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Bettina von Zwehl

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Bettina von Zwehl (born 1971[1]) is a German artist who lives and works in London. She has centred her artistic practice on photography, installation and archival exploration evolving through artist-residencies in museums. Her work explores representations of the human condition and human concerns through an observational approach combined with a distinctive use of the profile view and silhouette that continues to underpin her practice.[2]

Career

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Von Zwehl was born in Munich and studied in London, receiving a BA in Photography from the London College of Printing and an MA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art, London.[3]

She began making portraits as a student at the Royal College of Art, using a 19th-century methodology that she encountered as a photographer's assistant in Rome, working on 10 in × 8 in (250 mm × 200 mm) film with a large-plate camera.[4] Most of her work has been in the studio. Reviews of her early work often commented on its conceptual framing and the depiction of subjects in unusual physical or emotional circumstances, with an increased degree of vulnerability.[5] At the same time, she has also been interested in profile photography. Citing the influence of Renaissance painting, she calls the profile portrait "one of the most powerful ways of representing a person."[4]

In 2010 she was commissioned to take a series of outdoor portraits of athletes and paralympians preparing for the 2012 London Olympics.[6] Recently she has been invited to create works in reaction to the collections of several museums, including the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A),[4] the Holburne Museum[7] and the Freud Museum.[8] In 2014 she collaborated with her friend and fellow artist Sophy Rickett on a project reacting to an album from the Sir Benjamin Stone Archive at the Library of Birmingham.[9]

She was Artist in Residence for 6 months in 2011 at the V&A (2011)[4] and Artist in Residence for 5 months in 2013–2014 at the Freud Museum, where she created a permanent installation for the Anna Freud Room in response to the life and legacy of Anna Freud.[8] Made up Love Song (2011) is the result of the residency at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Von Zwehl explored the collection of portrait miniatures at the museum, creating a durational portrait in miniature in 34 parts of Sophia Birikorang, a member of the visitor experience team at the V&A.[10]

In 2013/14 she did a residency for The Freud Museum London producing permanent work for the Anna Freud Room in the Museum. Following her residency at the Museum she had a solo show Invitation to frequent the Shadows’ in 2016.[11] The publication Lament was published to coincide with the exhibition and co-authored by Josh Cohen.[12]

In 2018 von Zwehl was invited to be the first Artist-in-Residence at the New-York Historical Society. She received a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 2017 and in 2018 she spent 6 weeks in New-York researching the collections and making new work: Meditations in an Emergency (2018),[13] a photographic series inspired by the teen protests following the tragedy at Stoneman Douglas High School[14] on Valentine’s Day 2018, and the collections of portrait silhouettes at the N-YHSM.

Wunderkammer (2020),[15] is a site-specific photography and mixed-media installation in response to a year long research period at the Renaissance Kunst- und Wunderkammer (Chamber of Art and Wonders) of Ferdinand II at Castle Ambras in Innsbruck Austria.

In 2024 von Zwehl received an RPS (The Royal Photographic Society) award for Achievement in the Art of Photography.

Publications

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Monographs

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  • Bettina von Zwehl. Göttingen: Steidl / Brighton: Photoworks, 2007. With an essay by Darian Leader and interview with Charlotte Cotton. ISBN 978-3865212887.
  • Made Up Love Song. London: V&A, 2014. With an essay by David Chandler. ISBN 978-1851778225.
  • Lament. London: Art/Books, 2016. A collaboration with psychoanalyst and writer Josh Cohen. ISBN 978-1-908970-27-5.
  • Wunderkammer. Salzburg: Fotohof, 2020. With an essay by Ciara Ennis. ISBN 978-3-903334-01-4.

Anthologies and group exhibition catalogues

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Exhibitions

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Solo exhibitions

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  • An Anatomy of Control, Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York (2000)[16]
  • Victoria Miro Gallery, The Project Space, London (2002)[17]
  • Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York (2004)[18]
  • The Photographers' Gallery, London (2005)[19]
  • Profiles III, Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood, London (2009)[20]
  • Road to 2012, Setting Out, Commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, London (2010)[21]
  • Made up Love Song, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London (2011)[22]
  • Ruby’s Room, Holburne Museum of Art, Bath (2013)[7]
  • Laments and Sospiri, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London (2014)[23]
  • Album 31 (collaboration with Sophy Rickett), Fotogaleriet, Oslo, Norway (2015)[24]
  • Invitation to Frequent the Shadows, The Freud Museum, London (2016)[25]
  • Meditations in an Emergency, New-York Historical Society Museum, NYC, USA (2018)[26]
  • Wunderkammer, BTV Stadtforum Innsbruck, Austria (2020)[27]

Group exhibitions

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Collections

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Von Zwehl's work is held in the following public collections:

References

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  1. ^ "Union List of Artist Names Online". www.getty.edu.
  2. ^ "About".
  3. ^ "Resume: Bettina von Zwehl" (PDF). www.purdyhicks.com. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  4. ^ a b c d "Photography Resident: Bettina von Zwehl". Victoria and Albert Museum. 3 January 2012. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  5. ^ Smith, Roberta (15 September 2000). "Art in Review: Bettina von Zwehl". New York Times. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
  6. ^ "Olympic exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery". The Guardian. 20 July 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  7. ^ a b Barron, Katy. "Bettina Von Zwehl: Ruby's Room". www.photomonitor.co.uk. Archived from the original on 10 August 2014. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  8. ^ a b "Bettina Von Zwehl installation at the Freud Museum". www.darbyshire.uk.com. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  9. ^ Padley, Gemma (1 May 2014). "Library of Birmingham opens its archive to photographers". British Journal of Photography. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  10. ^ "Bettina von Zwehl : Made up Love Song".
  11. ^ "Bettina von Zwehl - Invitation to Frequent the Shadows".
  12. ^ "Lament".
  13. ^ "Meditations in an Emergency | New-York Historical Society".
  14. ^ Yee, Vivian (14 March 2018). "National School Walkout: Thousands Protest Against Gun Violence Across the U.S." The New York Times.
  15. ^ "Wunderkammer".
  16. ^ Smith, Roberta (15 September 2000). "ART IN REVIEW; Bettina von Zwehl". New York Times. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  17. ^ "Bettina von Zwehl". Victoria Miro Gallery. Archived from the original on 12 October 2014.
  18. ^ "Lombard Fried Projects". www.theartkey.com. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  19. ^ "Bettina von Zwehl Alina". www.likeyou.com. Archived from the original on 12 October 2014.
  20. ^ "Past exhibitions and displays 2009". V&A Museum of Childhood. Archived from the original on 18 October 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  21. ^ "Road to 2012: Setting Out". National Portrait Gallery. 2010. Archived from the original on 12 October 2014.
  22. ^ "Made Up Love Song by Bettina von Zwehl - picture prevew". The Independent. 5 October 2011. Archived from the original on 6 April 2012.
  23. ^ "Bettina von Zwehl". Purdy Hicks. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  24. ^ "Album 31 - Sophy Rickett og Bettina von Zwehl". Fotogalleriet. Archived from the original on 21 May 2016. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  25. ^ "Exhibition – Bettina von Zwehl". The Freud Museum. Archived from the original on 21 May 2016. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  26. ^ https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/meditations-emergency
  27. ^ "Bettina von Zwehl WUNDERKAMMER".
  28. ^ "Facing History: Contemporary Portraiture". Victoria and Albert Museum. 24 July 2015. Archived from the original on 3 August 2015. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  29. ^ "Your Search Results". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
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