The Power Plant

Ulla von Brandenburg is a German contemporary artist, born in Karlsruhe in 1974. Ulla currently lives and works in Paris.

Ulla von Brandenburg's complex and multifaceted practice is realized through a combination of black & white lm, installation, performance, drawing, and painting. The vocabulary of von Brandenburg’s work comes from a basis of using approaches and methods of the theatre, the stage, and rules of performance to engage with cultural or social issues from different moments in history to explore how stories, rituals, and symbols of the past have constituted our societies. Permeated by recurring themes and images sourced from literature; expressionist theatre; early cinema, and pre-Freudian psychoanalysis, von Brandenburg’s practice cross-references back and forth between media creating a language that loops back on itself: endlessly repeating and developing. Concerned with ‘the borders of different consciousness: past and present, alive and dead, real and illusionary’, von Brandenburg creates work positioned uncertainly at the point at which reality ends and the illusion of life, emotions and events begins.

Major solo exhibitions of her work include: Blaue und Gelbe Schatten, Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin (2021); Ulla von Brandenburg, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2020); Sweet Feast, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018); It Has a Golden Sun and an Elderly Grey Moon, Kunsthal Aarhus (2017); It Has a Golden Sun and an Elderly Grey Moon, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami (2016); It has a golden red sun and an elderly green moon, Power Plant, Toronto (2016); It has a golden orange sun and an elderly blue moon, La Fonderie Darling, Montréal (2016); Manchmal Ja, manchmal Nein [Sometimes yes, sometimes no], Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2016); It has a golden sun and an elderly grey moon, ACCA, Melbourne (2016); Yesterday and Today is Tomorrow is also like this, Kasseler Kunsteverein, Kassel (2015); Ulla von Brandenburg: Wagon Wheel, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis (2015); 24 Filme, Kein Schnitt, MAMCO, Geneva (2014); Inside is not Outside, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover (2014); Innen ist nicht Außen, Secession, Vienna (2013); Kunstpreis Finkenwerder 2013, Kunsthaus Hamburg, Hamburg (2013); Das Versteck des W.L., Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg (2013); Neue Alte Welt, The Common Guild, Glasgow (2011); Name or Number, Frac Ile- de- France/Le Plateau, Paris (2009); Ulla von Brandenburg, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2009); Whose beginning is not, nor end cannot be, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2008); Passengers 1.68 Ulla von Brandenburg, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2008).

In 2016 von Brandenburg was nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp (award presented in October 2016). Previously she has been awarded Finkenwerder Art Prize (2013); shortlisted for Daniel and Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation’s 2013 Drawing Prize (2013); Kunstpreis der Boettcherstrasse, Kunsthalle Bremen (2007); Cité des Arts, Paris (2007); Arbeitsstipendium Jürgen-Ponto-Stiftung (2006); Reisestipendium, Verein für Neue Kunst in Hamburg (2005); Stipendium Künstlerstätte Schloss Bleckede (2005); Begabtenstipendium der Dietzte-Stiftung (2003).