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Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2025 to Jonida Laçi and Luīze Nežberte

Kunsthalle Wien Prize

Laçi (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) and Nežberte (University of Applied Arts Vienna) will hold a joint exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz in November 2025.

Jonida Laçi (b. 1990, Durrës, Albania) 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.
She has had solo exhibitions at marais/moeras, Brussels (2025) and CAN, Vienna (2023). Her work has also been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions, including at Forde, Geneva; Courtney Jaeger, Basel; OxfordBerlin, Düsseldorf (all 2025); etta, Düsseldorf (2024); Fondation Tschüss, Karlsruhe; New Jörg, Vienna; Kunstraum Schwaz, Tyrol; Kunstverein Zink, Vienna and Künstlerhaus, Vienna (all 2023). Laçi lives and works in Vienna.

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.

Johan F. Hartle, Rector, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna:
‘It is a special occasion for the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna to see one of its graduates presenting her own exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien. Starting an artistic career on such a big stage is a great opportunity. We are very proud to be able to showcase the developments at the Academy and demonstrate what inspires our students as part of this collaboration. Jonida Laçi is an artist who creates disturbingly idiosyncratic scenarios with moving images. Her sensitive spatial installation Ajar impressed and surprised the jury alike. Her strong artistic position and precise use of media left a lasting impression.’

The Kunsthalle Wien Prize is an important platform, providing young artists in Vienna the opportunity to make their first institutional solo exhibition and publication. It also highlights the dynamic ‘junge Szene’ of Vienna while underscoring the central role that the Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Applied Arts play in contemporary art in discourse in the city.

We had an overwhelming response to the call this year, providing the juries with the difficult task of selecting just two artists from over one hundred diploma presentations.