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Anne Kathrin Greiner

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From the series The Lodgers
2007

‘contemporary - annual 2006’, text by Katie Kitamura, pp.56-57

There is a superficial simplicity to Anne Kathrin Greiner’s photographs, beneath which a tumult of ambiguities and sources of disquiet abound. Her work falls into rhythmic dualities: calm and unease, the literal and the metaphorical, the personal and the collective. This pairing of contrasts lends a unique density to the images, and it is precisely the boundary between them that the work so effectively captures.
Greiner is not known for her portraiture, but in her photographs of a teenage American football team in Germany, ‘Weinheim Longhorns (After Losing to Franken Knights)’ (2004), many of her central themes vividly collide. Capturing the awkwardness of male adolescence in faces which are by turns sullen and exuberant, cooperative and vulnerable, the photographs are shot through with a distant sympathy, a carefully measured compassion. But deft portraiture gives way to a series of complex concerns, such as the dynamic of the group and the individual and the growing ambiguity of cultural identity in our contemporary landscape.
The idea of borderlines appears everywhere in Greiner’s work, in both literal and elegantly metaphorical ways. Often, she locates a boundary within the landscape of place; in American Army Villages in Germany (2002), she photographed the physical border between American and German territories. Through this brilliantly literal gesture she invokes the troubled history of the American presence in post-war Germany, registered in military, economic and cultural terms.
What is clear from all of Greiner’s work is the degree to which she understands the profound power of place, its capacity to transcend the prosaic and evoke complex metaphors of history, memory and nostalgia. Greiner regularly exploits the power of places to create images of uninhabited landscapes and interiors that nonetheless generate a multitude of narratives. This quality of invocation is shown to impressive effect in what is perhaps Greiner’s best-known work to date, a series of photographs of schoolrooms significantly titled Disciplined Spaces – Aspects of Three German Schools (2002). These images reference a universal template of education, childhood and adolescence. At the same time, they underscore the ideologies of discipline that underline even the most liberal of educations. The series moves with startling rapidity between modern rooms decorated in bright primary colours to shadowy corners denoting menacingly antiquated notions of authority; the common factor running between these two extremes is the powerful demonstration of ideology imposing itself on architectural space.
Above all, perhaps, these abandoned hallways and classrooms register as haunted spaces. They function hand in hand with Greiner’s night-time photographs of abandoned playgrounds. In this sense, Greiner clearly seems to be working not simply with ideas of discipline and authority, history and influence, but also with the profoundly personal experience of childhood, nostalgia and loss. Throughout her work she infuses this complex nexus of contradictions and complications into her images, expanding both the temporal and narrative dimensions of her photography.

Anne Kathrin Greiner

1975 born in Weinheim, Germany

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education

2003-2005 Royal College of Art, MA (RCA) Fine Art Photography
1998-2002 Napier University, BA (Hons) Photography, Film & Imaging, 1st Class
1996-1997 The University of Edinburgh, BA Modern European Languages

Grants

2007:
RW Club International Photography Prize, Finalist
Flash Forward 2007, Magenta Foundation for the Arts, UK Winner
Artist residency (Reykjavik), SíM Association of Icelandic Visual Artists
SCREENings Award, UPdate Berlin, Finalist
2006:
Raymond Weil International Photography Prize, Finalist
British Council, Travel Bursary
2005:
Hewlett Packard Photography Competition, Winner
Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award for Art, Runner-up
Prix Leica, Runner-up
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2005
2004:
Artist residency (Kyoto, Japan), Royal College of Art Scholarship
Jerwood Photography Awards 2004, Shortlist
Student Photographer of the Year, AOP Awards, Finalist
Prix Leica, Runner-up
The Iowa Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Miniature Prints, Distinction
Nominated for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2004
The Sir Richard Stapley Trust, Bursary

Solo Exhibitions

The Lodgers, Reykjavik Museum of Photography (June/July 2008)
Theatres of Play II, Galerie Kunstschwimmer, Berlin, Germany (2008)
Secrets and Mysteries, Zephyr / Raum für Fotografie, Mannheim, Germany (2006)
Black and Light, Mailbox Gallery, Kyoto, Japan (2004)
Anne Kathrin Greiner: Landscapes, Kyoto-Arts, Kyoto (2004)
Disciplined Spaces, exposure 2004, Hereford Photography Festival (2004)
Photographs by Anne Kathrin Greiner, ECL, Edinburgh, Scotland (2001)

Group Exhibitions

Salon, Kunstverein D21, Haushalten e.V., Leipzig, Germany (2007)
Kaunas Photography Festival 2007, Kaunas, Lithuania (2007)
Leigjendurnir, SIM Gallery, Reykjavik, Iceland (2007)
Forbidden Spectacle, Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta (2007)
The Search for a Space 2: Duration, Valletta Waterfront, Valletta, Malta (2007)
Update – Salon für Fotografie, Alter Postbahnhof/Gleisdreieck, Berlin, Germany (2007)
Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany (2007)
Anonyme Zeichner 4, Blütenweiss / Raum für Kunst, Berlin, Germany (2007)
Salon, Kunstverein D21, Haushalten e.V., Leipzig, Germany (2006)
DiversityRCA, Royal College of Art, London, England (2006)
Secret, Gulbenkian Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (2006)
Here Today, curated by A.K.Greiner & N.Shirreff, Jersey Galleries, Osterley (2006)
London Elsewhere, Bernhard Knaus Fine Art, Mannheim, Germany (2006)
The Women’s Art Show 2006, Fairfields Arts Centre, Basingstoke, England (2006)
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2005, Barbican Art Centre, London (2005)
London in Zurich, Galerie Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland (2005)
RCA Print Auction, The Great Eastern Hotel, London (2005)
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2005, Spike Island, Bristol, England (2005)
Prix Leica, Gulbenkian Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (2005)
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Cornerhouse, Manchester, England (2005)
Like Nowhere Else, Gulbenkian Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (2005)
Gone in 60 Seconds, The Gallery by the Lake, Southwark Park, London (2005)
Photography 2005, Royal College of Art, London (2005)
Ryugakusei Ten, Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto, Japan (2004)
La Réalité dans 24 Images par Minute, Kyoto-Arts, Kyoto, Japan (2004)
AOP Student Awards 2004, Vision 2004, London (2004)
AOP Student Awards 2004, AOP Gallery, London (2004)
Emerging Artists from the Royal College of Art, Urban Outfitters, London (2004)
Made in London, European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium (2004)
Secret, Gulbenkian Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (2003)
Eight, Byam Shaw School of Art, London (2003)
Lens-based Open, Surface Gallery, Nottingham, England (2003)
Napier Degree Show, The English Speaking Union, Edinburgh, Scotland (2002)
…and you will know…, The New Street Exhibition Space, Edinburgh (2002)
20" x 24" Polaroid Portraits, Scottish National Portrait & KJP Gallery, Edinburgh (2001)
Water, Drumsheugh Private Baths, Edinburgh (2001)
Photographs for Sick Kids, Phillips Auctioneers, Edinburgh (2001)

Projects

2007: The Lodgers
06/07: Major commission to document ART U NEED project:
www.commissionseast.org.uk/cstudy/art_u_need.html
06/07: Theatres of Play, Part II
05/06: Theatres of Play
04/05: WA
2004: Weinheim Longhorns
2002: American Army Villages
2002: Disciplined Spaces

Collections

Private and public collections in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, USA and Japan.

Bibliography

Selected Publications:
Foto & Video Review (Russia), Irina Tchmyreva (09/2007)
Grafik ‘Review 2006: Pick of the Year’ (12/2006-01/2007, p.26)
Mannheimer Morgen, ‘Kunst, die uns zärtlich und leise den Atem nimmt’ (26/08/06)
Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung,‘Neue Töne in der britischen Kunstszene’ (17/08/06)
Die Rheinpfalz, ‘Rundgang durch Mannheimer Galerien’ (29/07/06)
Zoom Italy, ‘Vision Germany’, Cristina Franzoni (p.16, 07-08/2006)
www.portalkunstgeschichte.de, 'Finstre Idyllen' (08/06/06)
Die Rheinpfalz,’Theater der Dinge’, Kai Scharffenberger (06/2006)
Meier, ‘Secrets and Mysteries’, Eva Mayer (01/06/06)
DAMA School of Creative Industries, Napier University (commissioned article, p.4)
Photography Now #2/2006, ‘Secrets and Mysteries’ (pp.27/28)
Grafik #141, ‘Talent’, Angharad Lewis (06/2006, pp.36/37)
Mannheimer Morgen, ‘Geheimnisvolle Spuren’, Bernadett Gross (30/05/06)
Contemporary ‘Annual 2006: 50 International Emerging Artists’, (pp.56/57)
Camera Austria, Forum, 92/2005 (pp.58/59)
www.studio-international.co.uk, ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2005’ (09/12/05)
The Times, ‘True Artists? Or Great Pretenders?’, Mark Irving (12/11/05)
www.telegraph.co.uk, ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2005’ picture gallery
a-n, ‘Good exhibition practice‘ supplement (09/2005, cover)
a-n, ‘Good practice in paying artists’ supplement (02/2005, cover)
a-n, ‘Establishing a charge rate for a working artist’ supplement (11/2004, cover)
HotShoe International, #132, ‘exposure 2004’ (p.66)
Image, ‘AOP Student Awards 2004’ (06/2004, p.19)
Portfolio #36, ‘Anne Kathrin Greiner: Disciplined Spaces’ (12/2002, pp.32-35)
The List ‘Framespotting’, #442 (05/2002)
Exact, #66 (11/2001, pp.16/17)

Catalogues:
Fast Forward 2007
The Search For A Space
Update 07 Salon für Fotografie
Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW 2006/2007
Anonyme Zeichner Nr.4
London in Zurich
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2005
The Show 2005: Like Nowhere Else
Exposure 2004
Photographs For Sick Kids

Links

http://www.akgreiner.com
http://www.re-title.com/artists/annekathrin-greiner.asp

Anne Kathrin Greiner

Berlin
Germany

0049 (0)178 9793865
akgreiner@yahoo.de
www.akgreiner.com