Mexican artist Teresa Margolles has been awarded the Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2026.

With the award, the Akademie der Künste honours an artist who engages with the social causes and implications of death, destruction, displacement, discrimination, suffering and violence. She is best known for works dealing with Mexico’s rapidly changing social and economic situation and the associated precarious conditions that are compounded by crime. This conflict is exemplary of structural inequalities in societies, increasing migration and border conflicts all over the world. Margolles’ depiction of everyday life in her homeland does not, however, explicitly show anything spectacular. In this dynamic, Mexico appears as a blueprint that can reflect multiple movements. The media she uses includes photography, installation, watercolours, performance, objects and sound. Margolles was a fellow of the DAAD Berlin Artists-in-Residence Programme in 2017, and in 2018 presented a selection of her works at the daadgalerie in the exhibition “Sutura”.

The jury, consisting of Akademie members Rosa Barba, Alexandra Bircken and Raimund Kummer, were convinced by Margolles’ works and how they “address the emotions of many people in singular ‘gestures’. The Mexican-born artist subtly weaves pain into the process of perception. In the presence of the viewer, anonymous victims of systemic violence become virtual agents, whose voices are given a significant place in Margolles’ work.” According to the jury, the resistances of the repressed and of repression are temporarily breached through and in Margolles' art. “Her works are highly implicit and explicit, they penetrate deep under the skin and, with their pointed vehemence, impose themselves on the viewer. At the same time, the focus remains on the intimate subject of the depiction and that which is depicted.“

The prize will be awarded in autumn 2026 at the Akademie der Künste at Pariser Platz. To mark the award ceremony, Teresa Margolles will create an installation in the Akademie building at Pariser Platz, which will be accompanied by a small publication.

Teresa Margolles, born in 1963 in Culiacán, Sinaloa (Mexico), lives and works in Mexico City and Madrid. She attended art school in Culiacán, studied communication sciences at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and completed training as a forensic pathologist at the Servicio Médico Forense (Forensic Medical Service of Mexico City). In 1990, together with Arturo Ángulo Gallardo and Juan Luis García Zavaleta, she founded the artist collective SEMEFO (an abbreviation of Servicio Médico Forense). The collective initially performed as a death metal rock band and underground performance group, which until 1999 put on exhibitions, performances, installations and videos, among other things, tackling themes of social violence and death in Mexico. In this context, the collective also experimented with human remains. During this period, Teresa Margolles began focusing on and exhibiting her own work, before leaving the collective around the year 2000.

1994 and 1996: Jóvenes Creadores (sculpture and alternative media) scholarship from the Fondo Nacional de Cultura y las Artes; 1999: Participation in an art exchange programme between Mexico and Colombia; 2017: Fellow of the DAAD’s Berlin Artists-in-Residence Programme. Participation in international group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (Mexican Pavilion 2009, Main Exhibition 2019, 2024), the 2nd Sydney Biennale (2020), and Manifesta 11, Zurich (2016). Numerous solo exhibitions in museums around the world, including MARCO (Monterrey, Mexico), BPS22 (Charleroi), Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Witte de With (Rotterdam), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Zurich), Kunsthalle Fridericianum (Kassel) and Museum für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt).