Steffi Klenz

Bio

Steffi has exhibited her work across the UK and internationally. Selected venues include The Royal Academy in London and The Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, The British Museum in London, The Wellcome Collection London, Camden Art Centre in London, The New Art Gallery Walsall, The Museum for Contemporary Art in Taipei, The Museum of  Contemporary Art Alicante, The FotoMuseum Antwerp, The Finish Museum of Photography in Helsinki, Los Angeles Centre for Digital Arts, The Phoenix Art Museum, CICA Museum in Gimpo in South Korea, The Fine Art Museum Luleå in Sweden, Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen and Museum Künstlerkolonie in Darmstadt.

Her work was part of the audio-visual display "Frames: Projecting International Photography" at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow as part of the 2014 Glasgow International Festival for Contemporary Art, the audio-visual display  "Look-Light" at Tate Liverpool in 2015, The British Council exhibition at Romantso Cultural Centre as part of Dokumenta in Athens in 2017, The Biennale for Contemporary Photography in Germany in 2020, The International Biennale for Photography in Belo Horizonte (Brazil) in 2021, The Biennale for Electronic Language and Technology in Sao Paulo (Brazil) in 2022 and the 2023 Tokyo Biennale. Most recently she was invited to present a solo exhibition as part of the 2024 European Capital of Culture in Bodø (Norway) and participated in the International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Uzbekistan in 2024.

Her work has been reviewed in numerous magazines such as Art Monthly, Art Review, Art World China, Kunstforum Germany, Elephant Magazine, The Architectural Review, Icon Magazine, Portfolio Magazine as well as academic peer-reviewed journals such as Photographies, History of Photography Journal, Photography and Culture Journal. 

Her practice has been discussed in Chris Townsend's “New Art from London", Thames&Hudson (2006), Judith Rugg’s "Spatialities: The Geographies of Art and Architecture" by Intellect Publishing (2022), Robert Shore's "Post-Photography: The Artist with a  Camera” by Laurence King Publishing (2014), Imogen Racz' "Art and Home: Comfort, Alienation and the Everyday"” by I.B.Tauris (2015), Robert Shore's "Beg, Steal and Borrow" by Laurence King Publishing (2017), Jean Wainwright's "Ship to Shore: the Art and Lure of the Sea" by  Cornerhouse Publications in 2018, “Contemporary Photography: Archives and Documentary History" published by NOUA in 2021, Fiona Shields‘(ed.) “Collage: Women in Photography” by Gestalten in 2022 and Michael Benson's and Isabelle von Ribbentrop's "Human" by Hantje Cantz in 2023.

Steffi published her first book “Polo bound for Passaic” by Cornerhouse Publishing (UK) and Schaden Verlag (Germany) in 2009. Her book “He only feels the black and white of it, Berlin Wall 14-07-1973” by Mörel Books was launched in 2016 and the book “So to Speak” was published in 2018.

She was commissioned by Unseen Photography Festival in Amsterdam in 2013, undertook the Rights of Passage Commission for the 2015 Venice Biennale, completed the BBC East Tower Project in 2017 in London and the Tunbridge Wells Museum and Cultural Quarter Commission in 2018. Klenz completed the innovative London Borough of Culture Project (2019-2022), exhibited as part of London Festival of Architecture in 2022 and launched her first permanent public artwork “Tensed Muscles” in London in June 2022.

Steffi is part of the collaborative European project “Out of the Metropolis – Art Exchange across Borders” an initiative supported by the European Union in partnership with the Finnish Museum of Photography, NŌUA in Norway, and DoubleDummy in France.

She has taught and delivered lectures and seminars at educational and cultural institutions both in the UK and internationally. Additionally, she served as an International Research & Artistic Mentor at The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Steffi was a mentor for UCA’s Leverhulme Trust-funded initiative “Fast Forward: Women in Photography” and was an active member of the Cultural Innovation Forum in South-East UK. She currently serves as a Trustee for the arts organisation Cement Fields.

She is a member of UCA’s REF Working Group and the Impact Case Working Group. She serves as joint PGR Lead for the Canterbury School of Art, Architecture & Design.