In collaboration with Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen, the Kunststiftung NRW Art Prize – Nam June Paik Award will be awarded to Michael Beutler (born 1976, lives and works in Berlin and Aachen) in 2026. Michael Beutler is being honoured for a large-scale installation that transforms the late 19th-century bourgeois villa into an artistic and artisanal production facility – a multi-storey workshop where waste paper is processed into sculptural objects.
Michael Beutler studied at Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main with Thomas Bayrle and at Glasgow School of Art. He is known for his monumental installations made of simple, recyclable materials, which he processes with tools he has built himself. The concept of the workshop plays a central role in his work: each of these works is created in a newly furnished production environment that itself becomes part of the artistic practice.
The prize is awarded on the recommendation of a selection jury including Enis Maci, Heike Munder, and Marcel Odenbach. For the first time, the Art Prize NRW – Nam June Paik Award will be presented in collaboration with the Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen, which is organising both the exhibition and the award ceremony.
A support award will also be presented during the event, which will go to
artist and curator Lisa Klosterkötter (*1990, lives and works in Cologne). The award gives her the opportunity to develop and realise a new work for the Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen.
In her projects, Klosterkötter often works collaboratively and in the public
space. For Gelsenkirchen, she is planning a multi-part exhibition and event
format which engages with forms of community, neighbourhood and public
coexistence. Readings, artistic interventions and performative formats at
various locations indoors and outdoors reflect the museum’s self-perception
as a place of both reflection and experience for the general public. The
museum will become a meeting place where social experiences, perspectives
and needs become visible and tangible. With artists from the fields of performance, painting, installation, literature and art education, a multi-layered programmewill emerge over the course of the exhibition.
Programm of events
May 21, 2026, 7 pm
Lisa Klosterkötter: "Über den Dächern" (Over the Rooftops)
A literary walk around the museum building, featuring storytelling and readings from Gelsenkirchen and the Ruhr region.
July 2, 2026, 5 pm
Get your hands on the mill!
Workshop activation and artist talk
From 5 pm to 7 pm, the artist will open his studio and invite visitors to join him in activating the paper mill in the installation
"Tapetenwechsel" and to make their own paper.
7 pm: Joint tour of the exhibition with Michael Beutler and Julia Höner, Director Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen.
Registration is required for the workshop at jolanta.dammeyer@gelsenkirchen.de or +49 209 169 4377.
July 12, 2026, 2–5 pm
Lisa Klosterkötter: "Unter der Markise" (Under the Awning)
A village fair with performances, games, culinary interventions and a children’s programme in the museum garden.
