The Lewis Baltz Research Fund was established in 2015 to honor the vision and memory of the American artist Lewis Baltz. The LBRF involves the annual grant of a substantial fund to support the creation, completion and dissemination of a project in any artistic medium, encompassing, but not limited to, anything from academic research to book publication, performance or installation art, video or film production to experimental digital work. The intention is to support projects reflecting the intellectual rigor of Lewis Baltz’s conceptual practice which also succeeded in propounding a significant connection to social and political issues. This year the recipients will be selected by the Lewis Baltz Research Fund Committee: Diane Dufour, Teresa Luisotti, Michael Mack, Mark McCain, Slavica Perkovic, Thomas Zander and the guests of honor: Urs Stahel, Florian Ebner, Walter Moser, Matthew S. Witkovsky. Operated by LE BAL, the Lewis Baltz Research Fund has been created by the generous support of the Artworkers Retirement Society.

Laureate LBRF #7 - Gabriela Löffel

The LBRF #7 is awarded to Gabriela Löffel.

Gabriela Löffel is a video artist and photographer whose work has been characterized by an approach that is on the edge of investigation. Her projects are research-oriented and examine questions concerning the structures that operate in politics and in the finance industry. She transposes her research to fields of interpretation through staging and performative experiments. She concretely presents spaces where reality is played out, which she calls “mediation spaces”. For her projects awarded by the Lewis Baltz Research Fund, Gabriela Löffel investigates the offshore financial industry with the help of financial journalists and experts. Her goal is to launch and fully report the debates between journalists, jurists and scientists specialised in offshore financial issues. Through a video installation of a space conceived to be immersive, she produces systemic criticism.

Born in 1972 in Oberburg (CH), Gabriela Löffel graduated from the ESBA (École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Genève) in 2006. Her work has been acquired by several public and private collections such as the Swiss Federal Art Collection, the Swiss National Library Collection and the MAST Photography Collection in Bologna. 

Laureate LBRF #8 - Jo Ractliffe

The LBRF #8 is awarded to Jo Ractliffe.

The South African photographer Jo Ractliffe captures the landscapes and the collective imagination of her native country. South Africa is a country with a powerful documentary tradition and Jo Ractliffe has become renowned for her photographic approach on spaces of violence and conflict, drawing the eye to the absence and the invisible. In a country where photobook printing and publishing does not exist, the photographer wants to create a book on fifty photographs tracing the N7, the national road following the Atlantic coast. From the dusty roads of fishermen to the lands surrounded by mining companies, Jo Ractliffe pays aims to tribute to her homeland and the inhabitants of the African West Coast.

Born in Cape Town (ZA) in 1961, Jo Ractliffe studied art in this city, at the Ruth Prowse School of Art in Woodstock, then, until 1988, at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. A retrospective of her work, Jo Ractliffe: Drives, was held at the Art Institute of Chicago (2020‑21).