Luīze
Nežberte receives the Kunsthalle Wien Preis 2025
06.08.2025
Luīze Nežberte, a graduate of the Sculpture & Space department at the University of Applied Arts
Vienna, has been awarded the Kunsthalle Wien Preis 2025. Her works will be presented in November 2025 alongside works by Jonida
Laçi (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) at the Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz.
The Kunsthalle
Wien Preis [Kunsthalle Wien Prize] seeks to support emerging artists living and working in Vienna and to promote discourse
on contemporary art via an annual collaboration with Vienna’s two renowned art universities. Jointly organised by Kunsthalle
Wien together with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the University of Applied Arts Vienna, it is awarded annually by a
jury of experts to a graduate of each of the universities. Now in its eleventh year, the prize is intended to support recent
graduates, building a bridge between academic study and professional practice, while bringing the work of these artists to
a broader public.
The selected artists receive a joint exhibition and publication with texts commissioned from
Mirela Baciak and Chris Clarke as well as a prize of € 3,000 each, sponsored by Kunsttrans and smc Steirer Mika & Comp.
The Kunsthalle Wien Preis 2025
For this year’s prize, the jury reviewed diploma projects from the Institute
of Fine Arts at the Academy and from the fields of visual and media art at the Angewandte. Over 100 graduates from the Academy
of Fine Arts Vienna and the University of Applied Arts Vienna submitted their work for consideration. Two artists were selected
to hold a joint exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz opening in November 2025:
Luīze Nežberte studied Sculpture
and Space at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and was awarded the Kunsthalle Wien Preis for her work We could listen
much longer, but it is late by now (2025). Nežberte examines found objects and historical forms in order to uncover their
material and cultural histories. She reinterprets historical architectural forms to explore how cultural memory is transmitted,
erased and transformed through material absence and sculptural interpretation. Nežberte’s sculptural interventions describe
an overlap between personal memory, traditional architecture and historiography.
Jonida Laçi studied Art and Space
| Object as well as Art and Time | Media at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and was awarded the Kunsthalle Wien Preis for
her installation Ajar (2025).
Biography:
Luīze Nežberte (b. 1998, Riga, Latvia) studied Sculpture and
Space at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She has exhibited her work at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga; Chicago,
London (both 2025); Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga; Neuer Kunstverein Wien (both 2024); House of Spouse, Vienna; SPOILER,
Berlin and 427 Gallery, Riga (all 2023). From 2023 to 2025, she co-curated the exhibition programme at Pech, Vienna together
with Bruno Mokross. Nežberte has been selected to participate in the De Ateliers programme in Amsterdam starting in September.
