsocialism. He received a PhD in philosophy from Binghamton University, State University of New York (2009), and has taught at different universities in Europe and the US.

Ţichindeleanu has been particularly engaged in the artistic and cultural life in Moldova, where he is a long-term consultant for projects and exhibitions of the Centre for Contemporary Art Chisinau (KSA:K), and in Romania. He has also been active in other countries of Eastern Europe and other continents around the world. Ţichindeleanu collaborates with artists, theorists, and cultural professionals not only in the field of the visual art, but also in publishing, film production and theatre, and a range of civic activities. He has worked as an independent curator in several collective collaborations (most actively as a member of the fluid curatorial group The Committee for Resurrection), creating exhibitions that are international in scope while avoiding the categories of traditional museum practice. The jury would especially like to mention Ţichindeleanu’s contribution to the research element of the exhibition After the Canal There Was Only ‘Our’ (Ljubljana, 2019, curated by Raluca Voinea) which brought together artists from Egypt and Eastern Europe; the Jogja Biennial 17 (Yogyakarta, 2023) where he co-initiated a dialogue between artists from the Global South and Eastern Europe; and the Kyiv Biennial 5 (Vienna, 2023).

Ţichindeleanu’s civic engagement has been manifested in (co)founding and working with many organizations and initiatives since 1997. The following are just a few of the more recent projects he (co)founded: the African-Balkan-Caribbean Society (2019), the newsroom East European Context (2023), and the artist-run Experimental Research Station for Art and Life (2021).

As a long-term editor of IDEA arts + society, a biannual journal of critical theory and contemporary arts, Ţichindeleanu also undertook the work of translating non-Western authors into Romanian and introducing them for the first time to the local scene, a way of making marginalized voices heard. His impressive opus of theoretical texts, articles, and public lectures reflects his commitment to a range of cultural and social issues. The following are some of his recent works: Decolonial Horizons in Eastern Europe (working title, Duke University Press, forthcoming), Rethinking Real Socialism (forthcoming), Counterculture: Rudiments of Critical Philosophy (IDEA, 2016).

Ţichindeleanu has also been an important advocate for bringing Eastern European artists to international venues, and for creating connections across disciplines and geographies, and possibilities for understanding different cultures through art. The jury hopes that the Igor Zabel Award Grant, by recognizing Ţichindeleanu’s past achievements, also creates suitable conditions for the continuation of his work in all of his fields of interest and will allow him to devote more time to writing theoretical and philosophical reflections.

Vujošević (b. 1976, Podgorica, Montenegro) is an artist and curator. She has developed an extensive and engaged curatorial and research practice. In 2012, she founded an NGO in Cetinje called the Institute of Contemporary Art (ISU) where she has initiated, led, and co-curated several ongoing projects dedicated to knowledge production, research, and archives. Parallel to this, Vujošević has worked as a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro (MSUCG) since 2022. Her international projects include also the Montenegro Pavilion that she curated at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022).

The jury particularly values Vujošević’s curatorial and research work at ISU and MSUCG. The focus of her practice at ISU has been the archival and artistic research of neglected collections and social memory. Initiated in collaboration with Irena Lagator Pejović, the Archive of Cetinje Biennials is her most outstanding accomplishment in this context. This long-term archival project explores the history of the Cetinje Biennials – which took place during the turbulent period between 1991 and 2004 – and their emancipatory impact on local art scenes. The project combines research and archiving work with education and local community-oriented cultural work. Current activities include the establishment of a publicly accessible online archive (arhivcb.net), an exhibition in public space in Cetinje, and a series of publications (planned for 2025/26).

At MSCUCG, Vujošević, along with Anita Ćulafić, Marina Čelebić, and Nada Baković launched the remarkable project entitled the Art of Non-Aligned Countries Collection Laboratory. The laboratory explores a valuable collection comprised of eight hundred works from fifty-six non-aligned countries. The collection was amassed by the Gallery of Art of the Non-Aligned Countries Josip Broz Tito during its existence from 1981 to 1995 in then Titograd (today Podgorica). The project activates the decolonial, anti-imperial, anti-capitalist, and anti-fascist legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement and questions the omission of its vision of peaceful and just coexistence based on principles of solidarity. Currently, a publication is being prepared that will document the laboratory’s past two years of work, part of which was also the process of acquiring protective Cultural Heritage status for this collection.

The jury particularly recognizes and appreciates in Vujošević’ work the dimension of dialogical reexamination of marginalized collections/archives and their cultural and political values. Her curatorial work combines archival materials and existing or newly commissioned works of art while establishing connections between peripheral geographies. These encounters activate a constant exchange of experience and knowledge as well as reflection on the relationship between time, space, (common) memory, and cultural legacy. The jury hopes that the grant will strengthen Vujošević’s related and upcoming projects on performing archives, envisioning the principles of exchange, collaboration, and respect for diversity, the foundation upon which the Gallery of Art of the Non-Aligned Countries was built on.