SUSANNE JUNKER-FROM HEROIN CHIC TO EXCITING MULTI-MEDIA HEROINE

 

Thank you Itchy Silk for the opportunity to speak and explain my work in this new Interview:

FROM HEROIN CHIC TO EXCITING MULTI-MEDIA HEROINE

Click HERE to read the full interview!

A former successful model in the heroin chic era, circa (1993-1996), Susanne Junker has morphed into an astounding creative with a clear unapologetic feminist voice.

Through her multi-media artistry, she is a foil against all those negative expectations of ‘beauty’ espoused by the fashion industry.On a more profound level she is a kick ass ex-model shining a light on the nefarious world of modelling.

Ultimately her work is personal, candid and importantly cathartic. This personal exploration perhaps helping her to “heal” from the “glamorous” world of the fashion industry,

Click HERE to read the full interview!

DOOM TIME

Doom-scrolling, Negativ Bias und soziale Folgen

I am very excited to participate in DOOM TIME, doom-scrolling, negative bias and social impacts – an immersive, dark-dystopian group exhibition that creates a deliberately off-putting space and hits you with sensory overload. It stirs up fear, exhaustion, and unease – just like the emotional burnout from endless negative news and doom-scrolling on social media.

I present a site specific photographic installation from the series "Figure for the Base of a Crucifixion" with the works  „R U on IG ?“ (2023), „TikTok“ (2025),  „Tradwife“ (2026), and „The Matrix“ (2026). I use emojis and excerpts from sexting text messages, TikTok videos, and REELS, as well as quotes from influencers, which I print out and then stick onto my body to transfer them from the digital to the physical realm. My body acts as a projection surface for practices from the virtual world and makes pervasive language visible. This deliberately deepens the contrast between the colorful emojis, intrusive texts, and the female body, which is nothing more than an advertising space. The photographic works show front and back views, thus becoming photographic sculptures that “stand in the way”. You have to walk around them—they are deliberately discomforting.

Participating artists:

Anna Bittersohl, Aram Bartholl, Simon Baumgart, Jonas Blume, Benedikt Braun, Elisa Jule Braun, Paolo Cirio, Ben Grosser, Esra Gülmen, Susanne Junker, Philipp Kummer, Marc Lee, Kayla Mattes, Signe Pierce, Theresa Rothe, Michal Schmidt, Stefan Schiek.

Curated by Konstantin Bayer

DOOM TIME

Doom-scrolling, Negativ Bias und soziale Folgen

OPENING: 14.03.2026 at 7 pm

DJ Set: Druck - Resonanz - Kontrollverlust by Christoph Höfferl

Exhibition period: 15.03.2026 – 25.04.2026 

Galerie Eigenheim

Asbachstrasse 1

Gärtnerhaus im Weimarhallenpark

Weimar 99423

Germany

www.galerie-eigenheim.de

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.

OPENING SO WHAT! 04.04.2025

My exhibition SO WHAT! opened on April 4th 2025 at H1, Zentrum für Gegenwartskunst in Augsburg, Germany. It was a beautiful evening with dear colleagues, family and friends.

Exhibition poster in front of the Glaspalast in Augsburg, Germany

Entrance to the H1, Zentrum für Gegenwartskunst, Augsburg, Germany

Speech time: Jan Wilms, Susanne Junker, Chiara Padovan

Opening So What!

30 years of work become recognised in the most respected and beautiful way, it was the happiest moment!

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