Organizer Information
Die Blaue Nacht | The Blue Night is organized by the Projektbüro im Geschäftsbereich Kultur (Culture Department Project Office) of the City of Nuremberg. Launched in 2000, the year after Nuremberg's 950th anniversary, the festival has grown into Germany's largest long night of art and culture, transforming the city's historic Old Town into a citywide programme of art, culture, and encounter for one weekend each spring. It now draws around 110,000 visitors annually to more than 200 programme events across over 50 participating cultural institutions, including museums, churches, theatres, and music halls, all illuminated and activated for the occasion. Since 2005, the festival has run a dedicated Art Competition inviting artists to realise site-specific projects across the courtyards, indoor locations, and squares of Nuremberg's inner city, adding a curated, competition-driven layer to the wider civic festival.
Title & Description
Die Blaue Nacht | The Blue Night — Art Competition 2027
The Blue Night Art Competition invites individuals and groups working in any artistic discipline to propose site-specific projects for realisation during the 2027 edition of the festival. The organisers are looking for art that inhabits space, engages audiences, and holds its own across two consecutive nights of high visitor traffic — installations, light art, performance, interactive and participatory work, and media art are all eligible; flat works and small-scale sculpture are explicitly not suitable for the exhibition venues. A jury will select up to 10 projects in autumn 2026 for realisation during the Preview evening and the main Blue Night event in April 2027.
Theme
Icarus takes flight — and falls. The 2027 call invites artists to bring the myth of Icarus and Daedalus into dialogue with the present, exploring themes of hubris, longing, self-overestimation, and the price of daring to begin — including where society may currently be "flying too close to the sun," and which utopias lift versus which send us plummeting. The organisers describe the associative range as deliberately broad, spanning Greek mythology, Romanticism, space exploration, dramatic collapse, and collective departure, with possible entry points including climate change, demographics, artificial intelligence, political polarization, and personal limits.
Categories
- Installation
- Light Art
- Performance
- New Media
- Media Arts
- Interdisciplinary Arts
- Site-specific
- Public Art
Eligibility
- Open to individuals and groups working in any artistic discipline
- Work must be site-specific and suitable for courtyards, indoor locations, or squares in Nuremberg's inner city
- Flat works (e.g. paintings) and small-scale sculpture, presented in the manner of a white-cube exhibition, are not eligible
- Projects must function continuously for 4 to 5 hours on both Friday and Saturday of the event; performances may need to be repeated
- Artists are required to be personally present at their project on both event days
- Light-based works must account conceptually or spatially for the fact that full darkness only sets in around 9pm
Program Benefits & Awards
- Flat artist's fee of €1,500 (plus VAT where applicable) per selected project, regardless of the number of participants — covering concept development, preparation, install, de-install, and attendance during the Preview and the Blue Night
- Expense reimbursement of up to €4,500 (incl. VAT) upon submission of receipts, covering technical equipment, transport, accommodation, travel, install/de-install staff, barriers, performance rights, and similar project costs
- An advance of up to €750 available on request
- Additional sponsorship secured independently by the artist can be added to the project budget after consultation with the organisers
Application Fee
None
How to Apply?
Email: blaue.nacht@stadt.nuernberg.de
Key Dates
- Application Deadline: 31 July 2026
- Site Visits (venue tours): mid-May 2026
- Jury Selection: autumn 2026
- Preview: Friday, 23 April 2027
- The Blue Night: Saturday, 24 April 2027
Location
Nuremberg Old Town, Germany
Additional Details
- Jury decisions are final and will not be substantiated
- Selection criteria: artistic quality and conceptual originality; engagement with the theme as artistic interpretation rather than illustration; suitability for the specific venue and event conditions; and plausibility and adherence to the proposed budget
- Applicants may indicate one or more preferred exhibition venues, but final placement rests with the jury; an up-to-date venue list is maintained at go.nuernberg.de/kunstwettbewerb
- Not eligible for expense reimbursement: equipment for long-term use (e.g. projectors, laptops) exceeding €300 net (though hire costs for such equipment may be claimed), meals, and documentation expenses
- Planning should account for sustainability (reusability of materials) and cost efficiency (hiring rather than purchasing, where possible)
- The submitted cost breakdown is binding once confirmed by the jury, though it may be adjusted for the specific venue
- A full financial statement with all receipts and the budget plan must be submitted within two months of project completion; original receipts must be retained for five years
- Artworks remain the property of the artists; the City of Nuremberg is entitled to use photographs and videos of the works for public relations and documentation purposes
- All applications will be acknowledged by email