Maria Margarethe Drexel receives the Paul Flora Prize 2025
The multidisciplinary artist Maria Margarethe Drexel, Senior Artist in New Media at the Department of Fine Arts & Design at the Mozarteum University Innsbruck, is being honoured with the Paul Flora Prize 2025. The prize, endowed with 10,000 euros, is awarded annually alternately by the provinces of Tyrol and South Tyrol and honours outstanding artistic achievements and cross-border cultural cooperation.
Maria Margarethe Drexel is a multidisciplinary artist currently living and working between Los Angeles and Innsbruck. She is known for site-specific installations in relation to performance, language and (her) body. In 2016 she completed the Master's programme in Public Practice with Suzanne Lacy at Otis College for Art and Design in Los Angeles. Before that, she studied video and performance art, digital art and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, the weißensee kunsthochschule berlin and the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar, Saarbrücken, as well as philosophy and art history at the University of Innsbruck.
Drexel received a scholarship from the Otis College for Art and Design, work and project scholarships from the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna; BMKOES, the Cultural Department of the State of Tyrol, the City of Innsbruck and the Austrian Cultural Forum Berlin, as well as the Cusanuswerk Bonn. In 2021, she received the Tyrolean Prize for Contemporary Art and the Prize of the Province of South Tyrol at the 37th Austrian Graphic Design Competition.
Since 2019, Maria Margarethe Drexel has been working as a senior artist in the field of new media at the Department of Fine Arts & Design at the Mozarteum University in Innsbruck.
Excerpt from the jury's statement:
(Nina Tabassomi, Director of the Taxispalais Kunsthalle Tirol, curator Sabine Gamper for the province of South Tyrol and Andreas Flora as representative of the Flora family)
In her works, Margarethe Drexel explores major questions about the mechanisms of domination and subjugation. In her installations, textile works and sculptures, she often discusses these mechanisms in the context of Tyrol: in beliefs, customs and other traditional practices, reads an excerpt from the jury's statement.
The award ceremony will take place on 25 September 2025 in Glurns, South Tyrol.
Our warmest congratulations!