Residual Memories
GASAG Art Prize 2026
September 11, 2026–April 5, 2027
Alte Jakobstraße 124-128
Berlin 10969
Germany
Hours: Monday and Wednesday–Sunday 10am–6pm
The Berlinische Galerie presents Jeewi Lee’s first institutional solo exhibition in Berlin in conjunction with the GASAG Art Prize 2026.
For her serial paintings, sculptures, site-specific installations, and interventions, the artist draws on simple, seemingly worthless materials where traces of time and transience are inscribed as memories. These traces are the starting point for her artistic research, where materials analysis blends with aspects of Taoist philosophy and personal mythology to create a visual universe that is poetic and meditative.
Under the title “Residual Memories,” the recipient of the GASAG award makes use of sand, an apparently everyday material and yet one of global significance. Sand fuses minerals, rock, organic residues and, more recently, microplastics. It is found in concrete, glass, microchips and water filters and it forms the basis for our contemporary built environment, but its worldwide consumption as a resource has left it in increasingly short supply.
About the artist
Jeewi Lee (b. 1987 in Seoul, South Korea) studied painting at the University of the Arts in Berlin and at Hunter College in New York. Since 2015 her work has been shown at many exhibitions in Germany and abroad. In 2018 she was awarded the Villa Romana prize, in 2021 the junger westen Art Prize and in 2025 a Villa Aurora fellowship. Jeewi Lee lives and works in Berlin.
GASAG Art Prize
Initiated by GASAG, the award has been presented in partnership with the Berlinische Galerie since 2010. Every two years, the partners honour an outstanding artistic position at the interface between art, science, and technology.
Art Week Programme
For the art festival Hallen 07 at the Wilhelm Hallen from 5 to 13 September 2026, the Berlinische Galerie presents “Ashes to Ashes” (2019–2021) by Jeewi Lee, created from the traces of a forest fire on Monte Serra near Pisa, along with other works that reference the exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie.
