Keynote Speaker: Mona Kuhn

This event takes place in the Ferguson Auditorium at Columbia College Chicago, 600 S. Michigan.

Lecture Presented by: Mona Kuhn
Cost: FREE

Kuhn will be speaking at the 2018 Festival. Read more about her photographic practice below.

 

Mona Kuhn is best known for her large-scale photographs of the human form.  Her approach is unusual in that she develops close relationships with her subjects, resulting in images of remarkable intimacy, and creating the effect of people naked but comfortable in their own skin.  In addition, Kuhn’s playful combination of visual strategies, such as translucency explores our connectedness with the environment.  A sublime sense of comfort and intelligence permeates her works, showing the human body in its most natural state while simultaneously re-envisioning the nude as a contemporary canon of art.

Kuhn was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1969, of German descent.  In 1989, Kuhn moved to the US and earned her BA from The Ohio State University, before furthering her studies at the San Francisco Art Institute.  She is currently and independent scholar at The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.  Mona Kuhn’s first monograph, Photographs, was debut by Steidl in 2004; followed by Evidence (2007), Native (2010), Bordeaux Series (2011), and Private (2014).  Mona’s upcoming book titled She Disappeared into Complete Silence is scheduled for Fall/Winter 2017.  Occasionally, Mona teaches at UCLA and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Mona Kuhn’s work has been exhibited at The Louvre Museum and Le Bal in Paris; The Whitechapel Gallery and Royal Academy of Arts in London; Musée de l’Elysée in Switzerland; Leopold Museum in Vienna, and Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, Australia. Her work is in private and public collections worldwide, including The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Hammer Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Kiyosato Museum in Japan. Mona Kuhn lives and works in Los Angeles.