She joins the phalanx of major German artistic positions since the 1970s, whose epicentre was above all the Rhineland: the artist Katharina Sieverding (born in Prague and raised in the Ruhr area, lives and works in Düsseldorf). Trained as a stage designer, it did not take her long to cast off any inhibitions about large scale images. As a student of Joseph Beuys, she focused her artistic energy on political issues. And as a photographer, she tested the boundaries of the medium’s manifold technical possibilities.
Anyone who looks at Katharina Sieverding’s large-scale self-portraits – sometimes distorted by the glare of the sun, sometimes glinting metallically – quickly realizes that she is not one for artistic compromises. It is no accident that the artist is considered one of the shining examples of her generation in Germany and, at the same time, a timeless pioneer of photography in international terms, too. Her persistent treatment of contemporary German and global matters ensures that her work retains its relevance and even controversiality. Sieverding seeks out confrontation, visually and thematically. At the same time, as she described her work in an interview “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.”
