Richard Mosse’s disturbingly pink images of war-torn Congo were the talk of the town at the last Venice Biennale. Now, they have won the young Irish photographer the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.
The £30,000 prize was presented by artist Richard Wentworth on May 12 during a ceremony at The Photographers’ Gallery in London.
Since 1998, 5.4 million people have died of war-related causes in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mosse photographed soldiers in the jungle using discontinued military surveillance film. It registers all the infra-red light, giving the final images an usual spectrum of color and materializing the inherent failings of documentary photography.
The other shortlisted artists: Alberto García-Alix, Jochen Lempert and Lorna Simpson were each awarded £3,000.
The prize is on display at The Photographers’ Gallery until June 22, 2014. It will then tour to the Deutsche Börse headquarters in Frankfurt/Eschborn from July 17, 2014.