Shortlist exhibition of the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2021. BMW as long-term partner since 2006.

Munich/Berlin. From September 16, 2021 to February 27, 2022 works of the nominees of the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2021 Lamin Fofana, Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, Sandra Mujinga, and Sung Tieu will be on display for a joint exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin. The BMW Group Cultural Engagement which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, already supports the Preis der Nationalgalerie for 15 years now.

Deploying installation, photography, sculpture, sound, and other media, the shortlist exhibition address topics such as displacement and migration, belonging and alienation, shifting logics of public and private space, and the potential of sound and music to act as social forces. On display of the exhibition are both, already existing works as well as new productions of the artists.

On the evening of October 7, 2021, an international jury will announce the winner of the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2021. The museum prize will be awarded already for the eleventh time by the Nationalgalerie Berlin. It consists of a solo exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin in the course of 2022 and an accompanying publication.

The jury consists of:
Emre Baykal, Chief Curator, Arter, Istanbul
Sven Beckstette, Curator, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin
Gabriele Knapstein, Head of Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin
Emma Lavigne, President, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Yesomi Umolu, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Public Practice, Serpentine, London  

The Preis der Nationalgalerie is made possible by the Freunde der Nationalgalerie since the year 2000 and supported by BMW as exclusive partner for 15 years now. The award focuses on young important positions of today. Eligible are artists of all nationalities who at the time of their nomination live and work in Germany and are under the age of 40. Previous awardees amongst others were Monica Bonvicini (2005), Cyprien Gaillard (2011), Anne Imhof (2015), Agnieszka Polska (2017), and Pauline Curnier Jardin (2019).

For further information and image material, please visit www.preisdernationalgalerie.de or www.smb.museum

For further questions please contact:
Prof. Dr Thomas Girst
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Head of Cultural Engagement
Telephone: +49 89 382 247 53
Email: Thomas.Girst@bmwgroup.com

www.press.bmwgroup.com
Email: presse@bmw.de

Fiona Geuss
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Preußischer Kulturbesitz
Press Officer Nationalgalerie
Telephone: +49 30 3978 34 17
Email: presse@smb.spk-berlin.de 

www.smb.museum/presse

About the artists and their works on display at the shortlist exhibition Preis der Nationalgalerie 2021

Lamin Fofana (lives in Berlin and New York)
Lamin Fofana explores questions of movement, migration, alienation and belonging through his electronic music and in installations. He synthesizes original composition, field recordings and archival material to create sounds which place historical and contemporary Black critical thought in a dialogue with the reality of the world around us, and which open up new spaces for reflection beyond this reality. For Preis der Nationalgalerie 2021, Fofana is presenting the sound installations “BLUES” (2020) and “Ballad Air & Fire” (2021), in which he incorporates light and scents as well as videos and photography by his long-term collaborators Nicolas Premier and Jim C. Nedd. In the installations, Fofana engages with key texts dealing with the experiences of African people living in the West–including works by Sylvia Wynter, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Amiri Baraka–to create a multisensory space that fosters an active and collective practice of listening.

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff (born 1988 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA / 1987 in Buffalo, New York, USA; both live in Berlin)
Over the past ten years, Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff have developed a practice rooted in documentary photography which has captured the socio-urban development of Berlin from their perspective within the city’s artistic community. Their spaces Times Bar, New Theater and, currently, their TV Bar have shaped the Berlin art scene of recent years. In the photographic series “Exteriors” (2021) and “Collective Image (Klärwerk Ruhleben)” (2021), the duo examines utopian projections and underlying realities in order to offer a view on urban development in Berlin and the unseen, peripheral moments of city living. In addition, they are presenting a trailer for “Paradise” (since 2020), an ongoing television series filmed at TV Bar. The first two episodes of the series will be shown parallel to the exhibition in bars and independent spaces around the city, including Bierhaus Urban, Hopscotch Reading Room, Eschschloraque, and Restaurant im Hamburger Bahnhof.

Sandra Mujinga (born 1989 in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo; lives in Berlin and Oslo)
In her work, Sandra Mujinga negotiates economies of visibility and invisibility, and questions around identity, self-representation and surveillance. The notion of camouflage and invisibility as a survival strategy plays a crucial role in her observations of existing socio-political structures and power dynamics. She navigates both physical and digital spaces to create images and spatial configuration for speculative worlds which look beyond an anthropocentric paradigm. In the exhibition, Mujinga is presenting two new sculptural ensembles: “Reworlding Remains” (2021) and “Sentinels of Change” (2021). Engaging with principles of Afrofuturism and science fiction, and theories of the posthuman, Mujinga deploys the strategy of worldbuilding in the creation of fantastic figures and a schematic representation of a dinosaur’s body bathed in green light.

Sung Tieus (born 1987 in Hau Duong, Vietnam; lives in Berlin)
Life in the diaspora and its psychological consequences, as well as the legacy of the Cold War and its lasting effects on global capitalism are all recurring themes in the work of Sung Tieu (born 1987 in Hai Duong, Vietnam, lives in Berlin). In her works she often interlinks fact and fiction, historical and biographical events, and a diverse array of lived social experiences. The installation “Song for VEB Stern-Radio Berlin” (2021) draws on her interest in the history of Vietnamese contract workers in the GDR. By incorporating radios manufactured by contract workers in Berlin, Tieu’s installation alludes directly to the city and its Vietnamese community. The radios activate the space acoustically and create a dense weave of readymades, texts and sound that give occasion to think about the relationship between work and life, and between individuals and systems.