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Anne Imhof is a contemporary German artist known for her performance, paintings, and installation work. The artist’s use of materials like black dibond, glass plinths, heavy-metal music, and Goth performers to confront prevailing power dynamics sometimes results in unease for the viewer. The use of subtle body language, constraining spaces, and vernacular materials in her performances show human emotions in a formal, almost depersonalized, light. “It’s basically the thoughts of the people that are performing in it that, in the end, shape it,” she said of choreographing her work. Born in 1978 in Geißen, Germany, she studied under the artist Judith Hopf at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, where she graduated in 2012. Since graduating, the artist has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, including “DEAL” (2015) at MoMA PS1 in New York and “Angst II” at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (2016). Her piece Faust (2017), shown at the German Pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale, was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. She currently lives and works between Berlin and New York.

Circa Commissions

Anne Imhof: The Eyes of a Horse

YOUTH starts with the eyes of a horse. A poetic trope imbued with projections of sadness, loss, understanding, and hope. We watch a group of seemingly wild horses in the snow, their deep chestnut flanks galloping in slow motion against a poetic snowy landscape. Their legs are submerged in the white powder. They are not weighed down with saddles or riders. In time, we see the animals riding against the context of brutalist housing blocks in a suburban Eastern European landscape. These grey architectural structures are the only hints of humanity—man’s imposition on space.

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