Kunstpreis Delmenhorst

The Kunstpreis Delmenhorst 2025 will be awarded to Tomás Maglione, Vanessa Amoah Opoku and Fynn Ribbeck. The prize consists of a cash award of €5,000 for each artist, a group exhibition at Haus Coburg, and a bilingual publication.

In September, a five-member jury met at Haus Coburg to select three winners from the list of nominees. This expert jury included: Jennifer Chert (Galerie ChertLüdde, Berlin), Matilda Felix (Haus Coburg | Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst), Christoph Platz-Gallus (Kunstverein Hannover), Edit Molnár (Edith Russ Haus, Oldenburg) and András Siebold (Kampnagel, Hamburg).

Tomás Maglione (Städelschule Frankfurt a.M.) works across genres with sculpture, drawing, photography and, in particular, video. Thematically, his works focus on urban situations that remain invisible in everyday life. This can be a narrow strip of light that finds a niche between multi-lane motorways or a close-knit community of planespotters who spend their free time near airports. The jury was impressed by the visual poetry and subtle humour with which he captures these phenomena and places them in a social context.

In her interdisciplinary practice, Vanessa Amoah Opoku (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig) works with animation, 3D scans, artificial intelligence, sculpture, performance and sound. An important element of her work are 3D point cloud scans made with her smartphone, with which she captures places and objects and transforms them into a digital aesthetic. Migration, diaspora experiences, marginalized stories and postcolonial thinking form the main focuses of Opoku's work. The jury convinced both the narrative potential of her digital world designs and her clever criticism of technological advancement.

At the centre of Fynn Ribbeck's (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf) work are atmospheric video narratives and sculptures in which historical archive images develop a life of their own through digital processing. His videos take up events such as the German Autumn and rearrange found footage. The jury appreciates how skilfully Fynn Ribbeck interweaves the analogue and the digital. He creates dreamlike associative spaces in which familiar elements appear in new narratives and establish emotional relationships between past and present.

Haus Coburg, the Städtische Galerie (municipal gallery) in Delmenhorst, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with an art prize that will be awarded for the first time in 2025. It addresses graduates of art colleges in German-speaking countries. With a total budget of €50,000, the Kunstpreis Delmenhorst is made possible by the general practitioner Calin Pirvu and the Von-der-Heyde-Cordes-Foundation, with further support by Freundeskreis Haus Coburg e.V. and the city of Delmenhorst. 

There is no open call for submissions, artists are nominated and selected by two independent juries made up of contemporary art experts. The Städtische Galerie selects five outside experts for the nomination jury and four more for the prize jury. The fifth voting member of the prize jury is the director of Haus Coburg. 

The nominees for the Kunstpreis Delmenhorst 2025 were:
Noa and Lara Castro Lema, *1998 Spain, graduated from HGK FHNW Basel in 2022; Corç George Demir, *1991 Germany, graduated from UdK Berlin in 2022; Rashiyah Elanga, *1997 France, graduated from Städelschule Frankfurt a.M. in 2022; Yuchu Gao, *1993 China, graduated from AdbK München in 2024; Golnaz Hosseini, *1990 Iran, graduated from HGK FHNW Basel in 2022; Ludwig Kuffer, *1991 Germany, graduated from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2023; Tomás Maglione, *1985 Argentina, graduated from Städelschule Frankfurt in 2023; Vanessa Amoah Opoku, *1992 Germany, graduated from HGB Leipzig in 2024; Clarita Maria Phiri-Beierdörffer, *Zambia, graduated from HGB Leipzig in 2024; Chloe-Rose Purcell, *1990 New Zealand, graduated from HFBK Hamburg in 2021; Arisa Purkpong, *1995, graduated from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2022; Fynn Ribbeck, *1995 Germany, graduated from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2021; Robin Stretz, *1996 Germany, graduated from Städelschule Frankfurt in 2022; Leonardo Bürgi Tenorio, *1994 Switzerland, graduated from HGK FHNW Basel in 2023; Florin Weber, *1988 Romania, graduated from HGB Leipzig in 2022

The members of the nomination jury 2024 were: Kathrin Bentele, director of the Kunstverein in Dusseldorf, Carina Bukuts and Liberty Adrien, curators at Portikus in Frankfurt a. M., the Berlin-based art historian and curator Gürsoy Doğtaş, the artist Susanne Keichel (HGB Leipzig) and Chus Martínez, curator and professor at the Academy of Art and Design FHNW Basel. Each member of this jury recommended three candidates for the list of nominees.