Karen Knorr

Karen Knorr was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and was raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the 1960s. She finished her education in Paris and London. Karen Knorr has taught, exhibited and lectured internationally, including at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, The University of Westminster, Goldsmiths, Harvard and The Art Institute of Chicago. She studied at the University of Westminster in the mid-1970s, exhibiting photography that addressed debates in cultural studies and film theory concerning the ‘politics of representation’ practices which emerged during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Karen Knorr has been the professor of photography at the University for the Creative Arts since 2010. Karen Knorr’s photography explores cultural heritage and its idealogical underpinnings. Questions concerning post colonialism and its relationship to aesthetics permeate her photographic work. Karen Knorr won the V International Photography Pilar Citoler Prize in 2010.

She has been nominated for the Deutsche Börse in 2011 and 2012 and Prix Pictet in 2012. Karen Knorr’s photography has been exhibited worldwide and is included in collections including the Museum of London, Tate, Pompidou, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Folkwang Museum, Essen, Kyoto Museum of Modern Art.