In 2019 KHF-Berlin / Künstlerhof Frohnau and Kunstamt Reinickendorf have initiated the Dieter-Ruckhaberle-Award, a funded artist-in-residency for visual artists, including an exhibition, a production grant and a publication. The Dieter-Ruckhaberle-award commemorates the life and work of artist, curator and cultural politician Dieter Ruckhaberle. It is open to all visual artists whose work or wider professional practice is concerned with political, social or ecological questions.

Through an open call 5-7 artists will be selected for a shortlist exhibition at GalerieETAGE in Museum Reinickendorf. Out of these, one artist will be selected for the Ruckhaberle Award. The selected artist/s will get a fully equipped live-in studio at the KHF / Künstlerhof Frohnau for two months, a production budget of 2.000 € to cover art materials, equipment and/or living expenses, and the production of an artist book. From 2021-2023 the recipients were selected through nominations by a selected group of nominators from the art world. In 2019 and 2020, and again since 2024, artists are invited to submit their applications through an open call.

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Recipients of the Dieter Ruckhaberle Award 2019-2023:

2023 – Nafis Fathollahzadeh

2022 – Anna Scherbyna & Uliana Bychenkova

2021 – Surya Gied

2020 – Annette Frick

2019 – Luiza Prado

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Since the 1960s Ruckhaberle was a leading figure of West-Berlin’s cultural scene. He tirelessly promoted and worked towards better working conditions for artists in Germany, always convinced that artistic freedom could only be guaranteed by an absence of economic pressure. Ruckhaberle initiated the IG Medien, a union for media related professions, and the Künstlersozialkasse (KSK), a subsidized health insurance for artists. He co-founded various art institutions such as nGbK and the Staatliche Kunsthalle, as whose director he served for many years. As an artist Ruckhaberle created an extensive and multifaceted body of work, ranging between painting and sculpture, both abstract and figuratively, in search of new poetic forms and positions of critical contemporaneity. He passed away in May 2018 at his last major project: the Künstlerhof Frohnau, an artist “village” on the Northern outskirts of Berlin, which offers affordable studio spaces for artists since 1998.

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The jury for the 2023 Award consisted of:
Pauline Doutreluingne, curator, film maker, artistic director of Kunstverein Arnsberg
Rike Frank, co-director European Kunsthalle and executive director Berlin Artistic Research Grant Program
Boaz Levin, author,  curator, co-editor of Cabinet Magazine’s Kiosk
Setareh Shahbazi, Artist, KHF Berlin
Dr. Sabine Ziegenrücker, Director of Museum Reinickendorf

The jury for the 2022 Award consisted of:
Rike Frank, Co-Director European Kunsthalle, Executive Director Berlin Artistic Research Grant Program
Solvej Helweg Ovesen, Artistic Director Galerie Wedding
Setareh Shahbazi, Artist, KHF Berlin
Jan Verwoert, Author, art critic and curator
Dr. Sabine Ziegenrücker, Director Kunstamt Reinickendorf, Department of Art and History

The jury for the 2019-2021 Award consisted of:
Antonia Alampi, director Spore initiative
Kaya Behkalam, director KHF
Dr. Cornelia Gerner, director Kunstamt Reinickendorf
Gabriele Horn, director Berlin Biennial
Heike Ruschmeyer, artist

The network of nominators of recent years has been including Ketuta Alexi-Meskhisvili, Ulf Aminde, Elke aus dem Moore, Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock, Frauke Boggasch, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Azin Feizabadi, Annette Frick, Surya Gied, Assaf Gruber, Christine Hill, Suza Husse, Petrit Halilaj, Jörg Heiser, Judith Hopf, Hassan Khan, Stefan Koppelkamm, Annette Maechtel, Antje Majewski, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Ahmet Öğüt, Josephine Pryde, Sarah Rifky, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Yorgos Sapountzis, Angelika Stepken, Stefanie Schulte-Strathaus, Nina Tabassomi, Sandra Teitge, Andrea Thal, Raul Walch, and Tirdad Zolghadr.