Katrin Korfmann (she/her) is an artist, photographer, adviser, and teacher at the
Katrin Korfmann is an artist working on the cutting edge of photography, post-photography and installation art. Attracted to the spectacles of everyday life, which often occur in the public space, she captures people in metropolitan motion. A tension emerges as her work oscillates between stillness and movement, creating a fresh perspective on busy urban settings as portraits of contemporary transitions.
With a critical attitude towards the world around her, and explicitly in relation to contemporary visual culture, Korfmann uses a myriad of self-photographed images to investigate their historical, social and visual context. A simultaneous sense of distance and proximity arises as she depicts realities that neither the artist’s eye nor the camera could ever have grasped. Her images are both an interpretation of her experience and of collective social memory.
Katrin Korfmann grew up in Berlin, and has lived and worked in Amsterdam since 1995. She studied Photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie before continuing her research at the Rijksakademie, both in Amsterdam, Cittadellarte Biella in Italy, Akademie der Künste Berlin Germany, and the Chinese European Art Centre in Xiamen, China. Her work has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Prix de Rome (2nd), Mama Cash Award and the Esther Kroon Award (NL), Bieler Fototage Prize (CH) and has received various grants from international institutions such as the Robert Bosch Foundation, Würth Foundation (DE) and Mondriaan Fund (NL). Korfmann is a senior tutor at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague since 2010, where she currently teaches Image in the bachelor programme Graphic Design and Post-Photography in the master programme Non Linear Narrative. In addition to being a research fellow at KABK Research Group 2020 and 2021, Korfmann has lectured as a guest tutor at MFA Fine Arts Otis in Los Angeles, Master Performing Public Space Fontys Tilburg, Elisava Barcelona and Kunsthochschule Kassel, amongst others.
The artist has exhibited internationally in galleries, museums, alternative art and public spaces, including Photography Museum Rotterdam, GEM Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hague (NL); Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles; Aperture New York (US); Three Shadows Art Centre and CEAC, Xiamen, OFOTO, Shanghai, (CN); Azad Gallery, Tehran, (IR), Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Frankfurter Kunstverein (DE) and many more. Korfmann has realized numerous public art commissions, for example, for the Ministry of Finance, Rijksgebouwendienst, Schiphol Airport, University VU mc, AMC Amsterdam, Rijnstate, Ronald McDonald Centre (NL); Ford (US); Stockholm County Council (SE).
Her work is held in many private and corporate collections, such as in the U.S.: C21, Gautreaux, Fidelity, Twitter. In Germany: Würth Foundation, European Patent Office, Robert Bosch Foundation. In the Netherlands: Akzo Nobel Art Foundation, Bouwfonds Art Collection of Rabo Real Estate Group, ING Art Collection, Art Collection Ministry of Foreign Affairs, VandenBroek Foundation, Fotomuseum the Hague. In Sweden: Collection City of Umeå, Balticgruppen, Stockholm County Council.
Participant of the KABK Research Group 2021 and the KABK Research Group 2020