Susanne Kriemann

Susanne Kriemann (born 1972 in Erlangen) is a German artist. All her work is characterised particularly by engagement with the medium of photography within a social-historical and archival context. To date, her works have been exhibited at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, the Berlinische Galerie and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago amongst other venues.

Life and work

Having completed her art studies at the Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenen Künste (Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design) in 1997, where she was taught, amongst others, by Joseph Kosuth and Joan Jonas, she moved to Paris and attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts for a year, until 2000. Kriemann has taken part in various artist in residence programmes in Moscow, Stockholm and Cairo.

Susanne Kriemann's fascination with and interest in photography is directly reflected in her works. By using countless photographic prints from different epochs, either made by the artist or collected by her, Kriemann takes on, in so doing, not only a historic and documentary aspect in her work, but at the same time indicates the associated meaning of the archive.^[1] Gradually boundaries disappear or dissolve, as is, for example, clearly visible in her work Het Licht, where she captured the empty printing press of the same name in Rotterdam, a month before it closed. The installation that emerged from this, which could be seen in the context of a solo exhibition at the Zurich gallery RaebervonStenglin in early 2013 and on the occasion of the exhibition project Track in Ghent, showed both analog and digital photographs laid out on black tables that were lit directly. Their format varied, as did the structures, colours, themes and light sources presented. This comparison of different aspects and circumstances turns out to be a central theme in Kriemann's artistic process. 'For the artist the work for a project starts mostly with the search for a good story. She very often finds this in connection with a specific context, be that a particular exhibition project or a longer visit as an artist in residence' Mirjam Varadinis, writer and curator at the Kunsthaus Zürich, has written regarding Kriemann.^[2]

In Ashes and Broken Brickwork of a Logical Theory she set off on the trail of Agatha Christie, when Christie visited Mesopotamia in 1930 as a photographer for the British Museum together with her future husband Max Mallowan, an archaeologist. Susanne Kriemann reconstructed this visit photographically and combined the images that resulted with those of Christie and of Leonard Wolley's book Digging up the Past for Ashes and Broken Brickwork of a Logical Theory. The importance of research is particularly evident in this work. Varadinis has even identified it as the artist's medium.^[3] Thus the archive in and of itself has an important position in her work. Susanne Kriemann proceeded in a similar fashion for RAY, a work from 2013, which emerged during an artist in residence programme in Vienna's 21er Haus. There Kriemann presented a selection of photographs which she had taken during a research trip to Texas, amongst others. Where various minerals, which are essential for contemporary technology, had already been found in 1887, the artist now took numerous pictures in the area of Barringer Hill. Her idea was to re-shoot the photographs from the Barringer-Hill photography collection. Once more Susanne Kriemann returns to an archive and confronts the past with the present. Each of the five photographs, of rare earths, monoliths or cave walls, say, carries the story or description, as the case may be, with which Kriemann engages in her work RAY.

Susanne Kriemann is represented by the galleries RaebervonStenglin in Zürich and Wilfried Lentz in Rotterdam. The artist lives and works in Berlin.

Exhibitions (selection)

• 2013: Modelling (Construction School), Arnolfini, Bristol, UK; Het Licht, RaebervonStenglin, Zürich, CH.
• 2012: Everything was soulful and all souls were one, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam, NL; Het Licht, KASK, De Zwarte Zaal Gent, BE; Cold Time, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, D.
• 2011: A Silent Crazy Jungle Under Glass, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, CH.
• 2010: Ashes and broken brickwork of a logical theory, RaebervonStenglin, Zürich, CH, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, D, KIOSK, Gent, BE.
• 2009: One Time One Million (Migratory Birds Romantic Capitalism), Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam, NL.
• 2007: The originality of the avant-garde and other modernist myths, Projectstudio, Berlin, Germany.
• 2004: TCM – The Quiet American, Städtische Galerie Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany.

Grants and awards

• 2012: Grant of the Berlin Senate 2012
• 2010: GASAG Kunstpreis (Art Prize) '10, Berlin, Germany
• 2009: Preis der Kunststiftung Erlangen (Prize of the Erlangen Art Foundation)

Publications (selection)

• Hilke Wagner, Axel Wieder (Ed.s), Susanne Kriemann, Sternberg Press, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-943365-69-6.
• Susanne Kriemann, Reading, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2011, ISBN 978-1-934105-49-8.
• Susanne Kriemann, ONE DAY, Witte de With Publishers, Rotterdam, 2010, ISBN 978-90-73362-95-6.
• Susanne Kriemann, Ashes and Broken Brickwork of a Logical Theory, Roma Publications, Amsterdam, 2010, ISBN 978-90-77459-44-7.
• Susanne Kriemann, Thomas Köhler (et al.), Susanne Kriemann, Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86678-466-6.
• Susanne Kriemann, One Time One Million, Roma Publications, Amsterdam, ISBN 978-90-77459-35-5.
• Susanne Kriemann, 12650, A Prior Magazine, Bruxelles, 2008.
• Susanne Kriemann, Not Quite Replica, Rotterdam, 2006, ISBN 90-810795-1-4.

Links

• Susanne Kriemann’s official homepage
• Works by Susanne Kriemann at RaebervonStenglin
• Susanne Kriemann's CV (PDF) at Wilfried Lentz
• Susanne Kriemann in Mousse Magazine

References