News

Research and Travel Grant 2025 goes to Mariama de Brito Henn

The Austrian Ludwig Foundation is pleased to announce that the Research and Travel Grant 2025 of €10,000—part of the Foundation’s Research Season 2025/26 “Beside, not infinite”—will be awarded to Mariama de Brito Henn. Chosen from over seventy applications, her project Memory of the Material – Textile and Memory Practices of the Diaspora convinced the selection jury, consisting of Ana Gonçalves Magalhães (Universidade de São Paulo), Seamus Kealy (Oakville Galleries, Ontario), and Alena Williams (University of California, San Diego). 

In her submitted project, Mariama de Brito Henn, a PhD-Candidate at the Cultural Heritage Chair at the University of Vienna, relates her research to the artistic practice of Brazilian artist Sonia Gomes, whose works are part of the Foundation’s collection. The grant from the Austrian Ludwig Foundation will enable Mariama de Brito Henn to travel to Brazil and Cuba in order to develop her project further, which she describes as follows:

Memory of the Material – Textile and Memory Practices of the Diaspora explores how the rich costume and textile practices and traditions of afro-spiritual religions such as Candomblé in Brazil and Santería in Cuba can function as an alternative archive of the cultural memory of the African diaspora, formed by the transatlantic slave trade. The research thus embeds the works of Sonia Gomes, whose artistic expression and understanding is deeply rooted in the traditions of Candomblé, in a broader historical and cultural context of an often-overlooked part of the Black Atlantic.”

 

Research Season “Beside, not infinite”
2025/26

“Beside, not infinite” is a collection-related research season, conceived by the Austrian Ludwig Foundation for 2025/26. Within the framework of a series of events, a travel and research grant, and a concluding publication, “Besides, not infinite” takes seven works from the collection as its starting point. Over the past ten years, the Foundation purchased these works at the suggestion of four Austrian national museums—the Albertina, Belvedere, MAK, and mumok—and made them available as permanent loans to these museums’ public collections.

The works by Yto Barrada, Rosemarie Castoro, Sonia Gomes, Jann Haworth, Lee Lozano, Julie Mehretu, and Ingrid Wiener which have been selected for this project can be seen as material and discursive nodes, situating the collective and academic conversations that “Beside, not infinite” wishes to initiate within the context of the collection. Read more under Research

Purchases in 2024


In accordance with its purchasing and funding policy, the Austrian Ludwig Foundation purchases works of art for the collections of the Republic of Austria. By making these purchases, the Foundation fulfils its task of enhancing the collections of the federal museums in substantive terms, supplementing its statutory mission, i.e. also regarding an aesthetically complex and socially relevant concept of art.

In 2024 the Austrian Ludwig Foundation purchased works by the following artists as permanent loans for the museums:

For Albertina: Jo Ractliffe, Toni Schmale

For Belvedere: Ursula Pürrer & Ashley Hans Scheirl

For MAK: Ranti Bam, Hana Miletić

For mumok: Radcliffe Bailey, Yto Barrada, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Robert Gabris, Iman Issa, Fahamu Pecou, Maud Sulter, Moffat Takadiwa

For more detailed information on the works purchased historically, see the Art and Culture Reports published by the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport of the Republic of Austria.

Archive

Call for Applications: Travel and Research Grant 2025
Deadline: December 15, 2024

As part of the collection-related research season 2025/26 “Beside, not infinite,” the Austrian Ludwig Foundation is offering a grant in 2025 to support research for academic as well as artistic and curatorial projects in the field of visual arts by funding a research trip outside of Austria. The Foundation invites scholars, curators, and artists living in Austria to apply.

Download Call for Applications

The application documents must be sent as a single PDF to office@ludwig-stiftung.at by December 15, 2024 with the subject “Grant Submission.” Due to the international jury, only submissions in English can be considered.

Dr. Gottfried Toman Receives the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art I Class in March 2023

 

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Carla Cugini, Gottfried Toman, Theresia Niedermüller, © BMKÖS/HBF/Pusch

New Managing Directors of the Austrian Ludwig Foundation from January 2024


Download press release (German only)

nullSylvia Tuczka, Theresia Niedermüller, Bettina Brunner © Paul Kulec, HBF

Obituary Prof. Hermann Fillitz ( June 14, 2022)