What the Photos Show
Today there was post from the state parliament. The SPD parliamentary group sent all jury members photos of our session on July 2, the session in which we decided on Leyla Yenirce. That was eleven weeks ago. I looked at the pictures for a long time, as a photographer and as someone who is in them. An unfamiliar role. Usually I am on the other side of the camera. And looking at them, the feeling of that day was right back: I walked out of that session with a really good feeling.
The two stories before this one tell how the decision came about and what work went before it. This one is shorter. It shows the place and the people, and it tells why the professional association sits at this table. What was discussed in the session stays within the jury.
If you picture a jury, you might imagine a small room with heavy armchairs. The room in the state parliament is bright: long white tables, blue chairs, wood on the walls, tall windows. A microphone stands at every seat. And the parliamentary group had gone to a lot of trouble. There was coffee in white cups and tasty bread rolls, water and juice, and the atmosphere was simply friendly. Between the cups lay the piles of papers.
Part of the jury sat in the room, anyone who could not come to Hanover joined via Microsoft Teams, on a large screen on the wall. That sounds technical, but it works well when everyone is patient. You raise your hand, you let people finish, you wait for the sound to arrive from far away. It slows the conversation down. Sometimes that does a decision good.
What surprised me that day was how constructive and how appreciative the exchange was. I would not have thought we could agree on so much in such a short time. What exactly was discussed stays within the jury. But I am very happy with the decision.
It was a really wonderful jury. It included Anne Prenzler, curatorial director of the Städtische Galerie KUBUS in Hanover, who chaired it, and Dr. Anna Heinze, director of the Landesmuseum Kunst & Kultur Oldenburg. Eva Birkenstock, director of the Kestner Gesellschaft Hanover. Ina Grätz, scientific director of the Kunsthalle Emden. Nils-Arne Kässens, director of the Museumsquartier Osnabrück. Christoph Platz-Gallus, director of the Kunstverein Hannover. Carolin Knüpper of the Kunstverein Wolfenbüttel. Prof. Anette Haas of the Institute for Design and Representation at Leibniz University Hanover, Prof. Dr. Rahel Puffert of the Braunschweig University of Art and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Monika Steinberg, dean at Hochschule Hannover. And me, for the BBK Lower Saxony.
Dr. Anna Heinze has been director of the Landesmuseum Kunst & Kultur Oldenburg since December 1, 2025. She studied art history, medieval history and communication science in Bamberg and Berlin and wrote her doctorate on the reclining female nude in Renaissance painting. From 2016 she was the museum's curator for fine art, applied art and design, later its deputy director. Until August 23 her museum showed Leyla Yenirce's exhibition “Werdegang”.
Anne Prenzler is the curatorial director of the Städtische Galerie KUBUS in Hanover. The KUBUS on Theodor-Lessing-Platz belongs to the city's cultural office and sees itself as a platform for the local art scene, one that wants to connect it with debates and people beyond the region. On our jury, Anne Prenzler was the chair.
I sat on this jury as a representative of the BBK Lower Saxony, not as a private person. The Bund Bildender Künstlerinnen und Künstler für Niedersachsen, the state association of visual artists, has existed since 1946. Around 800 artists belong to it today, in eleven district groups, one of them here in Celle. The association is democratically organised and free of party political ties. It campaigns for regulated exhibition fees, for improvements in artists' social insurance and for copyright and resale rights to be harmonised across Europe.
A jury brings together people who show, collect, teach and communicate art. The association brings the view of those who make it. When I say something there, it is not about my taste. It is about making sure the work of many colleagues in Lower Saxony reaches the table at all. Every jury member could put forward proposals, and that is exactly where you need someone who knows the scene from the inside.
The photo looks like a group photo, but it isn't really one. It only shows the three of us who were still there at that point. The jury was much larger. On October 6 the prize will be presented to Leyla Yenirce at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover. I am really looking forward to it, and I will tell that story afterwards.