Astrid Klein (*1951) is one of Germany’s most distinguished conceptual artists. Collage constitutes the main formal and artistic principal of her work. Her large-scale wall pieces often combine found images with her own text or quotes from philosophy, theory or science to illuminate suppressed aspects of the collective unconscious and to question conventional power structures and modes of representation. Her oeuvre—comprising photographic work but also neon and mirror sculptures, installations, painting and drawing—oscillates between poetry and criticism, skepticism and longing. The Cologne-based artist has been associated with the gallery since 1996.
Astrid Klein
January 13–March 9, 2024
New York
Astrid Klein, one of Germany’s most distinguished conceptual artists, has played a crucial role as a European counterpart to the American Pictures Generation since the late 1970s and is considered a female pioneer of large-scale photography. Underpinned by the formal and aesthetic principles of collage, Klein’s practice examines, deconstructs, and renews the relationship between image and text to question prevailing power structures and modes of perception and representation. In her multilayered works, she combines artistic source material drawn from philosophy, literature, political discourse, and film to establish fresh links of meaning. Sprüth Magers is pleased to present Astrid Klein’s first solo exhibition in New York, which focuses on two historical bodies of work: early “photoworks” (1979) alongside canvases from her White Paintings (1988–93) that together showcase the core ideas of her alluring and complex oeuvre.
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