Karen Knorr

Photo & Co., Turin
Through October 19

An exasperated realism, an attention to detail and an interest in light effects are the distinguishing characteristics of Karen Knorr’s photography. The titles of her images take the form of evocative texts engraved on brass plates at the bottom of the uniformly black frames.

At the heart of Knorr’s artistic exploration is a disparaging review of western culture and its prejudices (strongly influenced by the female condition). Starting from this premise, Knorr looks at some particularly significant socio-cultural moments in history. In her photographic series “The Virtues and the delights”, for example, she considered the Enlightenment. At the end of the 1980s she brought into question the concept of the museum in the cycle ‘Connoisseurs’, for years the place deemed appropriate for the “lofty” preservation of art, so pregnant with dominant culture, so sterile and stagnant.

Designed for the Photo & Co. space, the Art Lovers exhibition presents two series of work. The first can be considered the conceptual continuation of both “Connoisseurs” and “Academies”, a series begun in 1993. The second is entitled “Visitors”, but its theme follows the same path, emerging from the contrast between the traditional function of the Academy and its current status.

The photos on show, set in the Gare D’Orsay in Paris and the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, emphasize the formal perfection of the locations by depicting classical works, sculptures, commemorative portraits or, quite simply, bookcases full of ancient manuscripts. Knorr disrupts these “perfect” set-ups by introducing ‘disturbing’ elements like monkeys or dogs, which interact with the art and culture from times past in such a way as to overturn things we thought were defined and consecrated. The intrinsic composure of the locations is upset and, in losing its “untouchable” quality, is brought into question. To all intents and purposes, the animal is a visitor whose presence sets loose the ground pins of art which our collective history has led us to take as given.

Seeming to predict new cultural horizons, Art Functionary is a monkey holding a theoretical text. In the photo Art Lovers, from which the title of the exhibition comes, some monkeys walk among the furnishings, scrutinizing their surroundings curiously, their presence upsetting the neoclassical composure of the scene at the Gare D’Orsay. The Peripatetic Philosopher is a dog who trots through the somber, book-laden shelves in Turin’s Biblioteca Reale. Visitors to the exhibition are forced to question what the role of academic culture today is – a static patrimony or one capable of evolution?




Tiziana Conti
Translation by Rosalind Furness