Annelies Strba

Life

Annelies Štrba was born in Zug, Switzerland in 1947. She now lives in Richterswil (Lake Zurich) and Ascona, Switzerland. She started showing her work in 1990, and has participated in many group shows alongside other artists known for their portrayals of family, society, and everyday subjects, such as Nan Goldin, Shirin Neshat, Pipilotti Rist and Wolfgang Tillmans. She has traveled internationally for her work, spending time in Japan, Poland, Scotland, Paris, and England, amongst other places. She received a Federal Grant for Applied Art in 1971 and has exhibited widely in Europe, primarily in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria, and France, as well as in the United States.

Work

Štrba combines photography, digital media, and film to chronicle her physical and emotional life. A mother of three, she has been documenting her family environment through her work for over four decades. Her best-known bodies of work, Shades of Time, AYA, NYIMA, and her most recent publication, Noonday, depict her immediate family including her three children, and five grandchildren. Although she is working with subject matter that is very personal and quite literally close to home, Štrba constructs a quality of fantastical narrative in her pictures, utilizing combinations of the different mediums in her repertoire. While creating images that evoke fantastical emotion using technological processes, she simultaneously embraces a sense from 19th Century romanticism while addressing themes of domesticity and nature.

Štrba uses a digital camera to capture moments and figures in film and still, which she then colors with the aid of computer programs. This digital manipulation provides Štrba’s images with a sense of painterliness and allows her to abandon naturalism and realist details in favor of complex visual textures. She often photographs around the family homes just outside of Zurich or in the Swiss mountains, where they spend many weekends and holidays. The product is a personal and poetically abstract documentation of the life around her, capturing her subjects at the dining room table, grooming, in the chaos of untidy rooms, or surrounded by nature. Overall, a personal story is told of the intertwined lives and relationships, speaking to memories, reactions, and nostalgic realization.

Selected Works

Selected Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

2015
Galerie Anton Meier, Geneva, Switzerland
2014
Annelis Strba - Madonnen, Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
2013
Shades of Time, Kunsthaus Zug

2011
Summerending (with Adrian Schiess), Museum Langmatt, Baden, Switzerland Ferme-Asile, Sion, Switzerland

2010
Frances et les Elfes, Ferme-Asile, Centre artistique & culturel, Sion, Switzerland

2009
My Life Dreams: Annelies Strba, Kindermuseum Burg Wissem, Troisdorf, Germany

2008
My Life Dreams, The Brontë Parsonage Museum Haworth, Haworth, UK

2006
Museum Valchava, Switzerland

2004
Gemeente Museum, Den Haag, Netherlands

2003
NYIMA, Helmhaus Zürich

2001
Annelies Strba: An 1-An11, Kunsthaus Zug, Switzerland Shades of Time, Centre national de la photographie, Paris Centre pour l'image contemporaine, St. Gervais, Genf

1999
Eçoles des Beaux Arts, Nantes Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

1998
Europäisches Fotomuseum Paris

1996
Kunstverein Düsseldorf Kunstverein Weimar

1995
Museum Moritzburg

1994
Albers Museum, Bottrop

1991
Centre d'art contemporain, Martigny

Group Exhibitions

2016
Im Rausch - Zwischen Höhenflug und Absturz, Kunstmuseum Thurgau, Warth, Switzerland Heiliger Besuch, Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen, Switzerland Aufs Land, Bilder von Kobel bis Richter, Schllossmuseum Murnau

2013
Hold und mächtig? Das Bild der Mutter in den Kulturen, Religio. Westfälisches Museum für religiöse Kultur

2012
Alice in the Wonderland of Art, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Galerie der Gegenwart MART Rovereto, Italien

2011
Kunstmuseum Luzern, Jahresausstellung 2010, Luzern, Switzerland

2010
Centre National de l'Audiovisuel, Luxemburg International Aleppo Woman Art Festival, Aleppo, Syria

2009
Controverses au Botanique, Museum de Botanique, Brussels Ego Documents. Das Autobiograische in der Gegenwartskunst, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland elles@centrepompidou, artistes femmes dans les collections du Centre Pompidou, Paris

2008
In Voller Blüte, Museum Villa Rot, Burgrieden-Rot, Germany Baby. Picturing the ideal human 1840-now, Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam Adolescents, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland

2007
Top of Central Switzerland, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland Viewfinder, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle

2006
Museum Chasa Jaura Valchav, Switzerland In the Face of History, European Photographers in the 20th Century, Barbican Centre, London, Great Britain Artists for Miroslav Tichy, Museum of Arts, Brno/Brünn (CZ); JEZ, Kyiov (CZ); MMK, PassauLeigh (UK), The Kingston Turnpike, Turnpike Gallery, Kingston (UK), Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University

2005
Kunst Berlin, University of Massachusetts and Hampshire College

2004
Architecture Biennale kunst kinder karriere, Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen Rose c’ est la vie – on flowers in contemporary art, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv

2000
fleurs, Museum zu Allerheiligen / Kunstverein Schaffhausen

1999
Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York The Nude, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut Missing Link, Kunstmuseum Bern

1998
Fotomuseum Antwerp L'imaginerie, Lannion, Swiss Contemporary Art Exhibition, Seoul, Korea

1997
Fotografie als Geste, Staatliches Museum Schwerin Aspekt: Landschaft, Engelberger Talmuseum

1996
Kunstverein Bonn The Eye of the Beholder, The Swiss Institute, New York

1995
Sourroundings, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel

1994
Another Continent, Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokio

1992
Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Dortmund Biennale Sydney

Selected collections

France

Great Britain

Germany

Switzerland

USA

Selected Monographs

2010
Veronique Mauron, Strba, Annelies: Frances et les Elfes, Ferme-Asile: Sion, Switzerland
2005
Ralf Christofori, Strba, Annelies: Frances und die Elfen, Ilma Rakusa Stuttgart
2003
Simon Maurer, Strba, Annelies: NYIMA, Zürich: Helmhaus Zürich / Basel: Christoph Merian Verlag
2002
Strba, Annelies: AYA, Zürich, Berlin, New York: Scalo
2001
Strba, Annelies: ÅN 1–ÅN 11, Richterswil, 2001. (Publication accompanying the exhibition at Kunsthaus Zug)
1997
Ilma Rakusa, Strba, Annelies: Shades of Time, Baden: Lars Müller Publishers
1994
Roman Kurzmeyer, Strba, Annelies: Ware iri ware ni iru, Luzern: Galerie Urs Meile
1990
Bernhard Bürgi, Georg Kohler, Strba, Annelies: Aschewiese, Zürich: Edition Howeg (Publication accompanying the exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich)
1988
Schobinger, Bernhard. Devon, Karbon, Strba, Annelies / Perm. 62 ausgewählte Objekte, 1984– 1987, Zürich: Edition Howeg