BERLIN.- The Akademie der Künste is presenting this year’s Käthe Kollwitz Prize to the photographer, sculptor and media artist Edmund Kuppel. In awarding the prize, the Akademie is honouring this artist’s pioneering work on the relationship between photography and sculpture. His extensive oeuvre explores the processes of creation in photography, the technical conditions, and how photography is perceived. To mark the occasion of this award, the Akademie is presenting a special exhibition dedicated to a selection of Edmund Kuppel’s works produced since the late 1960s. The exhibition showcases sculptural photographic works, film, video and individual media art works and projection installations, as well as the Cabinet of Ferdinand von Blumenfeld, based on a series of remarkable bistro landscapes. The exhibition will also be premièring the film Les marches du héros absurde (2016).

Edmund Kuppel, born in Blumenfeld, Baden-Württemberg in 1947, now lives in Karlsruhe and Paris. He originally studied sculpture and art history in Karlsruhe. His teaching positions have included visiting professor for experimental photography at the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK) from 1987–88, heading a studio entitled Itinéraire at the École des Beaux-Arts in Angers in 1999, and teaching at the Kunstakademie Karlsruhe in 2002. In 2011, the ZKM | Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe hosted a major exhibition of his most important media art works from 1970 to 2010. This was accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König.

Edmund Kuppel’s works can be found in numerous public collections: Kunsthalle, Kiel; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Städtische Galerie, Karlsruhe; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe; Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Collection of prints, photographs and posters, Paris; ZKM | Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe.

The exhibition is accompanied by a small-format paperback catalogue.