Chicago Table

About the Photographer

Deér, Katalin

American/Hungarian, b. 1965 Palo Alto, CA

Katalin Deér’s work is inspired by the built environment, what she describes as “the expression and background of our lives.” In her work she often translates photographs of modern architecture and commonplace furniture into sculptures and sometimes back into photographs, to create, in her words, “a new, entirely unforeseeable and strange space that fluctuates between dimensions and perspectives.” Interested in emphasizing the object status of the photograph, Deér casts pictures into concrete, turning them into architectural objects. She also pins unframed photographs directly to the wall—but only at their top corners, so they can curve in the humidity. The movement of the print makes apparent what she calls the “twofold sculptural potential of the photograph: that of the space depicted within it, and that of the photograph itself.”

Katlin Deér was born in Palo Alto, California, to Hungarian parents and was raised in Switzerland and Germany. She completed a master’s degree from the Universität der Künste Berlin (formerly Hochschule der Künste) with Lothar Baumgarten in 1996. Deér has exhibited extensively in Europe and the United States, including at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Pratt Institute, New York; Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten, Klagenfurt, Austria; Kunstverein Heilbronn, Germany; and Hilfiker Kunstprojekte, Luzern, Switzerland. She is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including grants from the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, 2000) and the New York Foundation for the Arts (2002). Publications of her work include the monograph Present Things (Snoeck, 2009). Deér lives and works in Switzerland.