Organised in collaboration with Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Watching the Sun at Midnight is an extensive solo presentation of Czech-born German artist Katharina Sieverding’s (b. 1944, Prague) work, covering all phases of her oeuvre from her videos of the late 1960s to her oversized self-portrait series of the 1970s and up to her contemporary productions, with new works including Gefechtspause (“Ceasefire”), which addresses the lockdown during the COVID-19 crisis. This exhibition is the latest in a series of monographic exhibitions of photography-based positions at the Museum Frieder Burda, including Gregory Crewdson, Andreas Gursky, Rodney Graham, and JR, all of which investigated the staging opportunities and great breadth of technology as opposed to painting.
A student of German artist Joseph Beuys, Sieverding has continuously focused her artistic energy on political issues. In her serial photographic works, she gives expression to reflections about identity, the current social, political, and cultural climate, gender discourses, and the necessary emancipation of the female artist. Mirroring her themes and subjective perception of current events , her works convey an image of the time. “I don’t make propaganda art and I don’t want to be seen as somebody who stands for anything in particular. All these designations merely pin me down. I want to adopt an independent position and express my thoughts through my works,” says Katharina Sieverding
In addition to the presentation at Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, the concomitant exhibition Headlines will be on view from September 3 – 26, 2021, at the institution’s Berlin-based exhibition space, Salon Berlin, located in the notable Former Jewish Girls’ School on the city’s historical Auguststrasse. The thematic selection brings together large-format photographic works by the artist that turn to the darkest part of German history: that of National Socialism. Through these photographs, which build on documents from the concentration camps at Dachau and Sachsenhausen, as well as records held at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Sieverding points to the widely diverse manifestations and expressions of anti-Semitism and exclusion, racism, and violence, outlining the latter’s timelessness and societies’ inability to surmount them as they recur throughout history. On the occasion of her exhibition in 2019 at the Dachau Palace, the artist herself stated, “this moment in time has vehemently touched me, especially as I observe the current evolution of Germany.” In parallel, moving from the shared history to her personal biography, the artist also presents monumental self-portraits from the late 1960s and the work TESTCUTS, a reflection on Katharina Sieverding’s own life: events in the art world from 1966 to the present are shown together to form a large-scale 20 meter photo collage.
Watching the Sun at Midnight | August 28, 2021 – January 9, 2022 | Museum Frieder Burda Headlines | September 3 – 26, 2021 | Salon Berlin – Museum Frieder Burda
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