CARRIE YAMAOKA

The Hamburger Kunsthalle is presenting the first solo exhibition in Germany devoted to the artist Carrie Yamaoka (b. 1957). The occasion for the show in the atrium of the Galerie der Gegenwart is the awarding of the Maria Lassnig Prize to the New York-based, multidisciplinary artist. Yamaoka’s interest in mutable materials and surfaces has given rise to works that often combine photography with text panels and reflective image supports. Chemical processes and fleeting transformations also play an important role in her work as she investigates the possibilities available for recording and documentation. Sometimes the artist revisits her earlier works after a few years and alters them, thus challenging the standard chronological development of an artistic oeuvre. The mirror-like surfaces of works that oscillate between painting, photography and sculpture cause space, light and viewers to intermingle in constantly changing perspectives and manifestations. 
Yamaoka was born in New York State and grew up partly in Japan. She is a member of the queer artists’ collective Fierce Pussy, which she co-founded in the early 1990s. Still active today, the collective formed in the midst of the AIDS epidemic and political mobilisation for the rights of the LGBTQI+ community.

Every two years, the Maria Lassnig Foundation awards a prize worth 50,000 euros to mid-career artists who deserve more recognition for their contribution to art. The prize was conceived by the painter herself, who died in 2014, and was awarded for the first time in 2017. It includes a solo exhibition at a prominent institution. Previous winners of the Maria Lassnig Prize are Lubaina Himid (2023, UCCA Beijing), Atta Kwami (2021, Serpentine Galleries, London), Sheela Gowda (2019, Lenbachhaus Munich) and Cathy Wilkes (2017, MoMA PS1, New York).

Thanks to this award, Maria Lassnig will be represented twice at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 2026: in the spring in a double exhibition with Edvard Munch and in the summer/autumn indirectly in the show by Carrie Yamaoka.