Artist of the Year 2024: Amanda Riffo

House of Purkinje cleverly synchronises many different narratives, from epistemology (theories of perception) and optics, through her own experience of the patchwork economy of the arts, as Riffo casts a critical eye on contemporary art and its mechanisms. Not only does Riffo’s exhibition reflect her talent for combining dissimilar topics into simultaneously similar and distorted objects, but the whole exhibition is a twist on itself, a depiction of every artist’s nightmare: running out of time when installing their exhibition. Thus, the humour in Riffo’s work is especially noteworthy, making those working in the art field cry with laughter; the execution of each object so effectively and convincingly playing a part in her staging of an “unfinished” art exhibition.

The jury considers Amanda Riffo’s House of Purkinje a uniquely fascinating exhibition that appears at first as an exhibition that is not-quite-ready for its opening. But which, upon closer look, reveals each object in the chaotic, worksite-like space to be an artwork that reflects the challenges and the labour conditions artists face in their work within the field in a brilliant way. This shifts the reality of the exhibition and suddenly makes each object a staged version of themselves, as if on a film set.