Skulptur Projekte Münster Names First Five Artists for 2027 Edition
Skulptur Projekte Münster has announced the first five artists for its 2027 edition, setting the stage for a citywide exhibition shaped by questions of public space, social division, and migration. Curated by What, How & for Whom (WHW), the decennial will run from June 13 through October 3, 2027, across Münster.
The first artists revealed are Guyanese-British sculptor Hew Locke (b. 1959), Colombian-born artist Oscar Murillo (b. 1986), Bosnian artist Selma Selman (b. 1991), Polish artist Iza Tarasewicz (b. 1981), and Hungarian artist Róza El-Hassan (b. 1966). WHW said more names will be announced in the months ahead, with roughly 30 artists expected in total.
The curatorial collective — made up of Zagreb-based curators Ivet Ćurlin, Nataša Ilić, and Sabina Sabolović — said the 2027 edition is being developed against a more severe global backdrop than the one that framed the exhibition’s last outing in 2017. At a press conference, they described a climate in which political debate increasingly reads as confrontation rather than negotiation, and said they want to reaffirm art’s capacity to open unexpected forms of dialogue.
Their thinking was partly shaped by China Miéville’s 2009 novel “The City & the City,” which imagines two populations inhabiting the same urban environment while perceiving it in radically different ways. For WHW, that premise became a way to consider how cities organize social order, and how those divisions are intensified by wealth disparity, the rise of the far right, and threats to free speech.
The first commissions suggest how that framework will play out on the ground. Locke will create a large installation at Haus der Niederlande, a late-16th-century building originally used as a meeting place for local merchants. Selman will take over the former Hörster Friedhof, where she plans to reflect on family history and the shifting value assigned to scrap materials. Tarasewicz will develop an installation informed by nature and seasonal cycles for Gut Kinderhaus, a former farm now functioning as a community for people with disabilities. El-Hassan will work at two sites in Münster — the botanical garden and Berg Fidel, a 20th-century housing development with a demographically diverse population — on projects tied to migration and displacement.
Founded in 1977, Skulptur Projekte Münster is widely regarded as one of the most important exhibitions of contemporary art in public space. Its once-a-decade rhythm has made an invitation a career-defining moment for artists, who are given unusual latitude and resources to develop ambitious site-specific work. The 2017 edition drew the exhibition’s largest artist list to date, including Pierre Huyghe, Cosima von Bonin, and Nicole Eisenman. In 2007, Bruce Nauman’s “Square Depression” was finally realized, after first being proposed for the inaugural edition, which included Joseph Beuys, Donald Judd, and Claes Oldenburg.
The 2027 edition will be spread across Münster, turning the city itself into the exhibition’s primary medium.
