© Andrea Rossetti
With “Ruin”, Sung Tieu and Henrike Naumann transform the German Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2026 into a space where history becomes materially tangible. Curated by Kathleen Reinhardt, the contribution brings together personal memories, political ruptures and architectural traces in a multilayered exploration of contemporary Germany and its historical continuities.
The project begins with the question of how political violence, social uncertainty and authoritarian dynamics remain inscribed in spaces, images and the aesthetics of everyday life. Both artists work with historical traces, personal memories and architectural fragments to present the present not as self-contained, but as a continuation of past conflicts. “Ruin” therefore refers not only to the decay of buildings, but also to political and social ruptures whose consequences continue to shape the present.
Sung Tieu covers the monumental architecture of the pavilion with the façade of a former prefabricated housing block on Gehrenseestraße in Berlin, built during the GDR era. The complex was once one of the GDR’s largest residential facilities for contract workers and was also her own home for a time. Today, the buildings are being demolished. In Venice, the façade is recreated as a large-scale mosaic, connecting questions of migration, memory, surveillance and displacement with the history of the German Pavilion itself.
Inside the pavilion, Henrike Naumann uses furniture, curtains, wall colours and interior design to create an installation exploring social militarisation, right-wing violence and the history of transformation in East Germany.
Her work connects the postwar period, everyday life in the GDR and the “baseball bat years” of the 1990s to form an “archaeological prehistory of the present”. She examines how political tensions and social divisions become embedded in everyday spaces and aesthetic habits. Henrike Naumann played a leading role in developing her contribution until her sudden death in February 2026. The German Pavilion team is realising the work in close consultation with her studio and carrying forward her artistic vision.
This year, the pavilion also has close ties to Hamburg. Sung Tieu graduated from the University of Fine Arts Hamburg, where she most recently served as an interim professor. Henrike Naumann was due to take up a professorship at the university in autumn 2026. Between prefabricated housing, domestic interiors and the pavilion’s monumental architecture, “Ruin” creates a space in which German history is not told as a linear narrative, but remains tangible in all its simultaneity and contradictions.
Henrike Naumann’s artistic voice will be deeply missed far beyond this Biennale.
| Funding period | 9 May to 22 November 2026 |
| Venue | La Biennale di Venezia, Italy |
| Grant amount | 40.000 Euro |
| Website | www.deutscher-pavillon.org/en |