Germany 2026

Title: Ruin
Commissioner: ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen
Curator: Kathleen Reinhardt
Exhibitors: Henrike Naumann, Sung Tieu

Two distinct yet intersecting practices shape Germany’s contribution to the 61st Venice Art Biennale, with Henrike Naumann and Sung Tieu jointly occupying the German Pavilion. Curated by Kathleen Reinhardt on behalf of ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, the project brings together works that examine systems of order—social, political, and bureaucratic—while exposing the fractures between past, present, and future.

Following the passing of Henrike Naumann on 14 February 2026, after a short and severe illness, the presentation takes on a different resonance. Her death marks a profound loss for Germany’s artistic community, reframing the pavilion as one of her final major international projects.

Naumann approached political rupture through interiors, taste, and everyday aesthetics, creating immersive environments that reveal how ideology permeates domestic space. Sung Tieu, working across sculpture, sound, text, and archival materials, explores the afterlives of Cold War geopolitics, migration, and institutional control, producing installations where personal biography and global power structures intersect.