BRIGITTE WALDACH: Shimmer and Shine
Marta Herford Museum for Art, Architecture, Design, Germany
September 20, 2020 – January 01, 2021

The Berlin artist, Brigitte Waldach, has been awarded the Marta Prize of the Wemhöner Stiftung 2020. The former master student of Georg Baselitz convinced the jury with the clear design vocabulary and thematic depth of her works. In her large-format drawings and walk-in, spatial constructs, texts and sounds play an important role. Alongside the prize money and a production budget for a new work in the Marta collection, Brigitte Waldach will be rewarded with a solo exhibition in the Marta Herford which opens on 20 September 2020.

Brigitte Waldach (born 1966 in Berlin) first studied art education, art sciences and German before turning her attention to creative art. She completed her studies at the Berlin University of the Arts in 2000 as a master student of Georg Baselitz. From drawing, Waldach developed an equally poetic and expansive practice. In text bubbles, spatial drawings and sound installations she explores intellectual and literary connections. She repeatedly engages intensively with German history, from the persecution of the Jews at the time of National Socialism, right up to the mythology of the Red Army Faction (RAF) of the 1970s, but also most recently with the “Goldberg Variations” by J. S. Bach.

As the fourth winner of the Marta Prize of the Wemhöner Stiftung, which is endowed with a total of 25,000 Euro, Brigitte Waldach will develop a new work for the Marta Collection that will be presented for the first time within the framework of a solo exhibition in the museum. The former prize-winners are the duo Heike Mutter / Ulrich Genth (2014), Simon Wachsmuth (2016) and Peter Wächtler (2018), whose sculptural mobile “Untitled (Füller)” was ceremoniously inaugurated this year in Marta’s kupferbar in the presence of the artist.

The jury, consisting of the Board of Trustees of the Wemhöner Stiftung as well as two external personalities (this year Caroline von Möller, Managing Director of Fenne Baugesellschaft mbH, and Dr. Eva Schmidt, former director of the Museum for Contemporary Art Siegen) voted unanimously for Brigitte Waldach. A consultant committee made up of five internationally operating curators and critics expertly supported the museum in advance with the selection of the candidates. This year the committee was made up of Elke Buhr, Editor-in-Chief of the Monopol magazine, Dr. Claudia Emmert, Director of the Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen, Frank-Thorsten Moll, Director of the IKOB – Museum for Contemporary Art Eupen, Dr. Matthias Mühling, Director of the Municipal Gallery in the Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau Munich, as well as Ellen Seifermann, Director of the Kunsthalle Nuremberg.

Every two years, the Marta Prize of the Wemhöner Stiftung arranges the commissioning of a high-profile artistic work for the Marta Collection. In line with the collection and exhibition focus of the museum – the living engagement of international contemporary art with contact points to design and architecture – this is developed on site. With a total of €25,000, made up of €10,000 prize money, €13,000 budget for a new production, and €2,000 for ancillary costs as well as a solo exhibition by the winner in the Museum Marta Herford with accompanying catalogue, it is one of the few highly endowed prizes for contemporary art in Germany.

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