News

India Song at No’Photo 2021 Geneva Photo Biennale

No’Photo 2021
Geneva Photo Biennale
25 September – 10 October 2021

This year’s exhibition entitled Animalities is proposed by Irène Attinger (former head) of the library of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and curator and Jörg Brockmann (director of the Espace) JB Gallery and co-founder of the Espace JB Association. On the occasion of No’Photo 2021, Arcoop Wall Project (AWP) for its second edition will take over the premises of the Arcoop cooperative, a five story historic industrial building showcasing the works of twenty photographers including Karen Knorr.

The 21st century, renewed reflection on the diversity of living beings has generalised the idea that man is not the centre of the world and that his existence is not the end of evolution. Ethology and cognitive science have shown that the existence of sometimes complex cultures is not specific to our species but is found in many other animals. The animals represented in the different series belong to all sorts of species, real, fantasized, metaphorical or even artificial beings. They are wild, bred or domesticated, free or captive. Alive exhibited they are prolific, rare, endangered. Dead they serve as food, trophies, decorative objects or fetishes. They are familiar, irritating, reassuring or worrying. The exhibition does not propose an answer to the questions raised by the relationship between man and other animals, but invites reflection and possibly contributes to the development of the visitor’s own opinion.

Karen Knorr: Transmigrations Solo Exhibition at Cromwell Place

KAREN KNORR: TRANSMIGRATIONS
Augusta Edwards Fine Art
Cromwell Place, London
20–31 October 2021

 

Announcing a new print edition and the solo exhibition ‘Transmigration’ by Karen Knorr with Augusta Edwards Fine Art in Gallery 1 at 4 Cromwell Place, London SW7 2JE. Plus Open Studio during Photo London.

Transmigrations refers to both displacement and reincarnation as well as to the migration of souls to an afterlife. In this age of climate change and of great migrations to come, where will our wildlife reside? Will the situation lead to a redefinition of living space in favour of the natural world and the displaced tribes? Animals appear in Knorr’s photographs as signifiers of a radical alterity, or “otherness”, representing the vulnerable, displaced, and rejected. Animals in three series (India Song, Monogatari and Fables), set in India, Japanese  and European interiors, are the principal actors in a perpetual conflict between nature and culture. Humans are now both perpetrators and victims of the oncoming horrors of our warming earth.

Photo London 2021 with HI-NOON

PHOTO LONDON 2021, Somerset House
8–12 September

Celebrating their debut at Somerset House HI-NOON are delighted to introduce new works into their collection of artist editions. The new editions, by leading and international artists including Catherine Yass and Lindsay Seers will be available exclusively, alongside works by acclaimed artists Karen Knorr, Rut Blees Luxemburg, Eva Stenram and exciting new talents Giulia Parlato and Yushi Li.

HI-NOON is an artist-led platform specialising in curated selections of photographic works in unique limited editions. Inspired by the culture of support and co-operation that thrives in artistic communities around the world, HI-NOON celebrates and sustains artistic practice through dynamically combining real world events – street poster campaigns, DJ parties, and exhibitions, with a distinct online presence.

Karen Knorr Open Studio During Photo London: 10–11 September 

Karen Knorr will open the doors to her London studio during Photo London. On display will be a number of new works and a selection from Academies and Gentlemen.

Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors Imperial War Museum, London

Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors
Imperial War Museum, London
6 August 2021–7 January 2022

 
In partnership with the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), Jewish News, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and Dangoor Education, this new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum London will showcase new works from 13 contemporary photographers, all members and Fellows of RPS, alongside photography by RPS patron, Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge. Displayed for the very first time, these powerful photographs capture the special connections between Holocaust survivors and the younger generations of their families. The commissioning process and exhibition were managed and curated by Tracy Marshall-Grant.

The systematic persecution of Europe’s Jews by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945 led to the mass extermination of 6 million lives. For those who survived, its memory and impact were life changing.

Karen Knorr met Sir Ben Helfgott MBE and Arza Helfgott for the first time in April 2021 during Covid-19 restrictions and was invited into their home to photograph them. Immediately made to feel at home, Knorr wanted to represent and celebrate the love between the couple at home in London.

Solo Exhibition Opening at Axel Pairon Gallery in Belgium

The Lanesborough at Knokke-Le Zoute
Axel Pairon Gallery, Belgium
July 21–August 29 2021

The “Lanesborough” (once a hospital closed in the 1990’s) is one of the most expensive hotels in the world, where the wealthy 1% strive to live the celebrity lifestyle. Rooms come with butlers and the hotel is a themed fantasy palace where the special few can find happiness and fulfil all their desires of a perfect weekend in London (or in a very luxurious seaside resort in Knokke-Le Zoute, Belguim).The animals here are undressed to kill and are all very willing subjects for Knorr’s camera. They pose, fly, flaunt their jewellery and royal connections who live down Buckingham Palace Road. This work could also be a playful satire on how to aspire to be rich and happy in a very exclusive part of Belgium: Knokke-Le Zoute. The works of Karen Knorr with the rich interiors of the Lanesborough will form a contrast with the smooth and natural beach outside the gallery.

Entire Gentlemen series included in Masculinities at Les Rencontres d’Arles

Gentlemen included in Masculinities
Les Rencontres d’Arles
4 July–26 September

The major touring group exhibition Masculinities, curated by Alona Pardo, will open next week at La Mécanique Général as part of the annual photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles in the south of France. Included in the exhibition is the entirety of Karen Knorr’s photographic work Gentlemen (1981-1983) which was photographed in English gentlemen’s clubs in Saint James’ in central London and considers the patriarchal values of the English upper middle classes with text constructed out of speeches of parliament and news. All 26 photographs that make up the series will be displayed, the first time this has happened in France since the work was debuted in Paris at Samia Saouma’s gallery La Remise du Parc in 1983.

Masterpiece London Art Fair Until 29 June, plus Masculinities in Arles 4 July–26 September

Masterpiece London Art Fair
Until 29 June

Masculinities in Arles
4 July–26 September

Karen Knorr is participating with Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Masterpiece London which this year is taking place online. Masterpiece London is the unmissable art fair where visitors can view and buy the finest works of art, design, furniture and jewellery – from antiquity to the present day.

Sundaram Tagore Gallery specialize in work that is aesthetically and intellectually rigorous, infused with humanism and art historically significant. Our artists produce museum-quality paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations with a strong emphasis on materiality. Our artists and photographers are well represented in renowned museums across the globe. We champion artists, particularly women and those from underrepresented cultures, whose work exemplifies our interconnectedness.

Group Exhibition X Opens At Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou

X, Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, France
19 May 2021–02 January 2022

To mark the reopening of the Frac site in Carquefou after having been closed for over a year for major work on its collections, the Frac des Pays de la Loire French Regional Collection of Contemporary Art is hosting an exhibition project by artist Claude Closky, entitled X. Karen Knorr’s series Country Life, which is part of the Frac Collection, is included.

“I designed a project revolving around temporal rhythms, using works from the collection, which I supplemented with pieces loaned from other artists, some of whom are already featured in the Frac and others who are not. What all of these works have in common is the fact that they look at the course of everyday life, the effect of time on work, or that they adopt a specific timeline in their modes of display. The viewing systems implemented throughout the exhibition, from November to June, will give visitors the chance to explore two forms of temporal pace in the work: the portrayal of the passage of time and the time required to accomplish the artistic act.

Bristol Photo Festival Opening 18 May and Punk Features In Landscape Stories

Island Life: Photographs from the Martin Parr Foundation
Opening 18 May 2021
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
Bristol Photo Festival

Island Life draws upon photographs from the Martin Parr Foundation collection to show the changing fabric of our cities, society and collective identities. Focusing on post-war from the UK and Ireland, the exhibition will bring together images by over 60 photographers including Khali Ackford, Pogus Caesar, Elaine Constantine, Sian Davey, Chris Killip, David Hurn, Ken Grant, Karen Knorr, Markéta Luskačová, Graham Smith and Tom Wood. Collectively the images form a compelling study of national behaviour.

The exhibition includes photographs which document moments of historical significance including the poll tax riot, the Aberfan mine disaster and most recently, the BLM movement. Island Life traces the evolution of documentary photography in Britain, the photographers who influenced Parr and the younger generation he is influencing in turn.

A God at the Door published by Tishani Doshi and group exhibition at Holden Luntz

A God at the Door published by Tishani Doshi and group exhibition at Holden Luntz

Karen Knorr’s London Studio is pleased to announce the UK publishing of Tishani Doshi’s fourth collection of poems A God at the Door by Bloodaxe Books which includes an image from India Song on the cover.

A God at the Door spans time and space, drawing on the extraordinary minutiae of nature and humanity to elevate the marginalised. These poems, taken together, traverse history, from the cosmic to the everyday. Tishani Doshi’s poetry bestows power on the powerless, deploys beauty to heal trauma, and enables the voices of the oppressed to be heard with piercing clarity. From flightless birds and witches, to black holes and Marilyn Monroe, A God at the Door illuminates with lines and images that surprise, inflame and dazzle.

Tishani Doshi is an award-winning poet and dancer of Welsh-Gujarati descent. In 2006, she won the All-India Poetry Competition, and her debut collection, Countries of the Body (Aark Arts), won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers (Bloomsbury, 2010), was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Hindu Fiction Award. Her third poetry collection, Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2018 in the UK, and for the poetry category of the 2019 Firecracker Awards in the US.