R U ON INSTAGRAM ?

SUSANNE JUNKER – R U ON INSTAGRAM?

Zur Art Cologne präsentiert die in Paris lebende deutsche Künstlerin Susanne Junker exklusiv am Messewochenende eine Auswahl von aktuellen Arbeiten mit dem Titel „R U ON INSTAGRAM?“ im brandneuen Offspace The Void Room Contemporary in der Kölner Südstadt.

Susanne Junker, die in den 1990er Jahren selbst als Model in New York, Paris und Tokyo arbeitete, beschäftigt sich in ihren Fotoarbeiten, Videos und Installationen seit Langem mit dem weiblichen Körper, mit Schönheitsidealen und mit der Art, wie wir mit uns selbst und miteinander umgehen in Zeiten oft stereotyper Kommunikation.

Im Mittelpunkt der Präsentation bei The Void Room Contemporary steht die großformatige Arbeit „Figure for the Base of a Crucifixion # 27 R U ON IG?“ von 2024. Sie zeigt, welche Personae wir in den sozialen Medien annehmen und wie wir sie kommunizieren.

Junker verwendet Emoticons und Ausschnitte aus Sexting-Nachrichten, die sie ausdruckt und dadurch vom Digitalen ins Analoge überträgt, und schließlich klebt sie sie auf ihren eigenen Körper. Ihr realer Körper wird so zur bloßen Figur und Projektionsfläche und die in den ursprünglichen Nachrichten beanspruchte maximale Intimität verwandelt sich in unüberbrückbare Fremdheit und Austauschbarkeit. Auf der Rückseite der Arbeit schließlich ein einziger Satz als Ausdruck einer geradezu niederschmetternden Einsamkeit: „I just kissed my screen.“

Samstag 08 November 2025, Vernissage 16:00 - 21:00

Sonntag 09 November 2025, 14:00 - 19:00

The Void Room Contemporary, Alteburger Str. 73, 50678 Köln, Deutschland


The Void Room Contemporary, Alteburger Str. 73, 50678 Köln, Deutschland

During Art Cologne, Paris-based German artist Susanne Junker will present a selection of her latest works, entitled “R U ON INSTAGRAM?”, exclusively at the new off-space, The Void Room Contemporary, in Cologne's Südstadt district, during the fair weekend.

Junker, a former model in New York, Paris, and Tokyo, has long explored themes surrounding the female body, beauty ideals, and how we treat ourselves and others in an era of often-stereotypical communication through her photographic works, videos, and installations.

The focus of her presentation at The Void Room Contemporary is the large-scale piece “Figure for the Base of a Crucifixion # 27, R U ON IG?”, created in 2024. This piece depicts the personas we adopt on social media and how we express them.

Junker uses emoticons and excerpts from sexting messages. She prints them out, transferring them from the digital realm to the analogue, and ultimately sticks them onto her own body. Her physical body thus becomes a mere figure and projection surface, transforming the claimed intimacy of the original messages into an unbridgeable estrangement and interchangeability. On the back of the piece is a single sentence conveying an almost devastating sense of loneliness: "I just kissed my screen."

Saturday, November 08 2025, Vernissage 16:00 - 21:00

Sunday, November 09 2025, 14:00 - 19:00

The Void Room Contemporary, Alteburger Str. 73, 50678 Köln, Germany

Women In Art Prize

I am excited that my work, Figure for the Base of a Crucifixion #27 and #27 Backside, has been shortlisted for the 2025 Women in Art Prize, Eve Arnold Photography category.

In these photographs, I affix emojis and excerpts from explicit sexting messages directly to my body. By combining visual imagery with textual elements, the work encourages viewers to reflect on the complexities of online communication, addressing themes such as desire, fantasy, harassment, and isolation within contemporary dating culture.

The books are here !!!

The exhibition catalogue SO WHAT!, published by KERBER arrived on time on April 1st and it’s beautiful!

Building the exhibition SO WHAT! in small

Hours and hours of ideas, concepts and changes, trying to find the best solution.

Thank you for building the museum model H1, Center for contemporary Art, Augsburg, Julia Scorna!

SO WHAT!

I am thrilled to announce my solo exhibition SO WHAT!, opening on April 4th 2025 at Hall 1 - Raum für Kunst im Glaspalast, Museen Augsburg in Germany.

Figure for the Base of a Crucifixion #27 (2023)
Self-portrait, photograph
50 x 70 cm, 19.69 x 27.56 in (unframed), Edition, 7 + 3 AP

SUSANNE JUNKER

SO WHAT!

05.04.2025 - 06.07.2025

H1 - Center for Contemporary Art in the Glaspalast, Augsburg, Germany.

PRESS RELEASE

The exhibition "SO WHAT!" presents a comprehensive body of work of artist and photographer Susanne Junker. With over 200 photographs, installations and videos, it sheds light on 30 years of creation by this extraordinary artist: from the early self-portraits of the 1990s to her most recent works.

Using her camera as a tool, Susanne Junker, born in 1973, has developed her very own, visually powerful language dedicated to the representation of female identity and the mechanisms of its staging in the media. Her work is characterized by reflections on beauty, gender roles and social power relations - themes that are more topical than ever in an era of digital self-presentation.

Susanne Junker: “I worked as a model in the early 1990s. It was the glamorous era of

supermodels, whose perfect physical appearances embodied a beauty standard

dominated by the male gaze. These rigid norms were unbearable for me and led me

to transform myself from object to author by becoming an artist.”

                                                                                                                          

Junker therefore began to put herself in the picture and used the self-portrait as a means of rebellion. With her photographs, she reclaimed her identity and at the same time questioned the world of the media, which she experienced as a model. To this day, Junker's artistic activities revolve around some fundamental questions: Who are we? What is beauty? What is perfection? In doing so, she exposes stereotypes, breaks taboos and dismantles the normative ideas of femininity that are shaped by advertising, film and pop culture.

Since the 1960s, new art forms such as performance and body art have expanded the traditional concept of the work, dissolving the boundaries between art and everyday life and thematizing the relationship between artist and life. Artists such as Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Ulrike Rosenbach, Marina Abramović and Niki de Saint Phalle shaped this development by placing the female body, personal experiences and social norms at the center of their work.

Susanne Junker joins this tradition: Like the installation artist Jenny Holzer, who used the visual language of advertising to spread quickly understandable messages, Junker also uses her art as a political tool. Her works are thus also in dialog with pioneers such as Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger and Valie Export. While Sherman exposes the manipulation of women's images in film in her staged self-portraits and Krugeraddresses social power relations with statements such as "Your body is a battleground", Junker uses the female body as a medium for personal and political messages. In addition, her photographs, installations and actions take up the dynamics of social media, in which self-presentation is often exaggerated to the point of grotesqueness. This interplay between voyeurism, self-determination and media staging becomes visible in Junker's works through alienated body images, humorous exaggerations and subversive text elements that reveal and critically question the absurdity of idealized beauty standards.

Jan T. Wilms, Director, Center for Contemporary Art in the Glaspalast Augsburg

The exhibition is presented by the artists' association "Die Ecke" e.V. in cooperation with the art collections and museums of the city of Augsburg and was curated by Chiara Padovan.

Museen Augsburg Magazine

Save the date!

Please join us for the presentation of the new issue of THE OPÉRA magazine in which some of my new works are published.

November 8 2024

18:00 - 20:00

librairie sans titre

2 rue Auguste Barbier

75011 Paris

NUDES | Der Körper als Medium in der zeitgenössischen Fotografie

Thank you for the invitation to participate at the talk NUDES, the first edition of this new talk format by the artist Association “Die Ecke e.V.” in Augsburg, Germany, among host and artist Thomas Sing and publisher Matthias Straub from THE OPERA PHOTOGRAPHY.

Die Fotografie geht seit ihrer Geburt im 19. Jh. eine innige Liaison mit dem Körper ein, deren Bedingungen von jeder Generation an Fotograf*innen neu verhandelt werden. Ob gefällig, ob provokant, ob abstrahierend, ob konkret – die Aktfotografie ist immer eine Auseinandersetzung mit ihrer Zeit, immer im Zwist mit Moral und Zensur, immer politisch.

Der ECKE-Kulturtalk ist ein neues regelmäßiges Format der KVA Die Ecke e.V., welcher verschiedene Themen und Strömungen der zeitgenössischen Kunst mit relevanten Akteuren unter die Lupe nimmt und zu einem Dialog mit dem Augsburger Publikum einlädt.
https://die-ecke.de/

Diese Veranstaltung fand im H2 Zentrum für Gegenwartkunst in Glaspalast statt mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg.
https://kunstsammlungen-museen.augsburg.de/h2-zentrum-fuer-gegenwartskunst-im-glaspalast


Thomas Sing, Susanne Junker, Matthias Straub

PHOTOFAIRS SHANGHAI 2024

I am happy to announce my participation at Photo Fairs Shanghai in collaboration with Why Why Art Gallery with following artworks:

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH MASK # I - VI, 2024

50 cm x 70 cm, 7/7 + 3 AP

Photo Fairs Shanghai
Why Why Art / Booth A14
April 25 - April 28, 2024
Shanghai, China

Photofairs Shanghai 2023

I am happy to announce my participation at Photo Fairs Shanghai in collaboration with Why Why Art Gallery with following artworks:

The perfect woman is no lie, 200640 cm x 55 cm, Edition 7 + AP

Before she dies 在她去 世之前, 2023 60 cm x 85 cm (framed), Edition 7 + AP

Photo Fairs Shanghai
Why Why Art / Booth A11
April 20 - April 23, 2023
Shanghai, China