junger westen 2025 Art Prize – Painting

September 21 - November 16, 2025 

The jury for the 40th Kunstpreis junger westen, this year's award for painting, has nominated 22 artists for the group exhibition out of 690 applications: Annabelle Agbo Godeau (Düsseldorf), Johanna Ehmke (Cologne), Nicholas Grafia (Düsseldorf), Rahel grote Lambers (Berlin), Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju (Berlin), Lucas Kaiser (Leipzig), Tobias Kerger (Düsseldorf), Jody Korbach (Düsseldorf), Gašper Kunšič (Frankfurt am Main), Sojeong Lee (Düsseldorf), Janis Löhrer (Berlin), Line Lyhne (Frankfurt am Main), Sol Namgung (Leipzig), Minh Phuong Nguyen (Vienna), Matthias Noggler (Berlin), Aduni Ogunsan (Mönchengladbach), Jan-Luka Schmitz (Düsseldorf), Tariano Schneider (Hamburg), Rui Suzuki (Düsseldorf), Kiriakos Tompolidis (Berlin), Salwa Wittwer (Leipzig) and Seoyoung Yun (Düsseldorf).

At the same time, the jury awarded Jeehye Song (*1991 Seoul/South Korea) from Düsseldorf the 20,000 euro art prize. She will receive a solo presentation on the top floor of the Kunsthalle as part of the exhibition.

“The jury unanimously decided to award the prize to the artist Jeehye Song,” said museum director Dr. Nico Anklam. "Her painting not only impresses with its extraordinary pictorial invention and formal precision, but also with a depth of content that goes far beyond a purely visual experience. Song's work moves between painterly tradition, contemporary visual language and conceptual reflection - and she uses precisely this field of tension to raise central questions about the role of the artist and the function of the medium of painting in the present. In doing so, she remains deeply rooted, in the best sense, in the traditions of the genre of painting." 

Jeehye Song completed her studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 2021 as a master student of Prof. Andreas Schulze. She has already received numerous awards and sponsorships at home and abroad. She has also had solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad, including in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Italy, South Korea and the USA. She was already represented in the exhibition for the art prize junger westen for painting in 2019 and was shortlisted for the Paula Modersohn-Becker Art Prize in 2024.

This year's jury members were Prof. Shannon Bool, artist, Professor of Painting at the Kunsthochschule Mainz, Madeleine Frey, Director of the Max Ernst Museum, Brühl, Dr. Linda Walther, Director of the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat, Bottrop, Christoph Westermeier, Chairman of the Künstlerverein Malkasten, Düsseldorf, and Dr. Nico Anklam, Director of the Museums of the City of Recklinghausen and Director of the Kunsthalle, Holger Freitag, Chairman of the Committee for Culture, Science and City History of the City of Recklinghausen, Christoph Tesche, Mayor of the City of Recklinghausen and Kerstin Weber-Baumann, Research Assistant at the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen (deputy).

The junger westen art prize is the first prize for art to be awarded by a German municipality after 1945. Initiated in 1948, it commemorates the junger westen group of artists founded a year earlier in Recklinghausen around the painters Gustav Deppe, Thomas Grochowiak, Emil Schumacher, Heinrich Siepmann, Hans Werdehausen and the sculptor Ernst Hermanns. It is awarded as a sponsorship prize of the city of Recklinghausen with the support of the Cultural Foundation of the Stadtsparkasse Recklinghausen. Thanks to additional funding from the Rotary Club Recklinghausen and the Ulrike and Bernd Tönjes Foundation, the prize money has been increased from 10,000 to 20,000 euros since 2023. This increase will remain in place for the next competitions until 2031. 2025 will coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Kunsthalle and the 40th edition of the art prize, which will be awarded this year in its “traditional” category, painting.

The opening will take place on Saturday, September 20, 2025 at 5 p.m. in the Kunsthalle.

The Kunstpreis junger westen is sponsored by the Cultural Foundation of Stadtsparkasse Recklinghausen, the Rotary Club Recklinghausen and the Ulrike and Bernd Tönjes Foundation.