Mumbai-based artist Shilpa Gupta has been named the recipient of the Possehl Prize for International Art 2025, making her the third artist to receive this prestigious triennial award. The honour includes €25,000 in prize money and a solo exhibition at Kunsthalle St. Annen in Lübeck, Germany.
The award ceremony and exhibition opening took place on 27 September 2025, marking Gupta’s first major solo museum exhibition in Germany. The exhibition, titled “we last met in the mirror,” presents an overview of her multidisciplinary practice spanning several decades and will remain on view through 1 March 2026.
Gupta, born in Mumbai in 1976, studied sculpture at the Sir J. J. School of Fine Arts from 1992 to 1997. Her practice encompasses sound works, video projections, drawings, sculptures, interactive computer-based installations and performances. For over two decades, she has explored themes of belonging, security, censorship, religion, freedom of expression and human rights, with a particular focus on the effects of borders and state-imposed boundaries on societies.
The international jury, composed of directors from renowned art institutions including Dr. Anette Hüsch of Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Prof. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung of Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, and Dr. Florence Thurmes of Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, recognised Gupta for her sensitive handling of political issues and her wide-ranging use of media. Language and its inherent power form a central focus of her artistic work.
The jury emphasised the particular relevance of Gupta’s work to Lübeck, a city shaped by its geographic position on the Baltic Sea and its proximity to the former inner-German border. Her exploration of national, social, geographical and psychological boundaries resonates with the city’s own complex border histories.
Gupta follows Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, who received the inaugural award in 2019, and American artist Matt Mullican, honoured in 2022. The Possehl Prize for International Art, awarded by the Possehl Foundation established in 1919, focuses on sculpture, installation, new media and performance, with particular emphasis on intermedia connections within an artist’s body of work.
Gupta’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including Tate Modern, Serpentine Gallery, Centre Pompidou, the Mori Art Museum and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Her work is held in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Tate Modern, Centre Georges Pompidou and other major institutions. In 2025, she also received the Asia Arts Pathbreaker Award.
The exhibition at Kunsthalle St. Annen is curated by Noura Dirani, Director of the institution, and brings together interactive installations, sound, video, sculpture and performance works that confront questions of borders, censorship and belonging
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