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American/British artist and activist Karen Knorr (b. 1954) is known for her sumptuous, conceptually driven photographs that employ opulent palaces, museums and temples of Western Europe and Asia to frame issues of power rooted in cultural heritage.

 

Knorr was born to American parents in Frankfurt, Germany, and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She studied art in Paris and London, where she eventually settled in 1976 and still lives today. Her multi-cultural upbringing was deeply influential, especially in the formative years of her career when she used photography to make sense of her world as a young Puerto Rican American assimilating to life in London. Her experience as an outsider is part of what sparked her longtime interest in exploring issues surrounding culture and society.
 
Knorr was also inspired by the artistic practices of friends and contemporaries, including photographers Bill Brandt, Bill Owens and Diane Arbus, as well as conceptual artists Michael Asher, Martha Rosler, Andrea Fraser and Hans Haacke, one of the leading proponents of institutional critique. In the 1970s, Knorr studied under noted photographer Eileen Cowin and artist Victor Burgin, who opened her eyes to new ways of critically engaging with photography and its relationship to institutions and heritage.
 
Over the course of her career, Knorr has used video and photography as a method of critical inquest. Her work has consistently examined the meaning of place, often drawing from folklore, myths and allegories to express contemporary ideas. More recently, her titles reference historic works of literature, such as Aesop’s Fables, the poems of Ovid and ancient epics from India, including the Rāmāyana, the Mahābhārata and the Panchatantra.
 
Knorr uses this layered storytelling approach to distance herself from more literal documentary photography. Lush, playful and spectacularly colorful, her images of exotic animals digitally fused into grand architectural settings are as aesthetically thrilling as they are thought-provoking.

 

Karen Knorr’s work has been exhibited around the world, including at Tate Britain; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; San Diego Museum of Photography, California; Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow; Kyoto Modern Museum of Art, Japan; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; and the Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai. Her work is in the collections of Tate London, Victoria & Albert Museum and the United Kingdom Government Art Collection, England; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris and Centre Pompidou, France; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; The Museum of Fine Arts Houston; and The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan, among others.
 
Knorr was awarded the Photography Pilar Citoler Prize in 2011 and she was nominated for the Deutsche Börse in both 2011 and 2012. She has also received nominations for the Prix Pictet in 2012 and 2018. As an advocate for women in photography, she was made an Honorary Fellow at the Royal Photographic Society in 2018, as well as Honorary Chair of Women in Photography.

Knorr is an activist as well as an artist, advocating for transnationality, equality and diversity in the art world. She is a professor of photography at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom.

New Box Set: Privileged by Karen Knorr
PUBLICATION
New Box Set: Privileged by Karen Knorr

Karen Knorr's Privileged  box set, published by STANLEY/BARKER, 2024, presents the artist’s exploration of the British aristocracy.  It includes Belgravia, Gentlemen and Country Life, in an edition of 25. 

 

Belgravia  (1979–1981) includes images and texts describing class and power among the international and wealthy during the beginning of Thatcherism

 

Gentlemen (1981–1983), photographed in English gentlemen’s clubs in central London, consider the patriarchal values of the English upper middle classes. 

 

Country Life (1983–1985) explores attitudes within the British aristocracy in the 1980s through a series of black-and-white photographs and textual fragments.

 

On Sunday, May 19, 2024, Knorr will give a talk and sign copies of Country Life and the box set at Offprint London the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. For information see STANLEY/BARKER’s social media.

 

Click here to buy.

New Monograph: Country Life by Karen Knorr
PUBLICATION
New Monograph: Country Life by Karen Knorr

Karen Knorr’s new monograph, Country Life, published by STANLEY/BARKER in April 2024, explores attitudes within the British aristocracy in the 1980s through a series of carefully structured black-and-white photographs and textual fragments. Knorr took the photos in London, Scotland and Oxfordshire in domestic interiors and gardens laid out according to the picturesque canons of the eighteenth century.

 

On Sunday, May 19, 2024, Knorr will give a talk and sign copies of Country Life and box set Privileged at Offprint London  in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. For information see STANLEY/BARKER’s social media.

 

Click here to buy.

KAREN KNORR AT THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY in Bristol, UK
Museum Exhibition
KAREN KNORR AT THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY in Bristol, UK

Photographer Karen Knorr’s work is on view at RPS Gallery (the Royal Photographic Society) in Bristol, UK, from 27 January – 27 March 2022

 

Her images are part of the exhibition Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors, which marks Holocaust Memorial Day by bringing together over 50 contemporary portraits of Holocaust survivors and their families. A special outdoor edition of the RPS exhibition is produced and hosted by UNESCO at its Paris headquarters as part of its commemorations around Holocaust Memorial Day.

KAREN KNORR AT FRAC DES PAYS DE LA LOIRE, France
Museum Exhibition
KAREN KNORR AT FRAC DES PAYS DE LA LOIRE, France

Images by Karen Knorr are on view in X, a group show at the At Frac des Pays de la Loire from May 19, 2021, to January 9, 2022.

The show, which includes the work of over 80 artists, marks the reopening of the Frac des Pays de la Loire in Carquefou after having been closed for over a year for major work on its collections.

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