Hito Steyerl Wins Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2019 at Akademie der Künste Berlin

Hito Steyerl, one of the world's most influential artists, has been awarded the Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2019 by the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. The prize comes with a solo exhibition at the Akademie's new minimalist space near the Brandenburg Gate. Steyerl, a German video artist and filmmaker born in Munich in 1966, is known for her critical stance on aggressive capitalism and the dual role of technology as both liberating and oppressive. The exhibition includes works from the late 1990s to recent years, such as 'Abstract' (2012), a binary video commemorating her friend Andrea Wolf, a PKK militant killed in a war zone, and 'Hell Yeah We Fuck Die', a memento piece from the 2016 São Paulo Biennial later shown at Skulptur Projekte Münster. Steyerl's art raises questions about ethical responsibility and technology's capacity for documentation and manipulation. She also teaches at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), where she co-founded the Research Center for Proxy Politics, and will face the challenge of the upcoming Venice Biennale, curated by Ralph Rugoff.