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.
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: 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). The work is made up of video projections, sculpture and a readymade. Laçi’s discrete sculptural and spatial structures have been employed with moving projected image, in order to play upon the shaping of the image. Similarly, projectors and tripods are approached as sculptural objects with the intention of interrogating the framing, reception and perception of images.
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.
Main Image: Jonida Laçi und Luīze Nežberte Courtesy Kunsthalle Wien