With her video projections, performances and installations comprised of textile objects,
Franca Scholz addresses corporeal relations between intimacy, distance, dominance and exclusion. Scholz's practice is based on both self-authored texts and quotes from auto-fictional literature by female writers, language which manifests in space as spoken or written words. As fragmented narratives about desire, domesticity and (in)visibility, they allude to the mutual fragility and incompleteness of linguistic and physical representation.
Established in 1985, the Peter Mertes Stipendium awards 12,000 Euros annually and is one of the most renowned opportunities for young artists in the German Rhineland. Previous recipients include Monika Baer (1998), Matti Braun (1999), Thea Djordjadze (2001), Carsten Höller (1995), Friedrich Kunath (2001), Gregor Schneider (1996), and Gert and Uwe Tobias (2004) and Stefani Glauber (2018, KHM-gradute), Katharina Monka (2016, KHM-graduate), Evamaria Schaller und Timo Seber (2012, KHM-graduate), Johannes Wohnseifer (1998, Prof. at KHM in painting/sculpture in media context).
Lotte Maiwald and
Franca Scholz were selected by a jury comprising
Michelle Cotton (former Director, Bonner Kunstverein),
Nikola Dietrich (Director, Kölnischer Kunstverein),
Anthony DiPaola (artist and board member, Bonner Kunstverein) and
Anne Pöhlmann (artist and Peter Mertes recipient 2013).
Franca Scholz (*1988, Munich), completed her studies in the class of Rita McBride at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2016 and at KHM since 2017 (Diploma 2). Her work has been exhibited at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2020), Kunstmuseum Solingen (2018) and Tanzhaus NRW, Düsseldorf (2017). She lives in Cologne.