Özlem Altın

Özlem Altın’s research focuses on the articulations between inanimate body parts and the artefact in motion. Her collages and photographic constellations investigate compatibilities, translations and adaptations between the human body, animal and vegetal parts, cultural artefacts and language. As she cuts, conceals, reproduces and paints over layers of archival imagery, the interplay between receding figures and a protruding background underlines a state of in-betweenness positioning every element in a dynamic tension between potentiality and actuality. 

Constituting an archive of her own photographs and found images, including other artists’ works and material from museum collections, Özlem Altın selectively activates imagery through collages, photographs and painting. Abolishing any hierarchies within the source material, she develops a highly associative visual semantic that focuses on gestures as abstractions.

Altın’s contouring of images with ink and paint at once isolates fragments - human arms and hands, plants and herons, monsters and ghostly figures - from their original context, and re-animates them in a new mythological vocabulary that dissolves the border between the organic and the artifact, the spectral and the physical. Distinctly hand painted, these marks enact an encounter between the indexicality of photographic capture and the somatic qualities associated with touch. 

Alongside exhibition contexts, the book form is integral to Altin’s research as a spatial and temporal medium where her work unfolds. Having founded Orient Press as a publishing platform in Berlin in 2007, she has created and disseminated artist books since early stages of her practice, including Dance (Camera Austria, 2017); Umbra (2010); Survival Of An Idea (2008); The Primitive Mentality (2007).  

Özlem Altın (b. 1977, Goch, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. 

Altın studied at the ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem from 2000 to 2003 and at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam between 2004 and 2006. Recent solo exhibitions include Lens, Merano Arte (Meran, 2019); Processing, Camera Austria, (Graz, 2017); Untitled (Touch or Melancholy), Lentos, (Linz, 2016); No story, no, Witte de With, (Rotterdam, 2015). Her work has been included in important group shows such as The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2022); Tongues of Time, Villa Romana, (Florence, 2021); Companion Pieces: New Photography 2020, MoMA online (2020); Part of the Labyrinth, Göteburg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (Gothenburg, 2019); The Seventh Continent, 16th Istanbul Biennial (2019); We don't need another hero, 10th Berlin Biennale (2018); Beyond Words, 4th Mardin Biennial (2018); Cosmology of the Boundless, Museion Bolzano (2017). Ozlem Altin was the recipient of Stiftung Kunstfonds’ Work Grant in 2022 and a Fellow at the Villa Romana, Florence, in 2020. In 2023 she is awarded by the city of Berlin, the Hannah Hoch Forderpreis and a solo exhibition to be held at Berlinische Galerie in 2024. 

Education

2021 Guest-professorship for photography, HGB Art Academy, Leipzig, DE
2007 Founding of independent publisher for artist books Orient Press, Berlin, DE
2006 MFA, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, NL
2003 BA Fine Arts, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Arnhem, NL

Solo Exhibitions

2023 Memory and Desire, stirring. with Tereza Zelenkova, Fotograf Gallery, Prague, AT Release, Page Not Found, Den Haag, NL
2022 Kısmet, THE PILL, Istanbul, TR
2019 Honey Moon, Sauvage, Düsseldorf, DE
Lens, Kunst Meran, curated by Christiane Rekade, Merano, IT
2017 Processing, Camera Austria, steirischer herbst, Graz, AT
2016 Interiore, SpazioA, Pistoia, ITHole or screen (her body, a fragment), Raum mit Licht, Vienna, AT Untitled (touch or melancholy), Sammlungsausstellung, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, AT
2015 Kiria Koula, curated by Juana Berrio (with Patricia L. Boyd), San Francisco, USA No story, no, Witte de With, curated by Defne Ayas, Samuel Saelemakers, Rotterdam, NL
2013 Cathartic ballet, Circus, Berlin, DE
2012 Rhythm of Resemblance, Leopold–Hoesch–Museum, Düren, DE
2011 Several bodies, Circus, Berlin, DE
2010 Ianus (My memory of what happened is not what happened), Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples, IT
2009 Each movement appears like hesitation, Circus, Berlin, DE
2008 Geometric portrait, Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, NL
2007 Die dritten Personen, Swingr, Vienna, AT
2006 The Movement Movement, BRAVO, (with Ruth Buchanan), Rotterdam, NL There are people watching, expecting to hear absolute silence, TENT, Rotterdam, NL

Selected Group Exhibitions

2023 Touch. Politiken der Berührung, European Month of Photography, Amtsalon, Berlin, DE Scores for Transformation, Artspace Aotearoa, NZ
2022 The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Cecilia Alemani, Venice, IT Omnibus, Kinderhook & Caracas, curated by Sol Calero und Chris Kline, Berlin, DE Editions, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, DE
2021 Tongues of Time, Villa Romana, Florence, IT
2020 Companion Pieces: New Photography 2020, curated by Lucy Gallun, MoMA (online) The Answer Will Come, curated by Susanne Weiss, Die Antwort kommt, KV Leipzig, DE Exhibition of prize fellows, Villa Romana, Florence, IT
2019 Part of the Labyrinth, GIBCA 10th Gothenburg Biennial, curated by Lisa Rosendahl, SE The Seventh Continent, 16th Istanbul Biennial, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, TR 50 Jahre neue Gesellschaft, nGbk, Berlin, DE What remains is what the poets found, PS120, curated by Jesi Khadivi and Justin Polera, Berlin, DE A skin surrounding everything, Manifold Books, Amsterdam, NL
2018 We don’t need another hero, 10th Berlin Biennial, curated by Gabi Ngcobo etal., DE Beyond Words, 4th Mardin Biennial, curated by Nazlı Gürlek etal., Mardin, TR
2017 Cosmology of the Boundless, Museion, Bolzano, IT The surface of shrimp-the gesture of soap,
curated by Zoe Miller, UVE, Berlin, DE
2016 Sparkling like the surface of the ocean, curated by Hanne Hagennaars, Garage Rotterdam, NL To Walk A Line, curated by Katarina Zdjelar, Akademie der Künste der Welt, Köln, DE What we have overlooked, curated by Mirjam Westen, Museum Arnhem at Framer Framed, Amsterdam, NL Beyond lawn and order, curated by Rodrigo Ortiz Monasterio, josegarcia ,xm, Mexico City, MX
2015 Regarding Spectatorship, curated by Marianna Liosi and Boaz Levin, Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin, DE OAOA University, curated by Ola Vasiljeva, de Vleeshal Kabinetten, Middelburg, NL I hear your voice reflected..., curated by Emily Wardill and Jesi Khadivi, Carlier Gebauer, Berlin, DE
2014 The Moving Museum, Istanbul, TR Trocadero, curated by Nazlı Gürlek, Nesrin Esirtgen Collection Art Space, Istanbul, TR Disappear like this word, Aleksander Bruno, Warsaw, PL

2013 Museum Off Museum, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld Das Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, DE Salon der Angst, curated by Cathérine Hug and Nicolaus Schafhausen, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, AT Artists for Tichy, curated by Zdenek Felix, GASK Central Bohemian Gallery, Kutna Hora, CZ Altın, curated by Sol Calero and Chris Kline, Kinderhook & Caracas, Berlin, DE Always Yours, Lost Objects, Monuments, curated by Neil Beloufa, Balice Hertling, Paris, FR
2012 Two hands and a head, SVIT, Prague, AT Dear Aby Warburg, What Can Be Done with Images?, curated by Eva Schmidt, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen, DE Case Report, curated by Lorenzo Sandoval, Nogueras Blanchard, Barcelona, SP
2011 the light, the shape & the body, curated by Philipp Ziegler, Galerie Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart, DE Figures in Space, curated by Rita Kersting, Galerie Ute Parduhn, Düsseldorf, DE Malibu Circa 1990, Contemporary Art Gallery, Malibu, USA Untitled (Evidence): From Alternative Knowledge to Counter Memories, curated by Vincent Honoré, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK based in Berlin, Atelierhaus Monbijoupark, Berlin, DE Starke Emergenz, curated by Veit Loers, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, AT
2010 Spirits & Landscapes, curated by Ada von Hoorebeke, Wiels, Brussels, BE Purpling, curated by Lucy Stein, Gimpel Fils, London Source Material, TENT, Rotterdam, NL

Awards & Grants

2022 Arbeitsstipendium, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn, DE
2020 Villa Romana Prize, Florence, IT
2012 Scholarship of Günther-Peill-Stiftung, Düren, DE
2009 Work grant, Fonds BKVB, Amsterdam, NL
2008 Publication grant, Fonds BKVB, Amsterdam, NL
2007 Work grant, Fonds BKVB, Amsterdam, NL
2006 Scholarship of Dullertstichting Hey KonijnFonds, Arnhem, NL

Residencies

2018 Residency CCA Andratx, Mallorca,SP
2014 Residency Goethe-Institut, IMMA, Dublin, IE Residency The Moving Museum, Istanbul, TR
2010 Residency Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples, IT
2006 Residency Schloss Ringenberg, Hamminkeln, DE