Rosemarie Trockel has received the prize of the Kulturstiftung Dortmund for her lifetime achievement, and she is splitting the €25,000 award between the Frauenhaus Dortmund and the Frauenhaus Potsdam women's shelters. The prize, awarded in the fine arts category for the first time since 2012, was presented at a ceremony that also opened her exhibition "Déjà-vu" at the Baukunstarchiv NRW.

Trockel did not attend the ceremony in person; her gallerist Monika Sprüth accepted the prize on her behalf. The laudation was given by Dr. Yilmaz Dziewior, director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and a member of the prize's independent jury, who praised the artist's versatility and her refusal to fit into familiar categories.

Born in 1952, Trockel is regarded as one of the most influential artists of her generation. Her work moves across knitting machines, video, sculpture, ceramics and print, and it consistently questions social conventions and cultural attributions, particularly around gender. Her quiet but pointed imagery has made her a reference point for several generations of younger artists.

The decision to donate the prize money gives the award a sharper profile than the usual lifetime-achievement honour. It places the artist's institutional recognition in direct relation to a social cause, turning the cheque into an act of solidarity with women facing domestic violence.

The Kulturstiftung Dortmund said the award recognises not only an extraordinary body of work but an artist who keeps challenging viewers to question received perspectives. With the donation, Trockel has once again shown how her art and her conduct remain inseparable: both are built on an insistence that conventions be tested, not obeyed.