Visiting Art/ist 2026: Kaarina-Sirkku Kurz – Reaching, Grasping, Wondering

EXHIBITION, curated by Mirjami Schuppert.

Currently on view at the Finnland-Institut, Kaarina-Sirkku Kurz’ photographic works, alongside the works that emerge from photographs, bring together a selection of pieces created over the past few years, which subtly continues the enduring presence of materiality running throughout the artist’s practice.  

How does one engage with the inarticulate? How does one touch the immaterial? 

In the Supernature series, objects become autonomous and detached from their original environments, creating an alienating effect and challenging a vague sense of familiarity. The dislocation of body parts removed through plastic surgery is reiterated and intensified both by the alienating and reductive quality of the photographic medium itself, and by the tight cropping of each image.

Unrelated objects encircled by bright colour, alongside a lone houseplant presented as an unframed silver gelatin print, fill the void while reserving space for what is yet to come. In the series Vom Fremdsein in der Welt, the absence of the human body and of connection finds expression in rearranged objects, simultaneously reordering things and thoughts. 

The works in the exhibition Reaching, Grasping, Wondering extend toward one another through their shared material presence. 

In Kurz’ newest series Soft Code, a work in progress, textile pieces distance themselves from photography as a printed image. The smooth, almost cold surface of the photograph is challenged by hand-woven wall textiles whose patterns are formed from the binary code of the artist’s self-portraits. Slightly defying two-dimensionality, the weavings reduce the photograph, isolating its details and forming an abstract continuum of signs, giving physical form to the apparent immateriality of the digital. 

By dismantling entireties into smaller parts, isolating and recombining them, Kurz’ works pause to examine phenomena and presences that are always there yet resist being fully grasped. The photographs reach toward something, perhaps unattainable, leaving behind the trace of a touch.

German-Finnish artist Kaarina-Sirkku Kurz lives and works in Berlin. She has studied photography in Bremen, Lahti and Helsinki, and graduated from Aalto University School of Arts with a Master of Arts in 2013. Her exhibitions include Baumwollspinnerei in Leipzig (2025), Haus am Kleistpark in Berlin (2023), Sprengel Museum in Hannover (2022), Photographic Gallery Hippolyte in Helsinki (2020), NRW-Forum Düsseldorf (2020), The Finnish Museum of Photography (2013) and C/O Berlin (2013). She has achieved recognition such as the Nordic Dummy Award and the Finnish Photobook Award, as well as grants from the Kone Foundation, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Finnish Cultural Foundation und The Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

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The Visiting Art/ist Programme: The first Visiting Art/ist exhibition, which offered Finnish artists based in Berlin the opportunity to showcase their work to a local audience, was held in 2015. Over the years, the project’s format has evolved. Its core idea has remained the same ever since: to showcase Finnish contemporary art made by artists based in Germany, particularly to art professionals, which fosters artists’ international recognition, leading to meaningful follow-up projects..