Kurt Schwitters Prize: Nevin Aladağ

© Bernd Borchardt

Nevin Aladağ has been awarded the 2026 Kurt Schwitters Prize by the Lower Saxony Savings Banks Foundation. The award, now in its fifteenth year, comes with a prize of 30,000 euros and includes a solo exhibition at the Sprengel Museum Hannover.

Who is Nevin Aladağ, the recipient of the 2026 Kurt Schwitters Prize from the Lower Saxony Savings Banks Foundation?

Aladağ was born in Van, Turkey, in 1972, grew up in Stuttgart, and studied sculpture under Olaf Metzel at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1994 to 2000. She currently lives in Berlin and has been a professor of “Sculpture in Motion” at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts since 2019. Nevin Aladağ works with multimedia. Her body of work includes sculptures, installations, collages, reliefs, video and sound works, as well as performances. Everyday objects, situations, and actions often serve as her starting point. 

She is interested in the cultural and political meanings associated with the origins and history of these objects. By removing objects from their original context, she alters how they are interpreted and brings ideological and political connotations to light. Another central theme in her work is music, dance, and play as expressions of cultural identity. In projects such as the Music Room, which was shown at documenta in Athens in 2017, she combines musical instruments from different parts of the world to create sculptural works, performances, and wall reliefs.

She gained international recognition in particular through her participation in documenta 14 (Athens and Kassel) and the 57th Venice Biennale (2017). Her work has been featured in numerous international solo exhibitions, including at the Max Ernst Museum in Brühl (2024), as well as in Seoul, Munich, London, San Francisco, Hanover, Dresden, Linz, Basel, Berlin, and Istanbul.
 

What is the 2026 Kurt Schwitters Prize from the Lower Saxony Savings Banks Foundation?

The purpose of the Kurt Schwitters Prize is to honor artists “whose work is characterized by a reference to Kurt Schwitters and is distinguished by its venture into new realms of artistic creation and artistic concepts, or whose work contributes to the connection and integration of artistic genres.” The presentation of the Kurt Schwitters Prize is a key component of the cultural support provided by the Lower Saxony Savings Banks Foundation, which is distinguished by its year-round commitment to the fields of visual arts, music, museums, and historic preservation.

Curated by Stefan Gronert