The Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2023
The award has long been considered one of the most important and highly endowed photography prizes in the world, and this year Leica Camera AG is granting it for the 43rd time. The jury, which has a new composition each year, has been selected; and the current LOBA year is now entering the decisive preparatory phase.
The Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA) has been granted to outstanding photographers every year since 1980. LOBA’s thematic approach has consistently gained in importance and reputation. As in previous years, the selection of the winners is based on proposals submitted by a panel of nominators, made up of photography experts from all over the world. The final choice of the winners in the main and newcomer categories, as well as the shortlist nominees, is made by a five-member jury. This year’s jury includes:
- Caroline Hunter, Picture Editor for The Guardian’s Saturday magazine (Great Britain)
- Whitney Hollington Matewe, Photo Editor at TIME Magazine (USA)
- François Hébel, Curator (France)
- Luca Locatelli, Photographer (Italy)
- Karin Rehn-Kaufmann, Art Director and Chief Representative Leica Galleries International (Austria)
The jury will come together to deliberate in May, at Leica Camera AG’s headquarters in Wetzlar. They will choose the 2023 LOBA winner in the main and newcomer categories from a shortlist of up to twelve series, selected from proposals submitted by around 60 photography experts from over 30 countries. Based on their personal expertise and experience, each nominator puts forward their choices of up to three photo series, which each include between 15 and 20 images. The prerequisite for a photo series to be considered for nomination for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, in both categories, is that the pictures must be documentary or conceptual-artistic works that deal with the relationship of people to their environment. This humanistic constant has defined the LOBA since its inception in 1979. That was the year in which Oskar Barnack, the developer of the Ur-Leica and whose name is given to the competition, would have been 100 years old.
The Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award has complemented the main category since 2009 and is granted to a photographer under 30 years of age. Participating photographers will once again be selected in collaboration with, and through proposals submitted by, international institutions and colleges from 15 countries. In addition to information about the LOBA, and interviews with previous jury members and nominators, the LOBA website is already listing all of the LOBA 2023 nominators: www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com/en/loba-2023/the-nominators.html
The LOBA’s Main Award is endowed with 40,000 euros in prize money, and Leica camera equipment valued at 10,000 euros; the Newcomer Award winner receives 10,000 euros and a Leica Q2. Furthermore, the winning series will be on display in Leica galleries and at selected photo festivals around the globe, as part of a touring exhibition that will be presented, initially, on the occasion of the award ceremony in Wetzlar in October. Both winners and all the shortlist candidates will be featured in the LOBA catalogue.
Over the coming summer months, the series by all the shortlist nominees will be presented on the LOBA website. The announcement and award ceremony, revealing the winners in both categories, will take place on 12th October 2023, in Wetzlar.
Further information at: www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com/en/
