The artist's work questions traditional concepts of gender, culture, and normality; capturing both specific social spaces and the unique people who live in them. Sieverding's work primarily analyses the relationship between her subjects- individuals who range from women in traditional Islamic dress to drag queens, performance actors and the Berlin club scene- to their bodies. In recent years the artist has added to her work the depiction of equally unique architecture which is portrayed as means of being a specific social space. Continuously throughout the artist's work, materiality plays a significant role: be it elements of concrete and glass in Close to Concrete I and II, hair in To The Crowned And Conquering Child or textiles as in the photo series Text I-VI. In cooperation with Orson Sieverding, the artist develops electronic soundscapes for her installations which when projected onto her protagonists transform into urban echoes.
Grants
Sieverding has won an art grant from the Senate of Berlin twice, in 2008 and 2014. In 2011 Sieverding was invited as an artist in residence at the Meet Factory in Prague, the Maumaus in Lisbon, and as a visiting lecturer at the International Art Academy in Ramallah, Palestine where she received an art grant from the Anna Lindh Foundation. Today the artist resides and works in Berlin.
Notable works
2016: The Epic, HD Video, Sound, 24'
2016: ARENA Mural, latex print on fleece, 340 x 1030 cm
2015: ARENA, neon tubes, acrylic glas, transformator, 35 x 145 x 10 cm
2014: TORSO #1-#7, pigment print on paper, je 220 x 112 cm
2014: ARENA #1-#12, pigment print on paper, je 112 x 168 cm
2014: Close to Concrete II, HD Video, Sound, 15‘20"
2013: The Embrace, Super 8 film transferred to HD, sound, 3'42"
2012: Cross Metropolis Machine, HD video, sound, 14'
2011: Close to Concrete I, HD Video, Sound, 15‘20"
2010: Make Up, video transferred to DVD, 31'28"
2010: Face To Face, Super 8 film transferred to DVD, 2 channel video installation, size variable, 10'34" loop
2009: Nocturne Arabesque, video transferred to DVD, sound, 3'45" loop
2009: Cadavre Exquis III-VIII, pigment print on paper, 230 x 112 cm each
2008: Cadavre Exquis I-II, pigment print on paper, 230 x 112 cm each
2007: To The Crowned And Conquering Child, video installation, video transferred to DVD, sound, 6'33" loop
2004: Girls With Guns, 4 channel video installation, size variable, loop
2002: I like revolutions, video transferred to DVD, sound, 3'45"
Major solo exhibitions
2016: "THE EPIC", NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen
2015: "ARENA", at Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin
2014: "GRANDS ENSEMBLES" at BOX21 Freiraum für Kultur, Berlin
2012: "CROSS METROPOLIS MACHINE/CLOSE TO CONCRETE" at BRAENNEN, Berlin
2012 "CROSS METROPOLIS MACHINE" at Galerie Kostka, Prague
2011: "CLOSE TO CONCRETE" at Lumiar Cité, Lisbon
2010: "Never mind about the six feet, let's talk about the seven inches" at Galerie Lena Brüning, Berlin
2010: "RHIZOMA" at TÄT, Berlin
2009/2010: "Figures of Affect" Friederike Hamann and Pola Sieverding, Galerie Campagne Première, Berlin
2009: "Cadavre Exquis" at Galerie Lena Brüning, Berlin
Major group exhibitions
2016: "Von den Strömen der Stadt", Museum Abteiberg, Mönhengladbach
2016: "The Self. Perception – Profession – Portrait", Dubai Photo Exhibition, Dubai kuratiert von Frank Wagner und Zelda Cheatle
2014: "LOVE AIDS RIOT SEX 2" at Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin
2014: "Blended Generations" at 701 e.V., Düsseldorf 2014
2014: "The Undulation of Something Faintly Familiar" at Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles
2013: "BERLIN.STATUS [2]" at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
2013: "040 Festival für Fotografie in der Gegenwartskunst – Destroyed Images" at Frappant, Hamburg
