Mona Kuhn

Mona Kuhn

Mona Kuhn
Born 1969
São Paulo, Brazil
Nationality Brazil/United States
Known for Photography
Website
www.monakuhn.com

Mona Kuhn is an artist known for large-scale photographs of nudes. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in several collections including the J. Paul Getty Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the George Eastman House and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.

Born in São Paulo, Brazil to parents of German ancestry, Mona Kuhn lives and works in Los Angeles.

Early life

Mona Kuhn began taking photographs at age 12, when her parents gave her a Kodak camera for her birthday and early on her photography was influenced by Brazilian photographer Mário Cravo Neto.[1] She moved to the United States in 1992 to attend Ohio State University and then furthered her studies at the San Francisco Art Institute; she has listed her influences as Nan Goldin, Leon Levinstein and Julian Schnabel.[1]

Career

Kuhn chose the nude as the focus of her work because it represents a timeless canon and she was interested in the idea of the body as residence. She describes her visual vocabulary as figurative, however recent works have begun explorations with abstraction. [2]

Kuhn's first monograph titled Photographs was published by Steidl in 2004. Photographs was followed by Evidence in 2007, which was accompanied with a short story by Frederic Tuten. Her next project, released in 2010, was a return to her homeland of Brazil, with a series titled Native and an accompanying monograph of the same name published by Steidl.[3] In 2011, Kuhn released Bordeaux Series, also with a monograph published by Steidl, which is a collection of traditional portraits and landscapes.[4] Her work has been described as "intimate and sensuous," "dreamlike" and "classical" in composition.[3][5][6]

In a 2013 interview with ARTnews, Kuhn compared her process with childbirth, saying of the completion of a project that “When you feel that you are ready, you want to separate from it. You can’t take it anymore, and you have to push it out. And once it’s out, it takes on a life of its own.”[7]

In addition to fine art photography, Kuhn also has an extensive career with fashion and editorial work. She shot Bottega Veneta's resort 2012 campaign and has collaborated with James Perse and Almay. Kuhn has photographed Gia Coppola, James Franco, Logan Marshall-Green, Stephen Dorff and Giorgio Moroder for MisterMuse; she has also shot for Numéro and Le Monde.[8][9]

Kuhn is also a curator, most recently curating an exhibition titled Under My Skin at Flowers Gallery in New York City and jurying (Un)Clothed at The Center for Fine Art Photography.[10][11]

Since 1998, she has been an independent scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.[12]

Selected Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions:

Group Exhibitions:

Public Collections

Books

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Un-Titled Project: Mona Kuhn". The Un-Titled Project. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  2. ↑ http://www.hotshoeinternational.com/blog/interview/mona-kuhn-acido-dorado
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Le Journal de le Photographie, Native". Le Journal de le Photographie. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  4. ↑ "Le Journal de le Photographie, Bordeaux". Le Journal de le Photographie. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  5. ↑ "Vogue, Mona Kuhn". Vogue. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  6. ↑ "ELLE, Mona Kuhn". ELLE. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  7. ↑ http://www.artnews.com/2014/02/24/when-is-an-artwork-finished/
  8. ↑ "WSJ Magazine, Mona Kuhn".
  9. ↑ "New York Magazine, Mona Kuhn". New York Magazine. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  10. ↑ "Center for Fine Art Photography". Center for Fine Art Photography. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  11. ↑ "artnet: Mona Kuhn". artnet. Retrieved 27 May 2013.

External links