Karen Knorr’s photography explores cultural heritage and its ideological underpinnings. Questions concerning post colonialism and its relationship to aesthetics have permeated her photographic work since the 1980’s. Her acclaimed work India Song researched the stories and myths of India, photographing animals and placing them in temples and palaces across heritage sites in India. Karen Knorr won the V International Photography Pilar Citoler Prize in 2010. She has been nominated for the Deutsche Börse in 2011 and 2012 and Prix Pictet in 2012 and 2018. Karen Knorr’s work is included in collections worldwide including Moma (San Francisco), The Museum of Fine Art (Houston), Museum of Art and Photography (Bangalore), Tate Museum (London) and Pompidou Museum (Paris).
Karen Knorr is an advocate for diversity and inclusivity in photography. She is honorary chairwoman for Women in Photography at the Royal Photographic Society and on the steering committee of Fast Forward Women in Photography and a friend of AWARE, the online women’s artist index.
Recent publications include with Gost, Questions After Brecht (2020) which raises questions about architectural space and the reification of labour during the redesign of La Samaritaine (2021) in Paris by the Japanese group Sanaa. A book project with Kehrer entitled Connoisseurs & Academies (1986–2005) and Country Life (1983–1985) were published by Stanley Barker in Spring 2024 and launched at Photo London 2024.
In 2024 Sundaram Tagore Gallery held a solo exhibition of Knorr’s work, Karen Knorr: Intersections, which showcased works from Knorr’s brand-new series Scavi, as well as recent additions to India Song and Fables alongside historical analog photographs from Knorr’s groundbreaking work from the 1980s and ’90s. Knorr showed some of her 1980’s work, Gentlemen (1981–1983) Tate Britain’s, Photographing 80’s Britain: A Critical Decade, 21 November 2024–5 May 2025. Karen Knorr will have solo exhibition at Matmut Centre D’Art Contemporain de la Matmut in Saint- Pierre de Varengeville, France, opening 7 February 2025.
