Kunsthalle Wien Preis 2024

Exhibition
23/1 2025 — 20/4 2025
Karlsplatz

Exhibition opening: 22. January 2025, 19:00

The exhibition of the Kunsthalle Wien Preis 2024 presents the two prize-winners Rawan Almukhtar (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) and Ida Kammerloch (University of Applied Arts Vienna).

The Kunsthalle Wien Preis seeks to support emerging artists living and working in Vienna and to promote discourse on contemporary art via an annual collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The selected artists each receive a € 3,000 prize in addition to a production budget towards the exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication with texts by Alicja Melzacka and Rijin Sahakian.

Rawan Almukhtar studied Art and Intervention | Concept at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and was awarded the Kunsthalle Wien Preis for the two-part installation HIJRA – Queering Borders and DUKHANIA – The Protesting Archive. The exhibition will present paintings and drawings that take inspiration from Almukhtar’s experiences as a refugee and an activist. The paintings from the series HIJRA capture the stories of refugees Almukhtar met on the journey to Vienna. Another work, DUKHANIA (‘tear gas’ in Arabic) documents the actions of protestors against the Iraqi government. Through these bodies of work, Almukhtar seeks to create a collective moment of witnessing the stories of those who have been overlooked in Western Europe, while also questioning the ways in which such people should be considered.

Ida Kammerloch studied TransArts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and was awarded the Kunsthalle Wien Preis for the video installation ULTRA ALL INCLUSIVE. Born in Izhevsk, Russia, Kammerloch’s recent works are founded on her grandfather’s archive of homemade videos. Recorded in the 1990s, the original footage was taken at a time when the political and social identities of Russia were in transition. Kammerloch likewise contrasts the uncanny difference between the state-constructed Russian identity and the lived realities of its citizens today, using her personal family narrative to anchor such storytelling. The Kremlin Palace Hotel located in Antalya – which replicates the architecture of the Moscow Kremlin – provides the backdrop for the artist’s diploma work. The video moves from room to room providing an unsettling exploration of a utopia designed for wellness and relaxation, while physically resembling a place of immense power, and for most, also a place of political terror.

Biographies

Rawan Almukhtar (b. 1991, Baghdad) has exhibited works at fjk3 – Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Vienna (2023); Künstlerhaus Vienna; mumok – Museum of moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; WIENWOCHE – festival for art and activism, Vienna; Dschungel, Vienna; WUK – Werkstätten- und Kulturhaus, Vienna (all 2022); Raumschiff, Linz; Brunnenpassage, Vienna (both 2020). Almukhtar’s work has been nominated for various awards, including the Belvedere Art Award, Vienna (2023 and 2022); the Exile Visual Arts Award by the Körber-Stiftung, Berlin (2023); and the Ishtar Award for Young Artists from the Iraqi Fine Arts Association, Baghdad (2015).

Ida Kammerloch (b. 1991, Izhevsk) has held exhibitions and screenings of her work at ok transit, Vienna (2024); Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Städtische Galerie Neunkirchen (both 2023); Städtische Galerie Hannover; Kunstmuseum Bonn (both 2021); Hilbertraum, Berlin; Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken; and Kubus Bochum (all 2020). She has been awarded various scholarships by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport (BMKOES); Neustart Kultur (all 2022); DAAD, Moscow (2020); and she was awarded the Peter and Luise Hager Prize (2017) as well as second place in Ö1 Talentestipendium (2024). Kammerloch is currently participating in the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris residency.

The Kunsthalle Wien Preis 2024 is realized with the kind and generous support of Kunsttrans and smc Steirer Mika & Comp.

  
 

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