Astrid Klein

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Astrid Klein (born May 20, 1951 in Cologne ) is a German painter , graphic artist and photo artist .

Life

From 1973 to 1977 she studied at the University of Applied Sciences for Art and Design in Cologne. Since 1993 she has held a professorship at the University of Graphics and Book Art in Leipzig .

In the 1980s she received several scholarships, including the German-French Youth Office in 1980, the North Rhine-Westphalia Promotion Prize for Fine Arts in 1982, the Cologne City Promotion Prize in 1984 and the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Scholarship in 1985 . In 2000 she received a scholarship from the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation . Among the numerous prizes are the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Academy of Arts (1997). and the KUNSTKÖLN Prize (today Cologne Fine Art Prize - 2001). Since 1980 she has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions in galleries, museums and art halls. In 1984 she was represented at the exhibition Von hier aus - Two months of new German art in Düsseldorf with the much acclaimed giant format Endzeitgefühle . It had already been purchased in 1982 by the Hamburg Senate for its “Art in Public Space” program.

After successful exhibitions at the Documenta and a tour of international museums between 1988 and 1991, Klein interrupted her creative work for some time in order to break her work routine, according to her own statement. This delayed the rediscovery of her work by the art world. The art historian Dorothea Zwirner, who published exhibition catalogs on Klein in 2008 and 2018, described them as "clearly underestimated". She would have gotten involved in the gender debate early on.

Klein lives and works in Cologne.

style

Astrid Klein mainly uses motifs from newspapers, magazines and advertising posters for her photographic work. She always photographs the selected various elements and enlarges or reduces them. Klein grids, assembles and collages until the elements originating from foreign contexts develop relationships with one another. The large print, the original work of art, is created in collaboration with a small specialist laboratory. On the finished work, the manufacturing process can hardly be traced, the sequence of the work steps, the origin and the original context of the individual elements cannot be made out. Eight or nine square meters is the common size of her work, but it can also be over 30 square meters. The format is important for the image message, because the more inflated, the more photographic the effect, although the end product contradicts the clearly defined object or reality reference that is usual for photographs: the image is a manipulation and not a testimony or document.

The "brittle and suggestive photomontages" are "according to the critics 'testimony to make' fear, insecurity, loneliness and violence 'visible'".

The collector Harald Falckenberg described Klein as a classic existentialist.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions (selection)

Partner and group exhibitions (selection)

Literature (selection)

  • Astrid Klein , exhibition catalog of the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Center tor the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, text by Klaus Ottmann, Middletown, Connecticut (USA) (catalog), 1991.
  • Astrid Klein , edited by E.-G. Güse and EW Uthemann, Cantz-Verlag, Ostfildern (catalog), 1994.
  • Astrid Klein , with texts by Christine Hopfengart, Detlef B. Linke, EW Uthemann, Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken; Kunsthalle, Nuremberg (catalog), 1994.
  • Astrid Klein - Käthe Kollwitz Prize 1997 , texts by C. Hopfengart and D. Zwirner, Akademie der Künste, Berlin (catalog), 1997.
  • Dorothea Zwirner: Astrid Klein - Typefaces 1977–2007. On the occasion of the exhibition Astrid Klein, neon sculptures in the Galerie Haas AG, Zurich , texts by D. Zwirner, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne (catalog), 2008, ISBN 978-3-86560-377-7 .
  • Dorothea Zwirner: Astrid Klein - transcendental homeless centralnervous. Exhibition catalog / Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 24.03.2018-02.09.2018 . König, Cologne 2018, ISBN 978-3-96098-335-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Käthe Kollwitz Prize, laureate
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Marie Hüllenkremer : Signals from the end of the world . In: Wolf Uecker (Ed.): Art . The art magazine. No. 3/1985 . Gruner + Jahr, March 1985, ISSN  0173-2781 , p. 74-81 .
  3. ↑ a b c Tim Ackermann: Astrid Klein: The female leader . In: Weltkunst . No. 144 , 2018 ( zeit.de [accessed June 12, 2018]).
  4. ↑ Dorothea Zwirner: Astrid Klein: Schriftbilder 1977-2007 . König, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-86560-377-7 .
  5. ^ Dorothea Zwirner: Astrid Klein - transcendental homeless centralnervous . König, Cologne 2018, ISBN 978-3-96098-335-4 .
  6. ↑ a b c Astrid Klein . In: Wolf Uecker (Ed.): Art . The art magazine. No. 7/1986 . Gruner + Jahr, July 1986, ISSN  0173-2781 , ART-Lexicon of Contemporary Artists.
  7. ↑ a b The world as a design - The design as a world . In: Volker Bechtloff (Ed.): Kunstforum International . The current magazine for all areas of the visual arts. tape 84 , June, July, August 86 (June 18 - September 15), June 18, 1986, ISSN  0177-3674 , Chapter 3b. The design as a world. Astrid Klein, S. 138 f .
  8. ↑ Exhibition that perfect love drives out fear. Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich . Retrieved August 14, 2020.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Little Astrid
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, graphic artist and photo artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne