Katinka Bock exhibition and publication on TextWork

Fondation Pernod Ricard presents Katinka Bock: Der Sonnenstich, a solo exhibition of the artist from February 14 to April 29, and has published a new essay on TextWork: In Defense of the Misremembered: Orality and the Weather in the Work of Katinka Bock, by Amelia Groom.

Firmly rooted in the field of sculpture, Katinka Bock’s art has remained permeable to the production of imagery—filmic, and above all, photographic. Photography constitutes what she calls the “periphery” of her work: a practice that she develops at its margins; but that also functions, between her and the world, as a threshold, as a site of porosity and experimentation. For about a decade, this photographic practice has notably flourished in the pages of a series of publications exclusively containing images: the One of Hundred. It also often appears within the artist's exhibitions, in conjunction with her sculptures.

Der Sonnenstich is the first exhibition by Katinka Bock to focus on her photographic work. Produced on this occasion, the sixty-five or so prints that comprise it—mainly black-and-white images, but also several images in colour—collate photographs taken between 2015 and the present day, most of which had never previously been exhibited.

Created within a familial, urban, or natural context, often within close proximity to the subjects on which they focus, the images in the exhibition attest to the “sculptural” view that Katinka Bock brings to bear on objects, spaces, bodies, and living organisms. It is often the observation of the singularity of a form or relationship that inspires her images. As with her sculptures, she works quickly and spontaneously, careful to capture something of the vitality of the world and to liberate the image from too much control or too strong an intention. The “delay” that the use of the traditional non-digital procedure involves contributes, paradoxically, to preserving this dynamic. 

—Christophe Gallois, curator of the exhibition

Read more on Der Sonnenstich.

New essay on TextWork, editorial platform of the Fondation Pernod Ricard
In Defense of the Misremembered: Orality and the Weather in the Work of Katinka Bock: Katinka Bock according to Amelia Groom

“Bock’s decision to exclude the written word from her One of Hundred publications, in favour of the possibilities of oral distribution, (...) involves a certain relinquishing of any desire for water-tight control, and an acceptance that things will not remain bound to one’s original authorial intentions. While a physical exhibition of photographs will typically exist for a specific duration at a specific location, the time-place of printed matter is far more unruly, and Bock enjoys the idea that her publications might have extended afterlives as they circulate beyond the limits of her knowledge or control, towards undetermined futures.”

Read more on TextWork.

TextWork fosters and supports the work of artists active in the French art scene through the publication of long-form critical essays produced by international writers. TextWork is supported by the French Ministry of Culture.