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My series Menschenkunde captures the lighting and composition of Renaissance paintings. My inspiration comes from Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, painters famous for linking beauty and psychological insight – at least according to Jakob Burckhardt, the 19th century Swiss art historian responsible for establishing the Renaissance as the beginning of modern aesthetic sensibility. Burckhardt may have been right, but it is also true that his ideas on the Renaissance tell us as much about his 19th century culture as they do about early modern painters. My most recent projects Seelensucht and Felsenfest have greatly been shaped by a trip to my hometown Nuremberg, with its Gothic and Baroque churches and their statues and paintings of Christian martyrs. Each society and each ideology has martyrs but none depicts them like Christianity. Tortured saints are shown either while their agony is taking place, or after they endured pain and death and are now safe in ‘heaven’, suggesting martyrdom by carrying a palm fond or sometimes the torture device. I create photographs that refer to these representations – their historical accuracy set aside. Like Caravaggio’s in the 16th, and Julia Margaret Cameron’s in the 19th century, my models are contemporary people, thus humanizing their saintly counterparts. I show them in theatrical settings as Renaissance portraits or conversing with scientists. Reason and logic accompany my Christian icons to suggest the never-ending dispute between science and religion. Like Cameron and Caravaggio before her, I take a religion’s icons and create my own portraits of them. Ironically, historical images have themselves become iconic imagery in our modern society. I hope to make the viewer aware of the ambiguity of historical portraiture and the subjectivity of art and history. The true subject of my photographic portraits may be termed the question of representation. (August 2007) Education 1982-1985 Professional Apprenticeship Foto Bischof & Broehl, Nuremberg, Germany 1980-1982 Fachoberschule für Gestaltung, Art School, Nuremberg, Germany Selected Exhibitions 2008 New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT (May 30 - August 3) 2007 Light Work, Syracuse, NY (November 5 - December 28) 2007 Solo exhibition, Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2006 Two Person show-invitational, Kleinblue Productions, Brooklyn, NY 2006 Solo Exhibition-invitational, Deutsches Haus at NYU, New York 2005 Group Exhibition-invitational, Beacon Artist Union-bau 12:transition, Beacon 2005 Pulse Miami, Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Miami, FL 2005 Group Exhibition-invitational, The Pocketbook Factory, Hudson, NY 2005 Group Exhibition-invitational, 'Portrait', The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, Woodstock, NY 2005 Group Exhibition-invitational, 'Regional Triennial of the Photographic Arts', Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock 2005 Group Exhibition-invitational, Art in the Loft, Millbrook, NY 2005 First collaboration at Beacon Artist Union: 'shadow echo: proof I'm here', installation with Peter Iannarelli, Beacon, NY 2005 'This is not an Archive', Bard College, Dept of Curatorial Studies, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 2005 Group Exhibition-inaugural show: Beacon Artist Union, Beacon 2004 Washington Gallery of Photography National Juried Show, Washington D.C. 2004 Group Exhibition-invitational, Howland Cultural Center, Beacon 2003 Solo Exhibition-invitational, The Framery, Beacon 2001 Group Exhibition-invitational, Republic Plaza, Denver 2000 Two Person Exhibition-invitational, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Denver 2000 Solo Exhibition-invitational, Auraria Library, Denver, CO 1999 Group Exhibition-invitational, Nikolai Fine Art, New York, NY 1998 Solo Exhibition-invitational, Goethe-Institut, Los Angeles, CA 1996 Group Exhibition-invitational, Photokina, Cologne, Germany 1996 Group Exhibition, Internationale Photographentage, Amberg, Germany Awards and Grants 2007 New York Foundation for the Arts, Special Opportunity Stipend, Garrison, NY 2005 Dutchess County Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, Poughkeepsie, NY 2005 Light Work, Artist-in-Residence Program, Syracuse, NY 1995 Kodak European Gold Award, Stuttgart, Germany 1993 Annual AGFA-Gaevert/Photo Presse Cover Award, Hann-Münden, Germany Publications 2006 Contact Sheet, #137 2006 PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly, #92 2005 Chronogram Magazine, 9/05, "Backbone" 2005 Pulse, April 14-20, 2005 2004 SHOTS, The Portfolio Issue 2004 PHOTOGRAPHY Quarterly, Photography Now (Sarah Hasted Mann) 2003 Chronogram, Cover Page 2001 Denver Rocky Mountain News, Arts & Entertainment 2001 Denver Rocky Mountain News, Critic's Choice 1996 Kodak Presse, "Gewinner des European Gold Award 1995" 1996 Caroline Finkelstein, Germany 1996 Rolling Stone, Deutsche Ausgabe 1993 Photo Presse, 11. Ausgabe Collections Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz, NY Light Work, Syracuse Joseph Baio, New York Teaching Experience 2005-pres. - Dia Art Foundation, educational tours of Dia:Beacon, Beacon 2005/06 - Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, Off-Site mentor, Beacon 2005 - Workshop "Light Work Master Series", Syracuse Lectures 2006 - Florida International University, Art & Art History Dept., Miami, FL © Angelika Rinnhofer (2007) - Used with permission |