Astrid Klein
Untitled, 2004

Artist
Astrid Klein

Title
Untitled

Year of creation
2004

Technique and dimensions
acrylic on canvas, 153.5 x 189.5 cm

Year of acquisition
2004

Astrid Klein was born in Cologne in 1951. She studied from 1973 to 1977 at the University of Applied Sciences for Art and Design in Cologne. In 1980 she had her first solo exhibition in Hamburg. Since 1993 she has held a professorship for photography at the University of Graphics and Book Arts in Leipzig. In 1997 she founded the “Public Domain” label, a video and audio edition. She lives and works in Cologne.

Astrid Klein has been addressing our dealings with reality, violence and mediated images for around 30 years in order to address our deceptive methods of perception. Beyond the questioning, she questioned the ability to recognize reality through the means of photography. Astrid Klein gives her pictures a documentary character; she works consistently in black and white, but we learn nothing about the context from which they are taken. Nevertheless, they develop a suggestive reality character that the viewer gives the images their own story because the images are "abstract" and point back to themselves.

Britta Schmitz