Steffi Klenz

Artist Statement

According to German philosopher Guenther Anders, Auschwitz and Hiroshima inaugurate an ear in which humanity is incapable of representing what it has set up or created. The impossibility of representing catastrophe is, paradoxically enough, not related to the absence of visual documentation. Today, evidence of disputes and war comes in the wake of the Internet, social media and the television. In our current society sites of dispute and conflict are no longer censored in any form but rather made into media spectacles. According to Anders, the un-representable is primarily defined as the inability to take measure of disaster. What is the role of photography in the new era of un-representable disaster? How, then, can we describe traumatic events or classified sites without veering into sensationalism? How do we provide information without succumbing to over-hyped curiosity or ‘conflict porn’? It is in light of these questions that the series Beun (2016) takes on its meaning. Beun begins with an Associated Press Photograph of a concentration camp in Ohrdruf in East-Germany, which no longer exists. I translated this image into a life-size model in the studio. Following the same spatial arrangements and dimensions of the original archive image and collaborating with a photographic historian, an architect, set builders and set dressers and lighting specialists, I created an exact replica of the space (in the photograph) in my studio in London. Collaborating with a software engineer, I applied different digital software algorithms to the photograph, which transformed or erased information of the image. This process results in the deformation of the image and creates several fragmented versions of the same image. By digitally corrupting the image file, the image becomes ruptured, deformed and ‘wrecked’ into digital codec mismatch. Each image becomes both a space of presence and absence at the same time: the detail revealed in one image is concealed in another.

Bio

My work has been shown ‭ ‬both ‭ ‬nationally ‭ ‬and ‭ ‬internationally at the FotoMuseum Antwerp, Wellcome Collection London, The British Museum, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Los Angeles Centre for Digital Arts, The Phoenix Art Museum, The Fine Art Museum Luleå, The SeaCity Museum in Southampton, The New Art Gallery Walsall, The Royal Academy London and The Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin and Museum Künstlerkolonie in Darmstadt. My work has been discussed in magazines such as Art Monthly, Art Review, Art World China, Elephant Magazine, The Architectural Review, Photographies, History of Photography Journal, Portfolio Magazine and HotShoe. I was commissioned to undertake the BBC East Tower Commission (2016-2017) in London and the Rights Of Passage Commission for the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.‬‬ I completed the Tunbridge Wells Museum and Cultural Quarter Commission in 2018. I am currently undertaking the Borough of Culture Project which is commissioned by The Mayor of London. I recently exhibited as part of the Biennale for Contemporary Photography in Germany in 2020 curated by David Campany. My solo-exhibition Tensed Muscles at the Camden Arts Centre in London is scheduled from 19th April-6th June 2021. My book He only feels the black and white of it has been selected to be part of exhibition on Conceptual Book Design to be exhibited at Museum of of Contemporary Art Taiwan from 5th February-31st March 2021.