The Indian artist Shilpa Gupta (*1976, Mumbai) has won the Possehl Prize for International Art 2025, which includes prize money of €25,000 and a solo exhibition in Lübeck. The award ceremony and exhibition opening will take place in the presence of the artist at the museum Kunsthalle St. Annen in Lübeck on 27 September 2025.

Shilpa Gupta is the third winner of the Possehl Prize for International Art, following Doris Salcedo and
Matt Mullican. In her work as an artist she deals with important questions for contemporary society, including belonging, safety, censorship, religion, freedom of expression and human rights. The jury, made up of members of internationally renowned art institutions, applauded the artist in particular for her sensitive and often political works, as well as the wide range of media she uses in her practice. Shilpa Gupta’s body of work is very diverse and comprises sound-based works, video projections, drawings, sculptures, interactive computer-based installations and performances. For more than two decades she has explored the effects on societies of boundaries and demarcation lines drawn by state actors, and includes social, geographic and psychological borders in addition to questions of national identity. Language and the power it encapsulates are an important focus of her artistic work. Due to its geographic position on the Baltic Sea, in the shadow of the former inner-German border, Lübeck is particularly familiar with the inclusion and exclusion created by boundaries and with transnational connections. With its comprehensive presentation of Gupta’s work from 27 September 2025 the Kunsthalle St. Annen will be showing one of the most important representatives of Indian contemporary art in Lübeck. It is an invitation to take another look at topics of global relevance through the prism of art in the light of local conditions. The artist lives and works in Mumbai, India, where she studied sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Art from 1992 to 1997. Gupta’s works have been exhibited internationally, including in the Tate Modern and Serpentine Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk. Shilpa Gupta is one of India’s most important media artists and has influenced several subsequent generations.

Jury of the Possehl Prize for International Art 2025

The prize jury is composed of representatives of well-known art institutions: Dr. Anette Hüsch, Director of Kunsthalle zu Kiel; Prof. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Director of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Dr. Florence Thurmes, General Director of Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz; Noura Dirani, Director of Kunsthalle St. Annen Lübeck; Dr. Tilmann von Stockhausen, Managing Direktor of Kulturstiftung Hansestadt Lübeck; Max Schön, Chair of the Possehl Foundation

Possehl Prize for International Art

With the Possehl Prize for International Art the Possehl Foundation recognises ground-breaking representatives of international contemporary art for their life’s work or an outstanding piece or body of work. The prize is awarded by the Possehl Foundation; it consists of prize money of €25,000 and an exhibition in Lübeck. The exhibition will be conceived and organised and the exhibition catalogue produced in 2025 by the Kunsthalle St. Annen, a member of the Lübecker Museen. The prize is awarded in the categories of sculpture, installation, new media and performance, as well as art intervention. Intermedia connections between different forms of artistic expression in the artist’s body of work are given particular weight. The jury selects the prizewinner from proposals by an international panel of experts. The Possehl Prize for International Art has been awarded every three years since 2019. In 2019 for the first time the prize went to the Columbian artist Doris Salcedo, and in 2022 the recipient was the US artist Matt Mullican. In addition to the Possehl Prize for International Art, the Possehl Foundation has awarded the Possehl Prize for Lübeck Art to local artists since 2018.

Possehl Foundation

Since it was founded in 1919 the Possehl Foundation has provided funding to maintain the architectural diversity of Lübeck’s Old Town, sponsored non-profit organisations, young people, arts and sciences, and supported people experiencing social hardship. In 2003 the Possehl Foundation created a new space for modern art in Lübeck when it funded the construction of a new annexe at Kunsthalle St. Annen in the heart of the Old Town, boosting the city’s reputation as a vibrant location for international contemporary art. The foundation is also the shareholder of the European Hansemuseum and KOLK17, Puppet Theatre & Museum. With Possehl Prizes for Music, Art, Engineering and Architecture, the Foundation rewards outstanding performance every year. The Foundation is the sole shareholder of Germany’s largest Mittelstand investment holding company, L. Possehl & Co. GmbH, whose portfolio companies have operations worldwide.

Kunsthalle St. Annen

Kunsthalle St. Annen is a member of the Lübecker Museen group and an important museum for modern and contemporary art in north Germany and the Baltic region, with a major collection of European postwar art. The Kunsthalle positions itself as a place for active dialogue between its collection and contemporary art, international partner institutions and the public, in support of an open society. Part of the Kunsthalle’s concept is to approach its own collection via contemporary art and to supplement this with nonwestern perspectives, in order to disrupt Eurocentric narratives.