The gallery is glad to present you the last series of Karen Knorr, India Song, which was shot over these last two years in India and for which the artist has been awarded this spring the prestigious Prize of Photography Pilar Citoler . This ensemble ensues from the long range work she has devoted to French residences from 2003 to 2008 which has resulted in the extraordinary corpus Fables produced in collaboration with the Musée Carnavalet, the University of the Creative Arts of Farnham (Surrey) where Karen Knorr teaches photography, and thanks to the substantial commission of the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature. Many of us might have recently admired those works in France, in Paris as well as in the provinces, in Europe and in India.
If professionals give so much attention and support to Karen Knorr’s work, it is certainly because of its absolute singularity, not to say the uniqueness in its field. Leading photographer of her generation, she was one of the very first to standardize the so called “set-up” photography in the early 80’s. After a societal work – let us here recall the impact of her famous black and white series, Belgravia (1979-1980) or Gentlemen (1981-1983) about the “so British Society” – her reflection then distanced itself from our contemporaries while taking a modernist stance, and refocused on architectural scenographies combining analytical, historical and literary approaches as allies of a poetic and fictional freedom with a surprising symbolism.
