Previous exhibitions:

'Porcelain' exhibition: October 2009 at Riflemaker, London

Click here to view the 'Porcelain' book/catalogue

Anja Niemi has been featured by Art Review magazine in its 'FUTURE GREATS' series and by 'ART & AUCTION' magazine as 'one to watch'.

LIST OF EXHIBITIONS:

2009 - Porcelain. Riflemaker, London

2006 - Portrait of the Invisible. Riflemaker, London

2005 - Photo London. Special Exhibition, Royal Academy of Art, London

2005 - Portrait of the Invisible. Galleri Ramfjord, Oslo

2005 - Silent auction. Galleri Ramfjord, Oslo

2004 - Portrait of the Invisible. Galleri A, Oslo

2002 - Fame and Promise. Victoria Miro Gallery, London

2002 - 14-14. Century Gallery, London

2002 - The Art Fair. 33 Portland Place, London

2000 - Metempsychosis, the Bloomsday Project. The Cave, Brooklyn, New York

2000 - Estrogenius2000, A Celebration of Womens Work. Manhatten Theater Source, New york

1999 - Collection of Norwegian Artists. Norwegian Seamans Church, New York

I merge myself into the interior of rooms filled with layers of decay. Houses and buildings with a past but no future. Their stories are written in the walls, and mine emerges in the interaction with them. When I stand in these empty rooms, their walls screaming out for my pity, and me screaming out for theirs, I try to remember that sweet moment of holding my breath. Then I take the picture. When my body starts twitching with fear, my head fills up with images of how to photograph it. ‘Portrait Of The Invisible’ is a series of photographs documenting these torments. I take pictures of things you can’t see. I photograph my secrets, the skin-crawling, gasping-for-air moments that sometimes overcome me. I photograph the pain that I sometimes think is going to kill me, and the nightmares I think I may not wake up from. I once crawled through a pitch-black basement searching for a staircase up to rooms with daylight. There was nothing in sight but a ripped apart Barbie doll, and a baby’s chew toy; both objects lit by the narrow shaft I went through to get in. The uncertainty of whom or what might be hiding in the darkness makes my heart race in a very familiar way.

It is my reality, but it is invisible, unless it is photographed.

The photographs are taken with a Hasselblad camera loaded with medium format negative film. The movement and dual-imaging is made possible with a long exposure, it varies from around five to twenty-five seconds. Some of the effects, such as disappearing body parts, have also to do with were the light source is coming from, and lightness or darkness in the clothes and backgrounds. But they are all one exposure, one moment.

Anja Niemi, Oslo, October, 2009

I merge myself into the interior of rooms filled with layers of decay. Houses and buildings with a past but no future. Their stories are written in the walls, and mine emerges in the interaction with them.

When I stand in these empty rooms, their walls screaming out for my pity, and me screaming out for theirs, I try to remember that sweet moment of holding my breath. Then I take the picture.

When my body starts twitching with fear, my head fills up with images of how to photograph it. ‘Portrait Of The Invisible’ is a series of photographs documenting these torments. I take pictures of things you can’t see.

I photograph my secrets, the skin-crawling, gasping-for-air moments that sometimes overcome me. I photograph the pain that I sometimes think is going to kill me, and the nightmares I think I may not wake up from.

I once crawled through a pitch-black basement searching for a staircase up to rooms with daylight. There was nothing in sight but a ripped apart Barbie doll, and a baby’s chew toy; both objects lit by the narrow shaft I went through to get in. The uncertainty of whom or what might be hiding in the darkness makes my heart race in a very familiar way.

It is my reality, but it is invisible, unless it is photographed.

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The photographs are taken with a Hasselblad camera loaded with medium format negative film. The movement and dual-imaging is made possible with a long exposure, it varies from around five to twenty-five seconds. Some of the effects, such as disappearing body parts, have also to do with were the light source is coming from, and lightness or darkness in the clothes and backgrounds. But they are all one exposure, one moment.

Anja Niemi, Oslo, November, 2005

Anja Niemi's Portrait Of The Invisible will be at Riflemaker, 10 January 2006

'Stadtbad'

The exhibition coincides with a special presentation of new work by ANJA NIEMI at Photo-London,
31 May - 3 June 2007 www.photo-london.com

The Norwegian photographer Anja Niemi was heralded by Art Review as 'one to watch' after her first solo exhibition at Riflemaker in January 2006. Profiles in Art and Auction and the prestigious Next Level followed with Niemi's debut show quickly selling out.

'Stadtbad', Niemi's second exhibition, opens on Monday 4 June to coincide with this year's Photo-London taking place at Old Billingsgate Market in London's Shoreditch.

Anja Niemi will give a talk about her work on Monday 4 June at 6.30pm. Booking essential.

ANJA NIEMI 'Stadtbad'

Stadtbad Oderberger was once a beautiful neo-renaissance style bathhouse filled with enthusiastic swimmers during the Roaring Twenties, when Berlin was known as Metropolis. Later on, the bathhouse provided a sanctuary for the citizens of the city during Nazism, WWII, and the struggle of life under communism. But the communist regime neglected the bathhouse, and in 1986, Stadtbad Oderberger was shut down for good.

'Stadbad' once again became the story of a disappeaing life as Anja Niemi played out her images in the derelict buildings of Berlin. The photographs are composed like short plays, where the artist becomes her own puppet, posing in a deconstructive manner. Niemi uses her own body as an object that could just as easily have been thrown away, but like the buildings, she perseveres. Somehow she prevails.

In one photograph Niemi is piled into an old bathtub, with her dissolving arm draped over the edge. Time has been stopped. We don’t know how long she has lain there, or if her body will deteriorate as time passes. The same could be said for the Stadtbad Oderberger, the building she inhabits.
Both possess an element of strength and endurance which keeps them from disappearing completely.

Another photograph, 'The Puppet', was shot in Wallstrasse 85. This was once an extravagant building that housed a girls' dance school. The academy was shut down because the communist regime did not agree with the dance forms being taught, and the building has been left in a decaying state ever since. The artist places herself in the now empty ballroom, with her limbs on strings, her movements frozen. Niemi is controlled by something, but we are not certain by what or whom.

In 'Free as a Dead Bird', her body has split into two and the coffin-like velvet backdrop sets the mood of a dreamlike state. One of the figures lays still as the other rises as if trying to free either herself, or the dead bird she holds in her hand.

The history of the Stadtbad buildings mirror the state of devastation we encounter when we ourselves are not able to rise up after being struck down by the brutality that life can entail. Yet, there is some unknown force which prevents us from surrendering. 'Stadtbad' touches upon our frailty and reluctance to recover from these destructions and the contrasting perseverance that stops us from dissolving completely.

As Berlin started to flourish and found its way back to life, Stadtbad and Wallstrasse 85 still remained, surrounded by the buzz of the new city as if nothing had ever happened. The puppet has much the same feeling as she lies silently, knowing that life is continuing on the other side of the walls although she is left isolated in her own diminishing state.

Stadtbad opens at Riflemaker on Monday 4 June 0207-439-0000