Announcement of the Hans and Lea Grundig Award 2025

A diasporist lives and paints in two or more societies at the same time. Diasporic art is fundamentally contradictory, it is internationalist and particularist at the same time. It can be incoherent – quite a blasphemy against the logic of prevailing art theory – because life in the diaspora is often incoherent and full of tensions; heretical objection is its daily lifeblood.

(R. B. Kitaj: First Manifesto of Diasporism, Zurich 1988)

In memory of Hans Grundig (1901-1958) and Lea Grundig (1906-1977), the prize of the same name for artistic, art historical and art mediation achievements is awarded under the patronage of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. The patron and jury are aware of the complex and contradictory work and life stories of the eponymous artists.¹

The total prize money amounts to €10,000 and can be divided into the following three categories. The prize money is intended to honour realised works.

For the artistic works, current works are invited that present themselves in the context of visual and, with R.B. Kitaj, ‘diasporic’ art (including painting, graphics, drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance art, also across genres). Contradiction, resistance, migration, (immigration) flight and exile – more and more people are living in several societies at the same time and are daring to create art that is political in its radical nature. The works can be dedicated to these themes in a historical, contemporary and/or visionary way.

In the case of art-historical works, the call for entries focuses on opening up and researching the work of persecuted artists and artists forced into exile from the aspect of place or placelessness. Particularly welcome are contributions on the topics of ‘Proletarian-Revolutionary Art’, ‘Verism in 20th Century Art’, the work and life biographies of Hans and Lea Grundig themselves as well as ‘’Exile‘ Art in Palestine/Israel’ and ‘Jewish Artists in Divided Post-War Germany’.

The projects to be submitted in the field of art education should be dedicated to the current museum and non-museum mediation of socially critical art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Entries that focus on an innovative approach to art education are particularly welcome.

Applications must be submitted exclusively in digital form in a pdf by 31 March 2025 in German or English by e-mail to info@hans-und-lea-grundig.de. The application must not exceed 15 DIN A4-pages (file size: max. 8 MB). One page should contain a CV (max. 2,000 text characters, font size 12) and another page a letter of motivation (max. 1,500 text characters, font size 12). Please indicate if and where your work has already been presented publicly. Media-based projects can be submitted via a link, stating a maximum of 3 reference points with a maximum length of 8 minutes in total.

The jury will decide on the winners at its meeting in the second quarter of 2025. The prizes will be awarded publicly at a ceremony in the fourth quarter of 2025. Legal recourse is excluded.

The jury will design their work with critical reference to the complex and ambivalent lives of Hans and Lea Grundig. Its members are: Dr Avi Feldman (Curator, Berlin), Jens Heitjohann (Artistic Director of ‘Theater im Depot’, Dortmund), Dr Klaus Lederer (former Mayor and Senator for Culture and Europe of Berlin, Co-Chair), Henrike Naumann (artist, London and Berlin), Haleh Redjaian (artist, Berlin), Dr Dorothea Schöne (Artistic Director Kunsthaus Dahlem, 2021 award winner, Co-Chair), Prof. Dr Ines Weizman (architectural theorist, London, 2015 award winner), Prof. Dr Mirjam Zadoff (Director of the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism).

Coordination: Henning Heine (Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung).

Berlin, 1 November 2024

¹ Cf. Sukrow, Oliver: Differentiated confrontation. The history of the Hans and Lea Grundig Prize and its development since 2011, in: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (ed.): Kunst als Widerspruch, Berlin 2021, p.19ff. The publication can be downloaded as well as further detailed information on the prize and its history on the website www.hans-und-lea-grundig.de.