about | sebastianklug

Sebastian Klug (* 1981 in Munich) is a German photographer and visual artist based in Berlin. He started using photography while studying architecture and since 2008 has exhibited widely. His work was chosen as a highlight at the European Month of Photography Festival in Berlin in 2010 and across venues in various cities including Munich, Cologne, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Venice, Turin, Genoa, London, Chicago and Detroit. He was featured in "Artist Quarterly" at Sotheby's Munich in 2019 and was nominated for "Preis der Nationalgalerie" in 2021.

Klug's practice spans between the fields of photography, paper work and installation. His approach to photography emerges from the genuine desire to document his experiences as he explores the night life of his new home of choice, Berlin. Using a Nokia 6300 mobile phone in low light levels, he creates an atmospheric visual diary that mixes the grain, noise and strange colors of his phone’s pictures with that of his nocturnal encounters.

As a trained architect, he seeks to combine the interest in sculptural modelling with his passion for photography. He has created a technique that combines two prints of a photograph by cutting and interweaving them into a three-dimensional hybrid between an image and an object. In this way his photographs are allowed to grow into space and emphasize the material aspects of the image-carrier. As part of his playful mise-en-scene of the paper, he pulls strips out of the woven fabric and creates waving, relief-like structures. Other pieces combine the prints with materials such as foils or fabrics, or even play with the image’s perspective, by cutting the photograph towards the vanishing point and shifting the strips along the perspectival lines. As a result, the image is manually distorted and pixelated, the latter closing the circuit to the very basics of digital image formation.

Other than his woven objects that make the viewer’s focus oscillate between the material features and the image content, he finds a way to leave the classical format of photography in his installations and to step into free space. Both the freely wafting installation in a former prison in Berlin-Köpenick and the full-room installation with its wave-like all-over-structure in Munich expand the range of the medium and create immersive environments.

"As Europe’s cherished club scene slumbers beneath the shroud of COVID, the fragments of what was seep across different mediums as a new expression of old desires. What is left in the reflection of a shattered disco ball? Sebastian Klug’s series ‘Mirage’ weaves a unique narrative, in both the literal and figurative. Through the eye of a by-then glaucomic Nokia 6300, the trained architect captures images of bars and clubs across various cities, a distillation of nightlife unfettered, yet seen through an obsolete technology. One might apply this ancient phone’s low-res camera to the haze of an infinite number of evenings spent amongst darkened rooms thick with the hum and throb of pulsating exuberance and intoxication.

Using an interwoven technique that combines two photographs into a chimaeric sculpture, Klug reconceptualizes the events of one night or several, blurring the boundaries between image and object, as well as artifact and memory. Clear ideas are stripped of context; what you thought you knew has become something entirely different. New patterns emerge in the spaces between, a secret and intimate language born of night. It tells of the illusion that permeates our forays into those dimmed halls of joy—that this is Forever.

In this Blurred New World, the architect's hands are our guide. While the shape of these memories might seem familiar, they travel to phantasmagorical places."

Daniel Jones for "Photographic Landscapes"- exhibition, EMOP Berlin 2020

2002-10 Architecture Studies at TU Cottbus (Diplom), IUAV Venice (2004/05), ETSA Granada (2006/07)

2016-17 Photography Studies at Neue Schule für Fotografie, Berlin

Exhibitions

2022

Myung Galerie, group exhibition, Leonhardtstr. 19, Berlin-Charlottenburg, may 24 - July 12

Damnatio Memoriae, group exhibition by Hvallo Collective, Atelier Vulkanfiberfabrik (18.-25.6.) &

Gefängnnis am Amtsgericht Köpenick (1.-3.7.)

Installation at Bauwende Festival by Architects4Future, Atelier Gardens, Berlin may 26 -29

Mindscape, Yvonne Andreini, Maike Freese, Sebastian Klug, Anne Cécile Surga, Emeli Theander, Manuela Toselli

Curated by Luisa Catucci and Suzy Royal. Lehrter Strasse 36, 10557 Berlin, may 14 - 29

Don't look know, A voyeuristic view, Nadja Lana and Sebastian Klug, curated by Suzy Royal

Gallery N° 10, Ludwigkirchstr. 10, 10719 Berlin - Wilmersdorf, april 8 - may 20

2021

Kunstlabor 2, Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art Munich, room installation, Gesundheitshaus,

Dachauer Str. 90, Munich oct 16 - open end

Widerschein, group exhibition, Tag des Offenen Denkmals, KuKuK Kunstanstalt, Berlin sept 11-12

Direkte Auktion, Chapter 3/ Slot 12: Photoscenes, Flies and other Dots, curated by Karin Müller

& Gesa Christian, Pirol Studios, Berlin aug 31 - sept 3

Polyflowers//Technocolor, exhibition with Vanessa Leissring, Photoszene United Festival,

Kulturraum 405, Cologne may 25 - aug 14

Le spectre nocturne - rouge, solo show, Salon Gartenhaus Parterre, Berlin june 19 - july 31

2020

Photographic Landscapes, solo show, European Month of Photograph Berlin, Mainoeuvre,

Berlin oct 1 - nov 8

Fragmented Realities, exhibition with Markus J. Becker, curated by Suzy Royal,

Andreas Reinisch Project, Berlin sept 10 - oct 15

2019

Interwoven, Artist Quarterly, solo show at Sotheby's Munich, july 4 - sept 29

Stadtansichten, Kirchen und Schlösser in zeitgenössischer Malerei, Grafik und Fotografie,

group exhibition by Galerie Fortak, Klostergalerie Hochfranken, Hof (Bavaria) april 29 - sept 29

Other Identity - altre forme di identità culturali e pubbliche, group exhibition by Francesco Arena,

Guidi & Schoen, Genoa march 9 - 29

2018

Blue Memories, solo show, Monat der Fotografie Off, Bernheimer Contemporary, Berlin oct 18 - nov 18

Ansbach Contemporary 2018, Biennial for Contemporary Art, Ansbach (Bavaria) aug 17 - sept 30

Here3, group exhibition, Cavallerizza Irreale, Turin may 18 - 27

Wonderland, group exhibition, Bernheimer Contemporary, Berlin april 24 - june 2

2017
Streamflow, group exhibition, Bernheimer Contemporary, Berlin oct 17 - nov 30

Weinonsten, group exhibition, Hilbertraum, Berlin may 12 - 21
Art Karlsruhe, stand with Bernheimer Contemporary, Karlsruhe feb 16 - 19

2016

When did we stop playing?, group exhibition, Anna Laudel Contemporary, Istanbul dec 16 - feb 12 2017
Berlin Art Week Exhibition, group exhibition, Enter Art Foundation, Berlin sept 14 - 25

Other Identity, group exhibition, Loggia della Mercanzia, Genova feb 6 - march 7

2015
Die Lichtenberg Norm, group exhibition, Galerie Zwitschermaschine, Berlin nov 7 - 15

Sleepers, solo show, Das Giftraum, Berlin feb 13 - 15

2014
Shunga - Träume einer fließenden Welt, group exhibition, Glashaus, Berlin feb 22 - 23

O du mein holder Abendstern, solo show, Team Titanic, Berlin jan 7 - 10

2013
Nighthawks Neukölln, group exhibition, Galerie Michaela Helfrich, Berlin dec 12 - jan 11 2014

Berlin meets Wiesbaden, group exhibition, Galerie Grötecke, Wiesbaden dec 1 - 31

Nattens Møder i Berlin, solo show, Mellemrummet, Copenhagen aug 1 - sept 30

Dissolutions, solo show, Factory Street Gallery, Helsinki may 24 - june 8

2012
Portrait Salon, group exhibition (simultaneous screening), London, Leeds, Cardiff, Brighton nov 29
Cell Phones in Summer, group exhibition, Artspace at Untitled, Oklahoma City june 1 - sept 30
Compressed, group exhibition and auction, Neonchocolate Gallery, Berlin april 3 - 5

2011
...off the beaten tracks, group exhibition with Peter Franck, Matthias Gephardt and Sven Marquardt, Neonchocolate Gallery Berlin dec 1 - 15
08. Berliner Kunstsalon, Art Fair, Uferhallen, Berlin sept 15 - 18
Berlinoir, installation, Schiume Festival, Forte Marghera, Venice june 23 - 26
Berlin - Choreographie einer Stadt, group exhibition, Forum Factory, Berlin april 29 - may 15

2010

Durch die Nacht, European Month of Photography Berlin, solo show, Galerie Ina Köhler, Berlin oct 16 - jan 10 2011
[proyecto final]: Es war so schön bei dir Marie..., solo show, Fenster 61, Berlin feb 16 - march 15

In the Nighttime, solo show, Galerie Fango, Cottbus jan 15 - feb 12

Press/ Media

BR - Space Night, Interview with astrophysicist Dr. Heino Falcke on the first image of "Sagittarius A"

Exibart, Interview (2022)

Isarblog, Exhibition Review (2021)

Munichmag, Exhibition Review (2021)

Sotheby's Deutschland Newsletter, Juni - August 2019

Juliet Magazine about Other Identity Exhibition, Genova 2019

Internationale Kunst in der Klostergalerie, Frankenpost, 12.5.2019

Berlijn danst, Jaco Boer in Tijd (supplement of Trouw), Amsterdam, 14.4.2012

Durch die Nacht, von der Sehnsucht nach Auflösung in 1000 Pixel, von Ina Köhler, Museumsjournal 4/2010

Techno, Tristesse, Tacheles, Tagesspiegel, 29.10.2010