American artist Lorna Simpson has won the 2027 Wolfgang Hahn Prize in Germany. Museum Ludwig in Cologne will allocate 100,000 euros to acquiring a work for its collection and stage a solo exhibition with a publication. Simpson became known for combining photography with fragmented text before extending her practice across other media.
Cologne’s Museum Ludwig, a German museum of modern and contemporary art, will acquire a work by Lorna Simpson after selecting the American artist for the 2027 Wolfgang Hahn Prize. The award provides 100,000 euros for the acquisition. A solo exhibition and an accompanying publication are planned for next year, bringing her work into the museum’s programme as well as its collection.[1], [2]
Born in Brooklyn, Simpson gained international recognition in the 1990s through photographs combined with fragmented text. Her work addresses Black women’s inner lives and the ways they are publicly perceived. She subsequently extended her practice into film, painting, drawing and sculpture. Museum Ludwig had already shown her two-part photographic and textual work ID, made in 1990, in its 1999 group exhibition Art Worlds in Dialogue.[1]
The museum says the acquisition will develop its American art collection, connecting Simpson’s work with its holdings of Pop Art and media-influenced imagery. Its announcement also relates her practice to works by Diamond Stingily and Carolyn Lazard recently acquired through its Junger Ankauf initiative. Established in 1994, the Wolfgang Hahn Prize recognises contemporary artists with internationally established bodies of work who are still less widely known in Germany.[1]
