Joseph Lee Alviar, 19 year old art student at theUniversity of Santo Tomas, Philippines was elected as the winner of theinternational "Outside" art competition sponsored by BMG EntertainmentInternational.
The decision was reached on February 20th in Paris with David Bowie,Austrian actionist Hermann Nitsch and Christoph Ruecker, VP InternationalMarketing, BMG Entertainment International as the final jurors. The 11pieces of art from the winners of the various participating territorieswere exhibited at the gallery "Le monde de l'art" in Paris, with mostof the artists in attendance.
The event took place one day after David Bowie performed live andaccepted a Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual "Brits" awards inLondon, and coincided with the last date of the European leg of the"Outside" world tour.
Given the outstanding quality of all submitted art pieces, it wastough to decide on only one winner. The winning 20" x 30" color paintingtitled "Destruction of Man" was picked based on its formal integrity,pictorial intensity, and of course, on the connection with the contentsof David Bowie's latest album "Outside."
The young artist himself, who, unfortunately was not present in Paris,had described the painting as follows: "The art piece represents the goreof the album's contents, death and the destruction of man. The crimeartist creeps into the inside of his medium, or can we say victim!? By theuse of tubes and syringes he extracts life and replaces it with death.With no remorse seen in his eyes, just the excitement of seeing painand suffering. The new generation of artists acts like gods, not becausethey create but they destroy."
In his presentation speech David Bowie acknowledged that the workssubmitted "are absolutely extraordinary", and admitted that "...it wasvery, very hard to come to a decision. But both Hermann and I came to thesame choice, which is extremely fortunate."
Special mention and credit was also given to the art pieces by thewinners from South Africa (Elli Garb), Japan (Yasuharu Yoshizaki) andthe UK (Charlotte Baker-Wilbraham).The paintings and sculptures of all eleven finalists are currently ontheir way to New York where thay will be exhibited in front of mediaand interested gallery owners in the near future.