18. Oktober 2017
Praemium Imperiale 2017

Speech for Awards Ceremony by Prof. Dr. h.c. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, President of Goethe Institute

Your Imperial Highness,

Excellencies and Distinguished Guests,

Please allow me to start by quoting Pankaj Mishra, an Indian author, on the condition of living together as human beings: "With so many of our landmarks in ruins, we can barely see where we are headed, let alone chart a path. But even to get our basic bearings we need, above all, greater precision in matters of the soul." Can art offer such a perspective?

The basic notion behind the Praemium Imperiale is the conviction that art as a transnational awareness of artistic creation can help enhance the way people live together. It has a clear message: art and culture are an essential part of the respective society. Culture can provide the basis for the ability to engage in dialogue and thus contribute to worldwide processes of communication. There is no guarantee of success but without a dialogue there will certainly be none. The basic principles are: the appreciation of diversity, the equal value of others and intercultural competence on the part of the players. The aura of the real is particularly attractive to people in our age of volatility.

Our five laureates this year, Shirin Neshat, El Anatsui, Rafael Moneo, Youssou N’Dour and Mikhail Baryshnikov are committed to these processes. They are being honoured for their unique life's work, which not only has an international impact on art and culture, but is also of social relevance. With their works they enter into an intense dialogue with and about people and societies around the globe – often contentious, but always demanding, creative and multifaceted. They can create means of access related to the present and address themes which are under discussion. They can open up new lines of sight by linking the familiar with the unsettling. They give new ideas, challenge emotions and experiences, surprise with alternatives, make possible new thought processes and permit critical debates. At the same time they all move on the highest artistic level. Their artworks always embody their own person. But by virtue of the fact that it enters a relationship with the observer it changes, is enriched by individual interpretation and acquires its own magic or even a political dimension.

I wish to offer my warmest congratulations to the five laureates. I congratulate them for the new ways of seeing the artists open up with their works.

Finally I wish to thank Your Imperial Highness and the Japan Art Association in the person of Mr Hieda for honouring the most remarkable artists and creative professionals of our time with this immensely important award, thus strengthening them in their significant creative endeavours. At the same time you facilitate a knowledge process which creates transnational openings in a world of increasing mutual isolation and speechlessness and in this way help to restrict cultural and social distortions. Wilhelm von Humboldt described the relations between people as follows: "It is the essence of man that he sees himself in others." Does that help create precision of the soul?

Thank you very much.

Es gilt das gesprochene Wort.