Walking a fine line between common sense and uncommon nonsense, Uta Eisenreich systematically explores the familiar methods for understanding our presumed reality.
The core of Uta Eisenreich’s practice is an investigation of the incongruous relationship between thought and reality. Walking a fine line between common sense and uncommon nonsense, she systematically explores the familiar methods for understanding our presumed reality.
Enigmatic compositions of domestic items recall fleeting memories of elementary science, magic tricks, art history, assessment tests and optical illusions. The objects seem to animate one another, transforming into characters and suggesting underlying patterns that viewers are triggered to discern. Recently Eisenreich focuses more specifically on examining the nature of language.
Uta Eisenreich (Germany, 1971) is an artist working with photography and performance. After a year of studying philosophy at the University of Frankfurt am Main, Eisenreich enrolled at the University of Applied Sciences in Dortmund to study photography. Soon longing to push the borders of the medium, she transferred to the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam where she graduated in 2000. In the early 2000s Eisenreich explored the interface of photography and performing arts, collaborating with performance makers like Eva Meyer-Keller (DE/SE) and Zhana Ivanova (BG/GB).
Ever since she has frequently incorporated performative strategies in her photographic practice and vice versa. Her camera is often used as a live-tool for performances. On the other hand she treats a book as a time-based medium, like a portable theatre. Her artist book A not B (2010, Roma Publications) has received several prizes and currently holds the status of a collector’s item. Eisenreich’s work – ranging from photographs, video installations to performance pieces – has appeared in various exhibitions, for example in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Foam Amsterdam or the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Next to her autonomous practice, Eisenreich works on commissions. A few recent examples are the jury-nominated proposal round for a new metro station of the Amsterdam North-South Line (2013) commercial image campaigns for Turnover (2012/2014) or Hermès’ Petit H (2015). Uta Eisenreich works and lives in Amsterdam, where she teaches at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.