Lorna Simpson Wins Wolfgang Hahn Prize, Museum Ludwig Acquires Work

(MENAFN- USA Art News) American artist Lorna Simpson, known for her pioneering approach to conceptual photography, has been named the recipient of the 2027 Wolfgang Hahn Prize. The Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, which sponsors the annual award, will dedicate €100,000 (approximately $105,000 ) toward acquiring a work by Simpson for its permanent collection.

The institution plans to stage a solo exhibition of Simpson's art next year, accompanied by a dedicated publication. The jury for the 2027 award included Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum in New York and artistic director of documenta 16, alongside the Museum Ludwig board.

Simpson, born in Brooklyn, gained international recognition in the 1990s for her multilayered photographs that combine images with fragmented text. Her artistic practice has since expanded to include film, painting, drawing, and sculpture, often blurring medium boundaries while exploring inner worlds and societal perceptions of Black women.

Her two-part photo-text work, ID (1990), was previously featured in Museum Ludwig's 1999 group exhibition,“Art Worlds in Dialogue (Kunstwelten im Dialog).” In that piece, Simpson presented two portraits of a Black woman: one shows her back to the camera with a plaque reading“identity,” and the other reveals only the crown of her head, resembling Earth, with a plaque engraved“identify.” The museum's 1999 catalog text compared ID to the Black Madonna of Cologne, a renowned wooden statue housed in a 17th-century church near the institution.

The museum said in a statement that Simpson's“multifaceted body of work will provide, in the jury's view, an important impetus for the Museum Ludwig's collection of American art.” The acquisition, the statement continued,“will further develop the positions in Pop Art and its use of media-influenced imagery, which Peter and Irene Ludwig acquired early on and in considerable depth.” The museum characterized Simpson's work as“a bridge” to the practices of Diamond Stingily and Carolyn Lazard, whose works recently entered its collection through the Junger Ankauf initiative and“reflect on the self-image of African American women.”

Established in 1994, the Wolfgang Hahn Prize recognizes established contemporary artists with internationally acclaimed bodies of work who have not yet achieved widespread recognition in Germany. Past honorees include Lee Ufan, Francis Alÿs, Kerry James Marshall, Betye Saar, Frank Bowling, and Haegue Yang.

Source: ARTnews

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