About the Artist

Katharina Sieverding (born in 1944) is a German photographer. Sieverding lives and works in Berlin and Düsseldorf. Sieverding's works mostly consist of self-portraiture and most have an abstract quality. She uses the techniques of silhouette, contrast, and extreme close-up. Her work often makes statements about society and the individual, such as showing the familiarity of the self and the distance of others. Often she puts multiple portraits together in one piece. Each portrait fills the frame in a way to show the presence of self. Sieverding took part in documenta 5 in 1972, documenta 6 in 1977 and documenta 7 in 1982, Kassel, and in 1997 she exhibited in the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Her solo exhibitions include: Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (1998); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1998); Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf (1997–98); Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (1993); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1992). Collective exhibition: "Objectivités – La photographie à Düsseldorf" – Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2008) C Les Rencontres d'Arles, France (2010). In the United States, her works have been shown at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and ICA, Boston. In 2004 and 2005, New York's MoMA PS1 and Kunst-Werke Berlin presented an extensive survey of her work. She is a professor emeritus at the University of the Arts, Berlin.