Zwickau-born installation artist Henrike Naumann (*1984) is this year’s – and therefore the thirteenth – winner of the LVZ Art Prize, which was established in 1995. The artist creates multimedia room installations in which she combines ordinary furnishings with video and sound to create a stage on which she frequently looks back on her experiences as a young woman growing up in former East Germany during the 1990s. At the MdBK, Henrike Naumann is presenting her walk-in installation “2000” to mark the LVZ Art Prize. The piece deals with the turn of the millennium in Germany. The new millennium, as a canvas on which to project optimistic visions of the future and the Expo year in Hannover, is the starting point for an artistically reflective review of the 1990s, the process of reunification and the work of the Treuhand, the public enterprise entrusted with the task of liquidating the GDR assets.

The Leipziger Volkszeitung founded the Art Prize in 1994 as part of its centennial celebrations. It has been awarded biannually since 1995 in cooperation with the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig. The LVZ Art Prize includes the prize money, an exhibition at the MdbK and an accompanying catalogue. It is awarded to young artists who are associated with the Leipzig region. The previous prize winners are: Die bisherigen Preisträger sind: Via Lewandowsky (1995), Neo Rauch (1997), Jörg Herold (1999), Tamara Grcic (2001), Daniel Roth (2003), Matthias Weischer (2005), Claudia Angelmaier (2007), Julius Popp (2009), Jochen Plogsties (2011), Sebastian Nebe (2013), Owen Gump (2015) und Benedikt Leonhardt (2017).

Works by former recipients will be shown in the MdBK foyer during the prize winner’s exhibition. These pieces were created exclusively for a special edition published on 31 October 2019 to mark the 125th anniversary of the Leipziger Volkszeitung.