Bernd-und-Hilla-Becher-Preis 2025 Ursula Schulz–Dornburg & Farah Al Qasimi

In the organizer's words:

The artists Ursula Schulz-Dornburg and Farah Al Qasimi have been awarded the Bernd and Hilla Becher Prize 2025. To mark the occasion, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf is showing an exhibition of works by the prizewinners.

Ursula Schulz-Dornburg is the main winner of the Bernd and Hilla Becher Prize 2025. She was born in 1938 and has lived in Düsseldorf since 1969. Schulz-Dornburg pursues a cultural-historical anthropological interest in her work, which she describes as the "verticality of time". In her work, she attempts to give found and formerly animate objects a conceptual and contemporary form, as well as to maintain an ongoing awareness of resources - in both human and natural terms.
Ursula Schulz-Dornburg studied photography and journalism in Munich from 1959 to 1960 and then developed her own independent visual language through self-tuition.

She repeatedly traveled to countries such as Armenia, Kazakhstan, Yemen, Syria, Indonesia, Iraq, but also China, Nepal, Russia and Turkey. There she documented changes in the landscape and the decay of political systems. Schulz-Dornburg belongs to a generation of female photographers whose work has only been (re)discovered in German-speaking countries in recent years and has had international exhibitions in recent years, including at the Maison européenne de la photographie in Paris (2019/2020), the British Museum (2018), the Städel Museum in Frankfurt (2018) and the Tate Modern in London (2013 and 2014).

The sponsorship award goes to the artist Farah Al Qasimi, who was born in Abu Dhabi in 1991 and lives in New York. In her artistic work, she examines post-colonial structures of power, gender and taste in the Arab Gulf states.

Al Qasimi studied photography and music at Yale University in 2012 and received her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2017. Splitting her time between Dubai and New York, social critique and observation of the multi-layered aspects of each place are indirectly integrated into her artistic practice. Through her bold and vibrant photographs, she explores the unspoken social norms and values embedded in a place, moment or object.

Farah Al Qasimi's photographic, filmic and performative works create worlds that transcend boundaries of identities and question gender in the age of a global post-internet. Al Qasimi focuses her gaze on the banal in life and imbues it with a contemporary aesthetic.

The Bernd and Hilla Becher Prize of the state capital Düsseldorf is awarded every two years. The prize was named after Bernd and Hilla Becher in recognition of their artistic work and teaching. The artist couple supervised the first class for artistic photography at a German art academy at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and thus made an important contribution to the international recognition of photography as a medium in the visual arts.

The nomination and awarding of the Bernd and Hilla Becher Prize is decided by an international jury. In addition to the Lord Mayor Dr. Stephan Keller, the Deputy Mayor for Culture and Integration Miriam Koch and political representatives, the 2022-2025 jury includes the following expert jurors Max Becher, son of Bernd and Hilla Becher, Düsseldorf/New York,
Linda Conze, Head of the Photography Collection at the Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf (as an advisory member of the jury), Florian Ebner, Head of the Photography Department of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Dr. Felix Krämer, General Director of the Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf,
Ute Mahler, photographer and founder of the Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, Alona Pardo, Head of Programs at the Arts Council Collection, UK, London

In order to present the honored artistic positions to a broad public, the prize will be expanded in the format of the Bernd and Hilla Becher Prize Week with an exhibition of works by the prizewinners, talks and film screenings. Participating institutions include the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the Salon des Amateurs, the Kunstsammlung NRW - K21 and the Black Box cinema in the Filmmuseum. Free admission to all events.

Responsible
Miriam Koch
Alderwoman, Department of Culture and Integration

Concept and project management
Stephan Macháč
Photography Coordination Office, Department of Culture

Information about the Bernd and Hilla Becher Prize: www.duesseldorf.de/fotografie/bernd-und-hilla-becher-preis

Price information:

Adults EUR 6.00 Reduced EUR 3.00 Groups of 10 or more EUR 3.00 Children/young people up to 18 years free Disabled persons incl. accompanying person free