Connoisseurs & Academies

Published by Kehrer, 2024

Karen Knorr’s photographic series Connoisseurs & Academies induce a kaleidoscope of memories: Photographed between 1986 and 2005 with an analog camera, her images let us venture into the intricate world of the history of museums and stately homes, of objects, paintings, connoisseurship, and the structures of academies. The use of animals as an allegorical motif is today embedded in Knorr’s practice, but they first appear in Connoisseurs, where a chimpanzee becomes the Genius of the Place.