Solitude alumna Sarah Lehnerer received the Art Prize by the city Nordhorn 2026

Congratulations to Solitude alumna Sarah Lehnerer on receiving the 2026 Art Prize of the City of Nordhorn!

The prize has been awarded annually since 1979 to artists who have recently attracted attention with a fresh and nationally significant work.

The jury, consisting of representatives from the city of Nordhorn and the Friends of the Municipal Gallery Nordhorn, honored Sarah Lehnerer’s artistic work, which combines photography, printmaking, sculpture and text across media with special artistic strategies such as journaling, research and a personal image archive that has grown over years.

Sarah Lehnerer’s artistic work focuses on photographs and scans from her own everyday life. Her subjects include body language, gestures, and touch, as well as passages from books she is currently reading and everyday objects. Based on these, she creates large-format, often immersive prints on silk paper. Central themes in her work are reproductive labor, care practices, biographical inscriptions, and the social structures in which these are embedded.

In her artistic writing, Lehnerer explores feminist writing strategies, processes of memory, and the politics of polyphony. She also runs the community project “Texte zum Nachdenken” (Texts for Reflection) with Benedikt Bock, a platform for writing as an artistic practice. As part of this project, they organize readings and summer schools, and they are currently building the first library on this topic, which was presented for the first time at Art Basel in 2026.

Sarah Lehnerer studied fine arts in Hamburg and Munich, completed a Master’s degree in critical studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and submitted her dissertation on »Writing as Artistic Practice« to the HFBK Hamburg in 2025. Since 2018, she has taught regularly at various art academies and has held teaching positions in areas such as painting, new media, and writing as artistic practice. She has received numerous awards, scholarships, and residencies, including a grant from the German National Academic Foundation, the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Scholarship, and residencies at Akademie Schloss Solitude and Casa Lü (CDMX). Her work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and institutions, including Manifesta 12, State of Concept, Athens, mumok, ZKM | Center for Art and Media, the Freiburg Biennale, the Kunstverein Göttingen, the Kunstverein Wasserburg, and the Neue Essener Kunstverein.

The art prize comes with a cash award of 4,500 euros, and the Städtische Galerie Nordhorn will present a solo exhibition of Sarah Lehnerer’s work to coincide with the award ceremony in March 2027. A publication will also be released to accompany the exhibition.

Sarah Lehnerer was a 2016 fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude in cooperation with MFG Filmförderung Baden-Württemberg.

Further information on Sarah Lehnerer and her work here.