Since 2024, the BMW Photo Award Leipzig has been presented every two years to artists who either have a personal connection to Leipzig and the surrounding region or whose work explores the city and its surroundings. In 2026, three very different individuals—Viktoria Binschtok, Harald Kirschner, and Jay Ritchie—will receive the award. Not only do they belong to different generations, but they also employ fundamentally different photographic approaches, each of which represents an important tradition in Leipzig’s recent photographic history.
VIKTORIA BINSCHTOK
Viktoria Binschtok (b. 1972, Moscow, Russia) practices a form of meta-photography, using photographic images to reflect on the nature of the medium and its use in the digital world. This approach has its origins in the tradition of the so-called Pictures Generation of the 1960s and 70s in the United States, which, at that time, naturally focused on analog visual culture—though one that was also shaped by mass media. In Leipzig, this approach was introduced by Binschtok’s teacher, Timm Rautert, in the 1990s and 2000s at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig (HGB).
HARALD KIRSCHNER
Harald Kirschner (b. 1944, Reichenberg (Liberec, Czech Republic)) explores questions of queer identity, visibility, and belonging through analog, classically composed portrait photography. His work is closely linked to Tina Bara’s class at the HGB; her work, like that of many of her students, deals with an intense and often painful autobiographical examination of the relationship between the body and identity.
Jay Ritchie (b. 1992, Hanover) studied at the Ostkreuz School of Photography and Design in Berlin between 2013 and 2016, before studying photography at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB) under Tina Bara; from 2020 to 2022, Ritchie completed his master’s degree at the HGB under Tina Bara. Jay Ritchie lives and works in Berlin.
The exhibition presents works from different series by all three award winners to provide as broad an overview as possible of their bodies of work. Each artist is given their own space to showcase their work in its own right. At the same time, the layout of the exhibition spaces creates interesting interactions between the three bodies of work.
Sponsored by the BMW Group.
