Beate Gütschow
Beate Gütschow (born 1970 in Mainz, Germany) is a contemporary German artist. She lives and works in Cologne and Berlin. Life and work. Gütschow studied art at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg from 1993 to 2000, and at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 1997. She served as guest professor from 2009-2010 at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. Since 2011 she is a professor at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Gütschow's work explores the relationship between photographic representation and reality. It also investigates how our visual perception is informed  and influenced by prior knowledge of other images. LS Series. In her first series, "LS" (an abbreviation of "Landschaft", or landscape) Gütschow uses photographic means to reconstruct depictions of landscape in 17th- and 18th-century paintings. With the aid of computer software, she montages scores of image fragments to create photographs that adhere to the compositional principles of the ideal landscape. S Series. The body of work entitled "S" for "Stadt" (city) consists of large black-and-white photographs that are also composed of multiple images. Diverse architectural structures and geographical locations are combined within a single picture. These works  clearly reference documentary photography, but at the same time contradict it with their photographic fictions. I Series. In the series "I" (for "Interior"), Gütschow undertakes a critical investigation of advertising photography, composing mundane objects such as a car battery, ergonomic chair, and overhead projector into surrealistic scenes in her studio. Z Series. In this documentary series Gütschow combines photographic fragments with computer-generated drawings. Z stands for "Zellengefängnis". "Zellengefängnis" is the german translation for a former solitary confinement prison in Berlin. Gütschow has taken photo fragments from this location and processed it together with archive material in digital drawings. HC  Series. In her latest series „HC“ Gütschow deals with the pictorial representation of gardens in medieval and early Renaissance art. HC stands for Hortus Conclusus. Gütschow takes motifs from contemporary architecture surroundings and transfers them to a parallel perspective with the help of photogrammetry. She uses this historical reference as a tool not only to challenge the viewer’s perception but also to negotiate current developments in 3D photography. Gütschow has received numerous awards, including the ars viva prize awarded by the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft (2006) and the Otto-Dix-Prize/IBM Art Award for New Media, Gera (2001 ). In 2001 she also held a fellowship at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. Gütschow was one of the urbanites portrayed in the 2009 documentary "In Berlin" by Michael Ballhaus and Ciro Cappellari. Works in public collections (selected). Works of Beate Gütschow can be found in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Kunsthaus Zurich, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Saint Louis Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden and in the Staedel Museum, Frankfurt.