JITKA HANZLOVA
Born 1958 in Nachod, Czech Republic, lives and works in Essen, Germany.
Education
1978-1982 Prague
1987-1994 Study of Communication design, focus on photography,
University of Essen
Scholarships
1995 Art scholarship of the DG Bank, Frankfurt
1998 Scholarship of the Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur des Landes
Awards
1993 Otto Steinert Award
1995 German Photography Prize
European Photography Award
1999 Short listed for the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize 2000
2003 Short listed for the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize, 2003
2003 Grand Prix Award - Project Grant 2003, Arles
2007 BMW – Paris Photo Prize for contemporary photography
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2010
Hier, Kicken Berlin
2008
Wie wirklich ist die Wirklichkeit?, Goethe Institut, Riga
2007
FO.KU.S Innsbruck, Austria
Zeitlos, Foto Kunst Stadtforum, Innsbruck
Denn bleiben ist nirgends, Kicken Gallery, Berlin
Bewohner, Art Foyer DZ Bank, Frankfurt am Main
2006
Forest, Galerie Mai 36, Zurich
Forest, Gallerie Raffaella Cortese, Milano
Forest, George Kargl, Wien
Galerie Edition Kunsthandel GmbH, Essen
2005
Forest, Museum Folkwang, Essen
Forest, JIRI SVESTKA GALLERY, Prague
2003
Angel Roww Gallery Nottingham
2002
The Brixton Studio, The Photographer’s Gallery, London
2001
Female, JIRI SVESTKA GALLERY, Prague
20/21, Essen
Galerie Annet Gelink, Amsterdam
Female, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Fotomuseum Winterthur
Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan
2000
Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (catalogue)
Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert, New York
Grant Selwyn Fine Art, Beverly Hills
Annet Gelink Gallery (The Bakery), Amsterdam (with Wineke van Muiswinkel)
1999
DG Bank collection Frankfurt, Galerie Efti, Madrid
Galerie Le Lieu, Lorient
Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert, New York
Galerie Patrick de Brock, Knokke (with Dirk Braeckmann)
1998
DG Bank collection Frankfurt, Universidad de Salamanca
Galerie db-s, Antwerp
Goethe Institut, Budapest (with L. Gaiser)
Galerie Marie-José van de Loo, Munich
1997
Museum Schloss Hardenberg, Velbert (catalogue)
1996
Kunstverein Frankfurt, Frankfurt (catalogue)
1995
Galerie db-s, Antwerp
La Maison de la Photographie, Lectoure
1994
Lichtblicke Gallery, Cologne
Selected Group Exhibitions
2009
Degrees of Stillness, Kicken Gallery, Berlin
Czech Photography of the 20th Century, Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn
Natures, Galerie Ilka Bree, Bordeaux
2008
Dead End, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld
The Photogeny of Identity / The Memory of Czech Photography,
The Brno House of Arts, Brno
2007
Der Konkrakt des Fotografen, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen
2006
Der Konkrakt des Fotografen, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
In the Face of History: European Photographers in the 20th Century,
Barbican Art Gallery, London
2005
Nach Rokytnik, Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Foundation, Wien
Czech Photography of the 20th Century, Prague City Gallery
2004
Photobienale Moscow 2004, The Moscow Museum of the Contemporary Art, Moscow
Secrets of the `90s, Museum foor Moderne Kunst Arnheim
Die Welt als Ganzes, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City, Mexico
Yet Untitled,Sammlung Bernd Künne, Det Nationale Fotomuseum Copenhagen
2003
Innatura, X. Bienale Internazionale di Fotografia, Torino, Italia
The Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize 2003, The Photographers
Gallery, London; Kunstpalast Düsseldorf; Madrid
2002
Menschen-Bilder, Galerie Monika Reitz, Frankfurt
Overnight to Many Cities, The Photographer’s Gallery, London
Fusion Cuisine, Deste Fondation, Athens
About Face, Gallery Yencey Richardson, New York
2001
A Sense of Wellbeing, Palace of the Imperial Thermal Baths, Karlovy Vary
Instant City, Museo Pecci, Prato
About the Bayberry Bush, The Parrish Art Museum, South Hampton
I Love New York, Benefit Exhibition WTC, New York
2000
Gallery Annet Gelink, Amsterdam
The Citibank Private Bank Photography Price 2000, The Photographer´s
Gallery, London
Das Vesprechen der Fotografie, Selections from the DG Bank
Collection, Frankfurt, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
1999
Stadtluft, Hamburger Kunstverein, Hamburg
Near and Elsewhere, The Photographer‘s Gallery, London
Schön ist es auch anderswo, Rheinisches Industriemuseum,
Oberhausen
Another Girl, Another Planet, Lawrence Rubin, Greenberg Van Doren,
Fine Art, New York
Positionen der 90er Jahre aus der Sammlung Künne, Städtische Galerie, Wolfsburg
1998
Woman, Galerie Klemens Gasser und Tanja Grunert, Cologne
Portrait, National Technical Museum, Prague
1996
Manifesta I, Museum Chabot, Rotterdam
Deutscher Photopreis 1995, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, Frankfurt
Fotografie – Festival, Arles
Photokina, Cologne
Galerie Poirel, Nancy
1995
European Photography Award 1995, Englische Kirche, Bad Homburg
La Galerie Du Chateau, Toulouse
1993
Goethe Institut, Sao Paolo
Galerie db – s, Antwerp
1992
Manes Exhibition Hall, Prague
1991
Museum Of Modern Art, Caracas
Collections
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
Münchener, Stadtmuseum, Munich
EVN Collection, Maria Enzensdorf
DG Bank Collection, Frankfurt
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
Museum Folkwang, Fotografische Sammlung, Essen
Sammlung Künne, Hannover
KPN Collection, The Hague
KPN Collection, Amsterdam
Museum voor Fotografie, Antwerp
MoMA, New York
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Fotomuseum Winterthur
REFCO Inc. Collection, Chicago
West LB, London
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Jitka Hanzlova is represented by the JIRI SVESTKA GALLERY
www.jirisvestka.com
ABOUT THE ARTIST
“The way I go is the way back to see the future.“
Jitka Hanzlova
The Czech-born photographer Jitka Hanzlova (*1958 in Nachod) moved to Essen, Germany, in 1982 and studied communication technology with a focus on photography. In her first photographic cycle (Rokytník), which was already produced during her time at university, she examines the individual, their surroundings, and the landscape in which they live. Between 1990 and 1994 Hanzlova regularly visited her native village Rokytník in eastern Bohemia and photographed the locals in their neigbourhoods. The images show children playing in the garden, old people in front of their homes or on the trails and fields near the village. Hanzlová holds her models at a distance and mainly portrays them as whole figures. In the series entitled Bewohner (1994/96) she mapped the inhabitants of the big Western European city where she still lives today: Essen. One can clearly see how this work of Hanzlova follows from her previous cycles Rokytník. Her subsequent series Female (1997/2000) omits the concept of distance by bringing the lens closer to her objects. Hanzlova rather captures parts of the body and sets her focus on knee-length portraits instead of whole figures. Female is the artists second extensive series and includes a total of 53 portraits of women of different ages and backgrounds. Jitka Hanzlova approached her models while traveling through Europe, USA and North Africa – she usually encounters the women directly in the street and takes their portraits right then and there. In the series Forest (2000/05) she has begun photographing more inscrutable subjects by taking photographs in the forests of her Czech homeland near the Carpathian Mountains. The shift away from the individual to the focussing on landscape motifs is an inherent turning point in the work of Jitka Hanzlova. In the sense of a new photographic principle, she takes pictures of trees, bushes and fir trees, as if they themselves were the protagonists this time. Subject and background also build a seemingly inseparable entity in Forest - just as in Female, where women were portrayed as an existential part of their urban environment.
Of late, Jitka Hanzlova has enjoyed world recognition. She held solo exhibitions in the Deichtorhallen (Hamburg), the Photomuseum (Winterthur) and in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Her photographs are regularly exhibited by major galleries in Europe and the USA.