HAMBURG.- The Philipp Otto Runge Foundation, in association with the Hamburger Kunsthalle, has awarded its first annual grant to a young artist. The grant is awarded to an artist whose work deals directly with Romanticism or seeks to draw upon it in a broader sense. Residence in Hamburg during the period of the grant is compulsory. The Swedish artist Bo Christian Larsson is the first recipient to be selected by the jury (Sebastian Giesen, Reemtsma Stiftung Hamburg, Christiane Mennicke, Kunsthaus and Städtische Galerie der Gegenwartskunst in Dresden, Matthias Mühling, Lenbachhaus and Kunsthaus München, Nina Zimmer, Kunstmuseum Basel).

Born in 1976 in Kristinehamn, Sweden, Bo Christian Larsson has lived and worked in Munich since 2004. During his studies at the Academy of Visual Arts in Enschede, Holland, he attended Western Australia’s College of Fine Arts in Perth as a visiting student in 1997. Since 2005, the multimedia artist has had solo exhibitions in Munich, Oslo and Kortrijk (Belgium). His works are held in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich as well as in the collection of the Kristinehamns Konstmuseum in Kristinehamn, Sweden.

The Philipp Otto Runge Foundation was established in 2003 by the great-great-great-grandson (also called Philipp Otto Runge) of the founder of the Romantic movement in painting. The foundation aims to support young artists as well as to promote academic research into the work of Philipp Otto Runge.

“I believe that strong feelings as a result of aesthetic experience form a very important part of my creative process. In the accentuation of feelings like fear and anxiety – feelings you can experience when being confronted with the direct meaning of my work – I see parallels to early Romanticism as it developed in the mid-18th century as a countermovement to the Age of Enlightenment and the scientific rationalisation of nature.” Bo Christian Larsson. For further information please visit: Philipp Otto Runge Foundation and Bo Christian Larsson.