Karen Stuke
lives and works in Berlin, Germany
www.carusosingsagain.com
www.theaterphoto.com
www.kronenboden.de
mail@karenstuke.de
+49 152 09425100
Karen Stuke completed her studies in Photo/Film Design at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and graduated under Gottfried Jäger and Jürgen Heinemann in 1999.
1996 she achieved a foreign exchange scholarship for the Academie Minerva in Groningen, the Netherlands.
In 1999, Stuke received a crucial grant from the Arts Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia.
To this day, she has been collaborating with some of the most prestigious directors and theatres including Gottfried Pilz at the Vienna State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra Comique Paris, the Los Angeles Opera and many more.
She wants to do the ‚other‘, the absolute photo. The image that unites everything, the whole scene, the whole act, the whole program. So she almost inevitably came to the anachronistic slow instrument, the camera obscura.
With her camera obscura, she not only takes photographs in the theater, recording and tracking the spirit and soul of a production: in a number of further series, she uses this technique to poetically research different themes.
Most recently her work „Austerlitz“ has been exhibited at the Kommunale Galery Berlin which was commissioned by the Wapping Project in London earlier. The exhibition is an immersive installation of large-format images, rail tracks, light and sound.
She did exhibit at the Art Museum in Mülheim an der Ruhr along with names such as Maria Loboda, Thomas Ruff, Michael Schnabel, Emil Nolde, Ernst Barlach and Pablo Picasso.
In addition to having her works displayed at various group exhibitions, her solo exhibitions titled „Sleeping Sister“ and „Opera Obscura“ took place in Berlin, „4 Rooms“ in Malta, St. James Cavalier, and „City Lights“were seen at Elipsis Gallery in Istanbul.
Karen was involved in a project called „Amongst Neighbours“, an artist exchange project in the course of Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture.
2010 she was invited by Renato Quaglia, director of the Napoli Teatro Festival Italia and Galleria PrimoPiano Napoli to do her work
on the productions of the festival. So she stayed as an artist in residence at PrimoPianoNapoli and presented those works at the PAN (Palazzo delle Arti Napoli) in 2011.
In 2008 she founded her own project space called »Kronenboden« in Berlin, where she focuses primarily on the intersections between visual and performing arts.
2017 Kronenboden was one of the prize winners of the award program for artistic project spaces and initiatives by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin.
2018 she organised and curated the Caruso Festival „Caruso sings again“ at Kronenboden and two neighbor off-spaces COPYRIGHTberlin and uqbar.
workshops, lectures
2023
workshop, Kommunale Galerie Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany
2019
workshop, International Summer Academy of Fine Arts & Media, Venice, Italy
workshop, Kommunale Galerie Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany
2017
workshop, Festival Neuer Kunst „lAbiRynt“ in Slubice, Poland
workshop, International Summer Academy of Fine Arts & Media, Venice, Italy
2016
workshop, „Wolkersdorfer Fotowochen“ FotoFLUSS – Society for the promotion of photo and media art, Austria
2015
workshop, Photowerk Berlin, Germany
2013-24
Demonstrator, photographer and lecturer at the historical daylight photostudio, LWL Freilichtmuseum Detmold, Germany
2003
lecturer at Malta Photographic Society
2000
lecturer at Malta Photographic Society
1998
lecturer at the FH Potsdam, Germany by invitation of Prof. Gisela Scheidler.
invitation to the symposium about theatre photography, Theaterfestival Theaterformen, Hannover, Germany
grants, awards and residencies
2023
Nomination for the artist-in-residence scholarships of the Federal Republic of Germany at the German Study Centre in Venice
2021
Projektraum Stipendium Bildende Kunst, by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin.
Honorable mention at INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS (ipa)
2020
Vonovia – Award für Fotografie, shortlist
2017
Kronenboden was one of the prize winners of the award program for artistic project spaces and initiatives by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin
2013
Kunstpreis, picked by the jury, Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin
2012/13
artist in residence at Hotel Bogota, Berlin
2012
appointed member of the DGPh (the German Photographic Association)
2010
artist in residence Napoli Teatro Festival Italia
2004
Nomination for the “Golden Thumb”, 1st International Flipbook Festival, Schloß Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany
1999
a crucial grant from the Arts Foundation of NRW, Germany
1996
foreign exchange scholarship „Erasmus“ for the Academie Minerva in Groningen, the Netherlands
bibliography (see also: Press, texts and publications)
»Nicht hinauslehnen«
Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Novi Sad, cataloque 2019
»Show your darling IV – Die Wildnis«
Atelier Sabine Wild, Berlin, cataloque 2019
»Aneignung – Künstler der Kolonie Wedding«
catalogue 2018
»Umano, Troppo Umano«
catalogue 2018
»The Wapping Project on Paper«
catalogue 2014
»Opera Obscura di Napoli«
PrimoPiano Editioni, 2011
Die deutsche Bühne 10/2011
»Die Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen« ISSN 0011-975X
»Der gedehnte Blick«
ISBN 978-3-942311-00-7
»Es werde Dunkel! Nachtdarstellungen in der zeitgenössischen Kunst«
ISBN 978-3-927877-73-3
European Month of Photography 2008
ISBN 978-3-940231-04-8
»Die Trilogie der schönen Zeit, oder: Warten macht mir nichts aus!«
Edition Beaugrand Kulturkonzepte,
Verlag für Druckgrafik Hans Gieselmann
ISBN 978-3-923830-63-3
»Selbstsicht – Der Schritt ins Bild«
catalogue of Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie 2006
ISBN 3-9810254-2-3
»Malta 24/7«
Project Malta, Progress Press Co Ltd
ISBN 99903-3-0880-0
»24 Stunden Bielefeld«
Westfalen Verlag
ISBN 3-88918-098-1
leib & leben
ISSN 1613-740X
Camera Austria, 74/2001
ISBN 3-900508-35-6