Hans Molfenter Prize 2025

Exhibition

On June 27, 2025, the video and installation artist Heba Y. Amin and the punk performance collective Horizontaler Gentransfer were awarded the Hans Molfenter Prize. To mark this honor, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart is showing Heba Y. Amin’s film installation “Iterations on Witnessing.” Horizontaler Gentransfer staged an exclusive concert on the evening of the award ceremony, which will also soon be shown as a video in the exhibition.

The Hans Molfenter Prize of the state capital Stuttgart was granted to two artists this year, as the award had to be suspended once due to the pandemic. Since 1983, it has been awarded in recognition of an outstanding artistic oeuvre to visual artists who have a close connection to the city of Stuttgart and the surrounding region. The prize, which is endowed with 16,000 euros, is funded by the estate of Stuttgart painter Hans Molfenter (1884–1979).

Heba Y. Amin

In her artistic work, Heba Y. Amin deals with political themes, historical sites and archives. She uses the media of film, photography, performance and installation along with archive materials. The artist combines her source material with fictional and speculative-subversive elements in order to reflect on and deconstruct dominant historical narratives.

“Iterations on Witnessing” is a long-term film project and an ever-expanding archive that explores the paradoxes of vision. The artist draws on the neurological phenomenon of “blindsight,” in which blind people are able to react to visual stimuli in a differentiated way despite a nerve-related sight impairment. In this way, she makes witnessing understandable as fragmentary and selective: What is visible? What remains hidden? And what is deliberately hidden?

Heba Y. Amin (b. 1980 in Cairo) is Professor of Digital and Time-based Art at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design. Amin has been featured in numerous exhibitions and biennials, most recently at the Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, and the Guggenheim, NYC.

Heba Y. Amin, Foto: Sebastian Böttcher

Heba Y. Amin, Foto: Sebastian Böttcher
Heba Y. Amin, Iterations on Witnessing, 2025 – ongoing
Installation view Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2025, Courtesy Heba Y. Amin and Zilberman Gallery / Photo: Gerald Ulmann, Stuttgart

Heba Y. Amin, Iterations on Witnessing, 2025 – ongoing

Horizontaler Gentransfer

Horizontaler Gentransfer is a Stuttgart-based collective consisting of six artists: Mizi Lee, Yun Park, Jerry Ahn, Hanseo Oh, Seonha Park and Lilian Gonzalez. Conceptually, the group relates to the eponymous process of gene transfer: What in biology refers to the exchange of genetic material between existing organisms—even across species boundaries—is exemplified here by the processes of intercultural exchange.

The group Horizontaler Gentransfer works at the interface of visual art, music, poetry, theater and performance. Based on personal experiences, the artists negotiate questions of belonging and concepts of home in their artistic practice, which combines elements of K-punk, spoken word and art pop.

Horizontaler Gentransfer, Foto: Maxim Schipko

Horizontaler Gentransfer, Foto: Maxim Schipko

Gallery

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