BERLIN.- Deutsche Bank has named Lucia Tallová its “Artist of the Year” for 2026. Born in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 1985, the artist graduated from the local Academy of Fine Arts and gained international recognition in 2022 through her participation in the 16th Lyon Biennale. Tallová works at the intersection of painting, collage, assemblage, and installation.

Her primary media are paper and photography, which form the focus of the Deutsche Bank Collection. Her often room-filling installations resemble surreal tableaux that explore memory, human and geological history, and develop new forms of storytelling and archiving.

Lucia Tallová was nominated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, directors of the Hamburger Bahnhof—Nationalgalerie für Gegenwart—Berlin and founders of the curatorial platform Art Reoriented. They succeed Stephanie Rosenthal, director of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project.

“Lucia Tallová's interdisciplinary approach aligns with the progressive ethos of the “Artist of the Year” award,” say Bardaouil and Fellrath. “Her works are profound reflections on memory, identity, and material culture. They engage impressively with socio-historical narratives and challenge viewers to question their own histories.”

For her collages and assemblages, Tallová uses photographs from old books and magazines, often combining them with found objects, fragments of furniture, and natural materials. Her abstract, gestural paintings evoke ethereal landscapes, clouds, and volcanic eruptions. She presents her works within stage-like architectures of minimalist wooden constructions that merge constructivist formal language with theatricality.

“Tallová creates distinctive spaces of experience and memory that address ecology, modernity, loss, and utopia ,” says Britta Färber, Global Head of Art & Culture at Deutsche Bank. “It is precisely her use of simple, everyday artistic means to explore the fragility of memory in a digital present that makes her work so contemporary.”

Tallová’s first institutional solo exhibition in Western Europe will open at the PalaisPopulaire in Berlin in September 2026.

Deutsche Bank “Artist of the Year”

Launched in 2010, the “Artist of the Year” award recognizes promising artists who have already created work of artistic and social relevance, integrating the two core areas of the Deutsche Bank Collection: works on paper and photography. Works on paper and photography. Since 2023, the bank has invited a different leading figure from the international art world to nominate the “Artist of the Year” for a two-year period, before passing the role to another curator or expert. The award includes a solo exhibition, acquisitions for the Deutsche Bank Collection, and a monographic publication.

Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath served as associate curators at the Gropius Bau in Berlin from 2017 to 2021. Since January 2022, they have been directors of the Hamburger Bahnhof—Museum für zeitgenössische Kunst—Berlin. In 2022, they curated the 16th Lyon Biennale and the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In early November 2025, they curated the 14th Taipei Biennial, Whispers on the Horizon, which will be on view in Taiwan until March 2026.