ADKV-ART COLOGNE Award for Kunstvereine
The prize has been awarded by Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine (ADKV) in cooperation with ART COLOGNE since 2006. It honors associations with a particularly innovative program and mediation work.
Halle für Kunst in Lüneburg is awarded the ADKV-ART COLOGNE Award for Kunstvereins 2020
Special Mention to the Kunstverein für Mecklenburg & Vorpommern in Schwerin.
Berlin/Cologne, March 25th, 2020. An independent jury has selected the Halle für Kunst in Lüneburg as the winner of this year's 8,000 Euro Award for Kunstvereins, which since 2006 has been awarded by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine (ADKV) in cooperation with ART COLOGNE.
Founded in 1995, the Halle für Kunst Lüneburg has steadily developed into a leading venue for contemporary art with a first-rate program of solo and group exhibitions. In its orientation, the Halle für Kunst, which Stefanie Kleefeld has directed since 2012, has tried to come to terms with both discursive-theoretical concepts and current sociopolitical and economic issues. This includes thematic exhibition projects such as "Fantasie” (Fantasy) in 2016, "Authentizität. Das Authentisch Unauthentische” (Authenticity. The Authentic Unauthentic) in 2017, "Vom Handeln” (Of Actions) in 2018, or "Geld und Psyche” (Gold and Psyche) in 2018/2019, as well as decidedly interdisciplinary event series. Through a variety of communication formats and collaborations, the institution has succeeded in linking to the city as well as to the national and international art context. With this award, the jury pays tribute to the ambitious program of the Halle für Kunst and wishes to support it through its current situation so that it can continue its valuable work despite the year-end termination of its long-term contract and the search for a new financially viable premises that this entails.
In addition, the jury would like to give a Special Mention to the Kunstverein für Mecklenburg & Vorpommern in Schwerin. The program of the Kunstverein, founded in 2002, stands out with its contemporary, refined approach. Exhibitions such as the solo show of the artist Michaela Eichwald (2018), the group presentation "In Full Sunlight" (2019/2020), or the internationally oriented exhibition and research project "Madgermanes - Mystery of Foreign Affairs" (2017/2018) on postcolonial history and the current situation of former GDR contract laborers testify to an extraordinary curatorial sensibility.
Members of the 2020 jury were: Sven Beckstette (Curator, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin), Sunah Choi (Artist, Berlin), Caroline Käding (Art Historian, Institut Freie Kunst, Braunschweig University of Art), Kito Nedo (Independent Art Critic, Berlin) and Simone Neuenschwander (Independent Curator, Basel).
This year thirty Kunstvereins were nominated for the award in total: Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin; nGbK. Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin; Kunstverein Braunschweig; Dortmunder Kunstverein; N-E-K. Neuer Essener Kunstverein; Kunstverein St. Pauli, Hamburg; Kunstverein Konstanz; Halle 14. Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg; Kunstraum München; BKV. Brandenburgischer Kunstverein Potsdam; Kunstverein für Mecklenburg & Vorpommern in Schwerin; Kunstverein Freunde Aktueller Kunst, Zwickau. Der Brandenburgischer Kunstverein, Potsdam as well as Halle14 in Leipzig were excluded from receiving the award because of the affiliation of their directors to the board of ADKV.
Previous award winners have been: KV-Verein für zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2019); Temporary Gallery, Cologne (2018); HartWareMedienKunstVerein, Dortmund (2017); Kunstverein Arnsberg and Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof in Hamburg (2016); Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2015); Bielefelder Kunstverein (2014); Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2013); Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2012); Kunstverein Nürnberg – Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft (2011); Kölnischer Kunstverein (2010); Heidelberger Kunstverein (2009); Salzburger Kunstverein and Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster (2008); Kunstverein Wolfsburg (2007); ACC Galerie Weimar (2006).
Along with Art Cologne, the live on-site award ceremony has been cancelled for 2020. Instead, a video was produced in the rooms of the Halle für Kunst Lüneburg. In an interview, director Stefanie Kleefeld talks about Kunstvereins as a "hybrid space of possibility", the significance of the award for Kunstvereins, and Art Cologne.
The film can be seen here.
