Star curator Hans Ulrich Obrist can add the 2015 International Folkwang Prize to his growing list of distinctions after the Folkwang Museum announced him as the winner of the award in a press release.

The co-director of London’s Serpentine Gallery is regarded as one of the most influential contemporary art curators in the world.

In 2012, Obrist and fellow curatorial celebrity Klaus Biesenbach put together the critically acclaimed performance-art group show “12 Rooms” at the Folkwang Museum as part of the Ruhr Triennial. A later iteration of the show, “14 Rooms,” was the most talked-about exhibition at Art Basel 2014.

The Folkwang Museum in Essen, Germany awards the prize annually since 2010.
Photo: plan-forward.de

Established in 2010 by the Folkwang Museum, the prize is awarded annually to individuals or institutions that demonstrate a commitment to the promotion of the arts in the spirit of the museum’s founder, Karl Ernst Osthaus.

Ulrich Blank, chairman of the Folkwang Museum’s benefactors association, stated that Obrist was selected for “his commitment to work closely with artists and raise the public profile of current art production, just as Osthaus did before him. He is as much a brilliant curator as a quiet and critical observer.”

Karl Ernst Osthaus (1874-1921) was one of the most important German art patrons at the turn of the 20th century.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Obrist will accept the prize worth €25,000 at a ceremony on November 2.

Previous winners include Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, London, in 2010, and the German entrepreneur and collector Reinhold Würth, in 2013.

Related stories:

Hans Ulrich Obrist and Klaus Biesenbach Bring 14 Rooms to Art Basel

Hans Ulrich Obrist Says Beuys and Warhol Would Have Loved Instagram