junger westen art prize 2021

Nominees’ group show:
Ann-Josephin Dietz, Rahel Goetsch, Jonas Habrich, Damaris Kerkhoff, Donja Nasseri, Nico Pachali, Mari Lena Rapprich, Morgaine Schäfer, Cordula Schieri, Berit Schneidereit, Isabell Schulte, Yui Tombana, Yoana Tuzharova, Vladimir Unkovic and Philipp Valenta

Winner’s solo:
Jeewi Lee

Curator: Nico Anklam

The junger westen art prize is the first award of its kind given by a German municipality after 1945. Founded in 1948 and endowed with 10,000 euros of prize money today, the prize is awarded every two years to an artist living and working in Germany up to the age of 35. It alternates between drawing/printmaking/photography, installation/sculpture, and painting. In this year’s junger westen, 16 artists were chosen from 483 applications, with Jeewi Lee being named the winner by the jury.

The works by the selected artists question and extend the categories of drawing, printmaking, and photography in key facets that these genres inherently entail. Jeewi Lee’s installations of traditional Korean paper floors are particularly successful in this regard. They exhibit traces of everyday use, color variations due to sunlight, or overlaps of histories printed on her materials for centuries whose authors precede Lee by generations.

The junger westen dates back to the 1948 Recklinghausen artist group of the same name (the young west), founded by Gustav Deppe, Thomas Grochowiak, Ernst Hermanns, Emil Schumacher, Heinrich Siepmann and Hans Werdehausen. Some of Germany’s most celebrated artists have won or been nominated for the junger westen early in their careers, such as Gerhard Richter (1967), Katharina Grosse (1993), Alicja Kwade (2007) or Michael Sailstorfer (2011).

With a collection of over 5000 works, mostly from the 20th and 21st centuries, the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen is one of the museums of the city of Recklinghausen located in a former bunker next to the train station. The junger westen is one core element of this institution, being part of a network of the 21 Ruhrkunstmuseen in the region.

The exhibition junger westen 2021 was curated by the recently appointed director of Recklinghausen’s museums and head of the Kunsthalle, Nico Anklam, who assumed office in June 2021. For the first time, the winning artist can use the entire top floor for a solo exhibition within the context of the art prize, with the other two floors dedicated to the nominees. A comprehensive catalogue designed by Amanda Haas with a text by Lydia Korndörfer on Jeewi Lee’s body of work is forthcoming. Reconnecting with the longstanding tradition of producing editions with artists in the Kunsthalle, Jeewi Lee created a series of prints to coincide with the show and the bunker’s historic floors. Jeewi Lee, Morgaine Schäfer, and Berit Schneidereit are the artists whose pieces the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen acquired for its collection from the junger westen exhibition this year.

The Museums of the City of Recklinghausen Director and Head of the Kunsthalle: Dr. des. Nico Anklam
Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeit/Curator: Kerstin Weber, M.A.

For all press inquiries please contact Kerstin Weber at weber [​at​] kunst-re.de

Sparkasse Vest Recklinghausen provides generous support for the “junger westen.”