Image: Neuer Aachener Kunstverein
At this year’s DC Open, Kunstverein Siegen, Westfälische Kunstverein and Kunstverein Unna received the WESTSTERN Prize 2026, while NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein received a special commendation.
The jury’s recognition of NAK cited Janis Löhrer’s exhibition ‘Right Place, Wrong Time’, shown at the institution in November 2025, as well as the art association’s ongoing programme. For the exhibition, Löhrer partially transformed the NAK’s rooms into a communal shower whose fixtures and props were made entirely from glazed ceramics.
The installation included a tiled wall with showerheads, trainers, apparently just-removed briefs, jockstraps, shampoo bottles and baseball caps. Drawing on personal experiences and observations of queer meeting spaces, including during a residency in Istanbul, the Aachen-born artist developed a room-filling installation of drawings and ceramics.
The jury described the installation as an engagement with safe spaces of queer desire and the visual codes of such spaces. It also praised NAK’s ongoing programme for giving space and visibility to diverse artistic positions, particularly queer ones.
Under artistic director Maurice Funken, NAK combines continuous exhibition activity with an open, experimental programme.
