Andrea Grützner:Texts

Eine Form der Raumverdichtung (D) by Peter Truschner
Book Review
for fotolot
20.06.2025

Andrea Grützner beschäftigt sich in "Erbgericht" mit einem Ort ihrer Kindheit. Es geht ihr dabei ganz und gar nicht um eine faktenbasierte und in dem Sinn möglichst wirklichkeitsgetreue Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit. Mit einem enormen theoretischen und fotografischen Aufwand schafft sie - ein Fest fürs empfängliche Auge. 2010 begann Andrea Grützner, das "Erbgericht" , einen Familiengasthof in ihrem Heimatdorf …

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Erbgericht (E) by Loring Knoblauch
Book Review
at Collector Daily
19.03.2025

Can a photographic genre have an “opposite”? In both concept and execution, I think the answer can surprisingly be yes, as seen in photographic landscapes that intentionally make it hard for us to see the land or photographic portraits that frustrate our ability to engage with the sitters. Andrea Grützner’s photobook Erbgericht offers …

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Illusory Architecture (E) Interview with Kate Simpson
for Aesthetica Magazine, Issue 101
2021

Andrea Grützner’s (b. 1984) compositions deal with the emotional and visual perception of spaces. These images seek both familiar and disconnected subject matters, and ask questions about the memory of places and our orientation of designed interiors. Grützner finds and creates photographs that oscillate between image-making and painting, exploring ideas of documentary, surrealism, abstraction and visual irritation. Eclectic …

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Why Photography? About Hive (E) Written Interview for "Why Photography? New Vision – The Henie Onstad Triennial for Photography and New Media", Exhibition Catalog, Oslo, Norway.
2020

Has your background in communication design informed your artistic practice? In my undergraduate studies I delved into the world of graphic design and this was also when my interest in places and our built environment started. How can we narrate their stories in an engaging, uncommon way? How do we use public space? Those were some of the questions …

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there is always enough shadow (E) by Federico Clavarino,
for Der Greif – Artist Blog
2017

These photographs have been selected from two of Andrea’s bodies of work, “Das Eck”, and “Erbgericht”. The former is made up of pictures taken in the city of Koblenz, while the latter consists of a visual dissection of a traditional guesthouse in east Germany. Both works focus on a particular place, and …

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Finding Commonality (E) by Gabrielle Kennedy,
for DAMN Magazine,
2017

If the question is to what extent can architecture determine human behaviour, or even how do buildings create communities, then German photographer Andrea Grützner’s oeuvre is a telling one. A visual link up to DAMN°’s special focus on work in this issue (see page 117), her award-winning series Hive explores the public and private spaces undergoing transformation …

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Tanztee and Erbgericht (E) by Kate Warren
for Memo Magazine
2017

Writing in Artforum in 2004, Abigail Solomon-Godeau described the ‘miniature guillotine’ of the camera’s shutter. The camera slices a moment in time from the world, removing it from its original context, but also potentially relaunching it as a new, transformed event. In Andrea Grützner’s current exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary …

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The house protects the dreamer (E) by Ratik Asokan,
for Artforum International Magazine, New York, NY
2016

“The house protects the dreamer,” Gaston Bachelard wrote. “The house allows one to dream in peace.” Andrea Grützner is drawn to visual liminality: to the moment, or rather the angle, at which physical reality threatens to dissolve into aesthetic abstraction. Though these photographs are all shot in the same East German …

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Electrifying Photographs of an Old German Guesthouse (E) Claire Voon,
for Hyperallergic,
2016

For years, photographer Andrea Grützner was fascinated by a massive guesthouse in a German village. In 2014, she entered the house with her camera, photographing its well-tread rooms. Big houses, particularly the old ones, tend to breed mystery. What ever could await in the many rooms hidden behind that one front door? You may personally recall a particular …

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Andrea Grützner: Erbgericht (E) by Jörg Colberg
for Foam Talent Magazine
2016

As counter intuitive as it might seem at first, Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt (which I have seen translated as either distancing effect, alienation effect, or estrangement effect) finds its role in the world of photography. It is true, there is a machine, the camera, with which an image is made. …

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Erbgericht Walzwerk (D) by Isa Köhler
Walzwerk Null
2016

Mit „Erbgericht“ gelingt Andrea Grützner eine Identität des Ortes zu konstituieren, die sich mit jeder Betrachtung weiter entfaltet, fern eines Zeitdokuments. Durch die Arbeit mit Geometrie und Farbigkeit, finden sich beständige Parameter, die Harmonie wie Widerspruch erlauben und eine innere Kohärenz der Aufnahmen erzeugen. Die Bilder stehen für ein komplexes Gedächtnis, …

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Erbgericht (E) by Annick Meyer,
for Clervaux – Cité de L’Image
2015

Painting has learned to break free from the constraint of mimesis to assert its creative power and artistic status, as well as to emphasize the legitimacy of its existence in relation to the growing importance of photography. Photography is more than a technical process - finds itself involved in the same ontological questions as its parent …

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das Eck – Von Transformationen und Zwischenräumen (D) by Anja Horstmann,
media historian and freelance writer,
for the photobook "das Eck", kerber Verlag
2015

Ecken, Kanten, strenge Geometrie. Die Stadt erscheint als ein klar durchzogenes System von Linien und Strukturen. Besonders deutlich wird dies in der Architektur der Gebäude, die in ihrer äußeren Form Funktionalität und Regelhaftigkeit fixieren und darlegen. Gleichzeitig werden diese Dispositionen aber durch die Zweckmäßigkeit der Ordnungen und Anordnungen unsichtbar gemacht. Im Alltag kaum wahrgenommen, sind diese Orte der …

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