Loth Sculpture Area Prize – Sponsored by the L-Bank
Sculpture has traditionally played an important role at art karlsruhe. The sculpture:squares, ten by ten metre zones dedicated exclusively to three-dimensional art, bring space-defining situations into the high, light-flooded halls and create places of contemplation between the exhibition booths.
The Loth Sculpture Prize - sponsored by L-Bank - has been awarded at art karlsruhe since 2018.
The Loth Sculpture Prize was founded in 2018 to honour the commitment of the gallery owners and sculptors who bring these sculptures to Karlsruhe every year. The prize is named after the Karlsruhe academy professor Wilhelm Loth (1920 to 1993). An expert jury assessed all the installations - and has made some impressive choices in recent years.
The fact that the Loth Sculpture Prize always attracts a lot of attention is undoubtedly also due to the fact that it appears to be handsomely endowed. The L-Bank is once again providing 20,000 euros in prize money, which benefits both the artist and the gallery owner.
Laureate 2026: Galerie Schlichtenmaier and artist Robert Schad
The prize is awarded equally to the gallery and the artist. The winners of the eighth Loth Sculpture Prize are the Galerie Schlichtenmaier und artist Robert Schad.
The prize was awarded by a jury of experts who justified their judgement as follows: ‘Robert Schad draws in space. The artist transforms his material, solid square rods with sides measuring 60 mm, cut into different lengths and angles, into dancing space conquerors according to his sculptural ideas.
Robert Schad presents an installation covering approximately 100 square metres that extends far beyond this area and high above its edges into the space. This work of art is choreographically staged as a ballet of symbolic weightlessness by six steel-plastic ‘actresses’ of enormous weight and is presented for discussion.'
The material and construction of his steel sculptures with their rust-coloured surfaces have been recognised as Scham's trademark throughout Europe for decades; described countless times by art historians, gallery owners and cultural editors.
In his Karlsruhe compilation, the artist has once again succeeded in imaginatively combining the movement diagrams of ‘heavy lightness’ from six very different sculptures into a coherent composition in an interacting ensemble. Schad's imagination and artistic vision in his use of material, movement, time and space never cease to amaze. For years, he has been finding new variations on his ‘drawings in steel’, even though he consistently uses the same material – comparable to an architect who successfully creates new buildings again and again using the same material.
Robert Schad, a former student of Wilhelm Loth, is receiving the L-Bank's Wilhelm Loth Prize thanks in part to the media-effective and professionally and financially demanding commitment of the Schlichtenmaier Gallery. It recognised and promoted the artist's independent sculptural position.
The jury awarded Robert Schad the prize for 2026 by a majority vote, not least in view of his life's work."
The eponym Wilhelm Loth
The Loth Sculpture Area Prize is named after the artist Wilhelm Loth (1920-1993). Loth accepted an invitation in 1958 to teach a sculpture class at the art academy in Karlsruhe, where he served as a professor from 1960 until his retirement in 1986. Sculptures were always the focus of Wilhelm Loth’s artistic creativity. He utilized bronze, nickel silver and aluminium as materials. The depiction of the female body is the central artistic aspect about which his oeuvre revolved.
The Expert Jury 2026
- Alexander Heil , Estate administration Wilhelm Loth, Karlsruhe
- Madeleine Dietz, sculptor
- Dr. Pia Dornacher, Head of Museum Lothar Fischer
- Prof. Dr. Christiane Lange, Director Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Previous prize winners
- 2025 Eva Hild, Galerie Martina Kaiser, Köln
- 2024 Andreas Blank, Galerie Art Affair, Regensburg
- 2023 Klaus Münch, Galerie Albert Baumgarten, Freiburg
- 2022 Stefan Rohrer, Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg
- 2020 Gary Schlingheider, galerie burster, Berlin/Karlsruhe
- 2019 Jörg Bach, Galerie Wohlhüter, Leibertingen-Thalheim
- 2018 Joana Vasconcelos, Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg