She works multi-faceted in the fields of drawing, sculpture, installation, photography, video and sound. Her site-specific installations incorporated also performative elements or their afterthoughts and remnants. Moving freely between the different languages of architecture, design and art. Her interest lies in the analysis and overcoming of existing and self-made cultural, social and artistic structures.
Anna K.E. was born in 1986 in Tbilisi, Georgia. K.E. attended the famous Vakhtang Chabukiani classical ballet school from 1995-2000, and in 2000 K.E. moved to Germany. In 2002, 15 years old, K.E. attended the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart. In 2004, she moved on to the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf – where she received her diploma degree as well as Meisterschülertitel with professors Georg Herold and Christopher Williams in 2010.
During and after her studies Anna K.E. received numerous awards and prizes including the Rotary Club Scholarship 2007; the Audi Art Award 2008 for progressive performance; the ISCP artist residency 2009, NYC; and the Herbert Zapp prize for young art 2012. In 2010 after finishing her studies in Germany K.E. moved to New York to attend the ISCP International Studio & Curatorial Program, with the financial support by the German government (DAAD Scholarship; NRW Travelscholarship; Kunststiftung NRW). Since completing the program, K.E. lives and works in NYC.
„In a dynamic and diverse practice that engages equally with video, sculpture, performance, drawing, and installation, Georgian artist Anna K.E. explores the realms of the body as it navigates a physically and digitally mediated landscape. K.E., who was trained as a classical ballet dancer, has an acute sense of how the body moves through space, and her fluid architectural environments suggest a choreography, as viewers are invited to weave in and around her installations as they engage with her works. Her whimsical videos often feature her own body as protagonist, restricted, contorted, or isolated, often pointing toward an evolving interdependency between our corporeal and digital selves. Absurd yet poignant allegories for contemporary life, K.E.’s works invite us to consider unconventional vantage points, illuminating how seemingly incongruous notions can coexist.“ (citate curator Margot Norton)
Anna K.E. is represented by Barbara Thumm Galerie, Berlin and has had solo shows in 2013, 2015 and 2020; and by the New York based Simone Subal Gallery, with solo shows in 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2021.
The galleries regularly exhibit her work at local and international art fairs including Frieze New York, Art Basel Miami, Armory New York, ARCO Madrid, LISTE Basel, and ZONAMACO Mexico, among others.
Anna K.E. was chosen to represent her home country Georgia, curated by Margot Norton on the 58th Venice Biennale (2019) had her first institutional solo show at the Queens Museum (2017), and has also shown at institutions such as Museum der Bildenden Kunste, Leipzig (2019), The Kitchen, NYC (2015); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, CA (2015); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, USA (2015); The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL, USA (2012); and The III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, Russia (2012); Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Germany (2011); Museum K21, Düsseldorf (2010); Cobra Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2009); and Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Germany (2009).
In 2012 Hatje Cantz published Anna K.E.’s first monograph entitled “A well-to-do man is cruising in his fancy car when a small hen runs out on the road in front…”.
In 2021 Kerber published Anna K.E.’s and Florian Meisenberg’s collaborative catalogue entitled „Complimentary Blue“.
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