MANNHEIM.- The winner of the Hector Prize 2019 is Hiwa K. The artist comes from the Kurdish part of Iraq and has been living in Germany for more than 20 years. With his conceptually and narratively convincing artworks, Hiwa K raises questions dealing with homeland, identity, social and geopolitical power relations. His stories are closely associated with his own biography—with the armed conflicts in his homeland Kurdistan, the experiences of migration, globalization, nationalism, and propaganda.

On Televisions, Bells and Carpets – The Oeuvre
One of the stories that Hiwa K tells is dedicated to the insight gained through radio and television that a world beyond one’s own horizon exists. For example, in the antenna sculpture Qatees (2009) or the video installation My Father’s Colour Period (2013) that brings together 16 old black-and-white TVs whose screens are covered with colour foils. The idea goes back to his father who in 1979 brought colour TV to the family’s living room in this way. In works such as This Lemon Tastes of Apple (2011) and Do You Remember What You Are Burning? (2011), public protest and resistance against the ban on public assembly are in focus. The exhibition in Mannheim also features The Bell Project (2014/15) that captivated the audience at the Venice Biennale in 2015: Hiwa K had an old Italian foundry make a bronze bell out of military waste such as ammunition cases from the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War and the Iraq War. For the Hector Prize exhibition at Kunsthalle Mannheim, Hiwa K has created a new piece: Alchemy of Love, a carpet depicting an aerial photograph of the destroyed post-war Mannheim. The work is to be read in connection with the video installation View From Above (2017) produced for the documenta14 in Kassel.

Hiwa K – The Storyteller
Hiwa K (born in 1975) studied painting in Iraq and engaged with European literature, philosophy and music. In the mid-1990s, he fled to Germany, where he was first a flamenco student under Paco Peña, and from 2005 on he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Mainz. Works by Hiwa K have been exhibited internationally at, among others, the documenta14 in Kassel (2017) and the 56th Venice Biennale (2015).

Hector Prize
Since 1997, Kunsthalle Mannheim and the H.W. & J. Hector-Stiftung have been awarding the Hector Prize for contemporary art in Germany every three years. The prize promotes artists living in Germany, who are between 35 and 50 years old and work in the three-dimensional area of sculpture, object art, spatial and multimedia installations. Award-winners to date include Alicja Kwade, Nairy Baghramian, Tobias Rehberger, Florian Slotawa, and Gunda Förster.

Promoted by the H.W. & J. Hector Foundation.