2012
Karole Armitage, United States
Frank Benson, United States
Karl Haendel, United States
Ester Partegas, Spain
Amy Sillman, United States
Dirk Stewen, Germany

2011
Rob Fischer, United States
David Fenster, United States
Justin Almquist, United States
Nick Herman, United States
Bill Morrison, United States
Erin Shirreff, British Columbia

2010
Ellen Altfest, United States
Jean-Baptiste Bernadet, France/Belgium
Marc Ganzglass, United States
Steve Roden, United States
Bill Saylor, United States
Melanie Schiff, United States

2009
Rita Ackermann, United States
Adam Davies, United States
Folke Köbberling & Martin Kaltwasser, Germany
Mischa Kuball, Germany
Sarah McEneaney, United States
Alex Schweder, United States

2008
Mark Flood, United States
Erik Göngrich, Germany
Monika Grzymala, Germany
Charline von Heyl, United States
Jason Tomme, United States
Jeff Zilm, United States

2007
Joanne Greenbaum, United States
Adam Helms, United States
Claudia Hinsch, Germany
Annette Kisling, Germany
Michael Krumenacker, United States
Paul Lee, United States
Daniel Sturgis, United Kingdom

2006
Oliver Croy, Austria
Mikael Levin, United States
Brian Kirk Nelms, United States
Jesus Palomino, Spain
Petra Trenkel, Germany
Christopher Wool, United States

2005
Mai Braun, Finland
Shane Huffman, United States
Maureen Gallace, United States
Isa Melsheimer, Germany
Wilhelm Sasnal, Poland

2004
Gail Peter Borden, United States
Christian Freudenberger, Germany
Matthew Day Jackson, United States
Corinna Schnitt, Germany
Monique van Genderen, United States
Heike Weber, Germany
Michael Yoder, United States

2003
Ariane Epars, Switzerland
Lies Kraal, The Netherlands
Thomas Müller, Germany
Avery Preesman, The Netherlands
Erwin Redl, Austria
Judi Werthein, Argentina

2002
Gudrun Flach, Germany
Jaroslaw Flicinski, Poland
Hlynur Hallsson, Iceland
Graciela Hasper, Argentina
Nestor Kruger, Canada
Albrecht Kunkel, Germany
Katherine Merz, United States

2001
Susan Chorpenning, United States
Julian Dashper, New Zealand
Howard Goldkrand, United States
Christina Hejtmanek, United States
Emi Winter, Mexico

2000
Margrét Haraldsdóttir Blöndal, Iceland
Andrea Claire, United States
Katharina Hinsberg, Austria
Michael Meredith, United States
Andreas Schmid, Germany

1999
Alexander Braun, Germany
Katharina Grosse, Germany
Ann-Michele Morales, United States
Makato Sasaki, Japan
Claudia Schmacke, Germany
Richard Wearn, New Zealand

1998
Degenhard Andrulat, Germany
Igor Antic, France
John Beech, United States
Jeff Elrod, United States
Kumiko Kurachi, Japan
Valérie Mréjen, France

1997
Bernhard Härtter, Germany
Leonard Kemp, United States
Ulrike Kessl, Germany
Kathranne Knight, United States
Polly Lanning Sparrow, United States
Jennifer Siegal, United States
Daniela Steinfeld Rau, Germany
Karien Vandekerkhove, Belgium

1996
Angela Ferreira, Portugal
Jutta Glöckner, Great Britain
Mary Ellen Latas, United States
Sigrun Paulsen, Germany
Kate Shepherd, United States
Jurek Wybraniec, Australia

1995
Jim Malone, United States
Elizabeth McBride, United States
Carina Plath, Germany
Richard Schwartzwald, United States
Gwendolyn Smolka, Germany

1994
Rupert Deese, United States
Anders Kruger, Denmark
Joost van Oss, The Netherlands
Regina Stralka, Germany
Karen and Jörg Berg, Germany

1993
Stephan Baumkötter, Germany
Daniel Göttin, Switzerland
Andreas Karl Schulze, Germany
Sonny Thorbjirnsdottir, Iceland

1992
Ingólfur Arnarsson, Iceland
Nadja Nanopoulos, Greece

1991
Brian Wendleman, Sweden

1990
Ragna Hermannsdóttir, Iceland

1989
John Wesley, United States

Jason Tomme

Jason Tomme is a New York-based artist who makes works in a variety of media that explore materials and space. For several years he has been making a series of "crack paintings" (as the artist informally calls them) which take as their starting point the backgrounds or backdrops of Old-Master paintings. To create these, Tomme isolates the space behind the sitter in a portrait by Rembrandt, for example, or an interior by Vermeer. This area of rich, indeterminate space becomes Tomme's subject, so that the usual relation of figure to ground is neatly inverted. Tomme carefully applies layers of oil paint until he achieves the density and luminosity he's looking for, then varnishes the canvas so that it emits a burnished, 17th-century-like glow. The artist next paints "cracks" onto the surface of the paintings–depicting the effects of four or five centuries' worth of wear and tear. Focusing on the unoccupied areas in hallowed old paintings, making the effects of age part of his subject, Tomme in the crack paintings creates his own portraits of time and space.

Tomme also makes sculpture, examples of which he exhibited as well. Stairway loomed in the Locker Plant's front room: a ziggurat-like work constructed from plastic "doggy steps," the latest innovation from the world of lame pet aids. Nearby stood Cig Scale, a T-shaped piece with semi-smoked cigarettes inserted at each end of the crossbar. Upon close inspection, the cigarettes proved to be meticulously handmade; only the lack of a brand name gave them away. Also meticulous was Grass Crack–a furrow of grass planted in a gap in the concrete floor. City Slicker hovered by the grass as though to warn people away–a stubby wedge, more lumpen than slick, of wood, Styrofoam, resin, and enamel propped on three wheels. Compared with the labor- and time-intensive crack paintings, Tomme's sculptures evinced a more spontaneous and playful approach– a sense of workshop exuberance, or the slightly cracked enthusiasm of an inveterate tinkerer.

Complementing these varied investigations into time and space was a hybrid sound work/sculpture which allowed visitors to listen to an audio feed from outside the artist's apartment on the Bowery in New York City. Traffic sounds, air-conditioner rattles, and snatches of sidewalk conversation–live from New York!–merged into an ambient hum, an urban susurrus broken only by an occasional police-siren wail.

Jason Tomme was born in Las Vegas. He has a BFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and a MFA from Yale University. He had his first solo exhibition at BUIA Gallery in New York in 2006, with his second scheduled for this fall. He has shown work in a number of group shows and was included in the exhibition Las Vegas Diaspora: The Emergence of Contemporary Art from the Neon Homeland, curated by Dave Hickey, at the Las Vegas Art Museum in fall 2007.