Johanna Strobel
Johanna Strobel working in her studio.
Johanna Strobel’s work often begins with a particular interest, idea or question; which she uses as a springboard for rhizomatic research, interdisciplinary speculation and associative investigation. Strobel’s works explore aspects of unwieldy concepts such as language, the perception of time, the creation of meaning and the construction of subjectivity and objecthood. She bridges pathways of connection between a multitude of structures and objects of our shared reality and culture and examines possibilities of the creation and attribution of meaning and how that meaning can be suspended and upended through certain qualities of objects, their relationships to subjects, syntax, ordering and methods of manipulation.
Strobel’s practice is informed by studies in Information Science and Mathematics. She processes her ideas both logically and associatively, through repetition, recursion and modularity but also through humour and personal memories across a wide variety of media, including video, installation, painting and sculpture. Like this, Strobel appeals directly to her audience, activating various lenses through which to access her works, from humour, consumer aesthetics, to desire and memory and by piquing the viewer’s intellectual curiosity.
Strobel’s works feature a number of elements, not composed as a narrative arch but which are held together mutually as multitudinous thought experiments offering a glimpse into the artist’s surreal and idiosyncratic world.
Strobel’s work Pas un Poisson is a clock with a second hand that ticks backward. Loosely referring to Duchamp’s roto relief Poisson Japonais, Strobel has incorporated an image of a dolphin into the mirrored clockface, an allusion to temporal perception that expands via the clock’s motor system that rotates twice per minute clockwise in counter to the backward ticking second hand. As time ticks by and back, the dolphin swims around the face, and the viewer is left pondering.
Strobel draws her recurring motifs from a pool of everyday objects, like clocks, mirrors, hands, bananas, or doors. In a body of work from 2019 Strobel painted in oil and modeled out of terracotta, pairs of identical mirrored hands frozen in one of two gestures. Her installations featuring those hands access the precise and multi-faceted nexus of what Strobel strives to create: a deliberate confusion of ordinary perception to unlock new chains of thought. Depending on how the hands are installed or painted in relation to each other, their gestures, mood and linguistic power alter between letting go and grasping, reaching into and obstructing. In each encounter, the line of enquiry shifts, and Strobel’s wish is met, at the intersection of suggestion and transparency.
Text by Constance Chester
Biography Johanna Strobel
born in Regensburg, Germany
Education
2020 MFA Studio Art (New Genres) at Hunter College, New York City, USA
2017 Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Germany / Painting and Graphics, Class Prof. Gerhard Merz and Class Prof. Gregor Hildebrandt
2016 Master Scholar («Meisterschülerin») of Prof. Gregor Hildebrandt
2010 Mathematics / Art Education (First State Examination) at University of Regensburg, Germany
2009 Information Science / Fine Art and Esthetical Education (B.A.) at University of Regensburg, Germany
Exhibitions (selection)
2023
Nada House New York, USA
Momentum, Neues Museum Nürnberg
Falter, Gallery Isabelle Lesmeister, Regensburg (SOLO)
In/Between, New York Live Arts, USA
2022
Present enterprises, Lothringer 13 lokal, Munich, Germany
Starry Night, strobe, New York, USA
Jahresgaben, Kunstverein Augsburg, Germany
Even a Cat Can Look at a Queen, MRS., Queens, NY, USA
Present perfect, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Museum Gunzenhauser, Germany
The Patriot, O’Flaherty’s, New York, USA
Identität nicht nachgewiesen, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany
2021
Low affinity, GIG Munich, Germany
Jahresgaben, Kunstverein Munich, Germany
In with the Old, Walter Elwood Museum, Amsterdam, USA
Lost and found, GiG Munich, Germany
To Sometimes Disappear, NARS Foundation, New York, USA
super mARkT, Frische Lieferung, REWE Fünf Höfe, Munich, Germany
2020
Jahresgaben, Kunstverein Munich, Germany
Hunter College MFA Thesis Spotlight, Hauser & Wirth, New York, USA (online)
The Immigrant Artist Biennial, New York, USA
Thresholds, 205 Hudson Gallery, New York, USA
Assemblage, Olympia Projects, New York, USA (online)
2019
Jahresgaben, Kunstverein Munich, Germany
ON HOLD ON, Municipal Gallery Cordonhaus, Cham, Germany (SOLO)
IN TURN IN, Gallery Isabelle Lesmeister, Regensburg, Germany (SOLO)
Mostly Fine Adults, Pfizer Building, Brooklyn, USA
Nico : Wie kann die Luft so schwer sein an einem Tag an dem der Himmel so blau ist, Institut für Moderne Kunst, Atelier- und Galeriehaus Defet, Nuremberg, Germany (as Kitti & Joy)
2018
Debutant Exhibition of the Artist Union Munich (BBK), Galerie der Kuenstler, Munich, Germany (as Kitti & Joy)
Act I, Scene II, 2nd Floor Gallery, 205 Hudson Street, New York, USA
The Bogart Salon, 56 Bogart Street, New York, USA
2017
Cosmic Latte, Gallery Isabelle Lesmeister, Regensburg, Germany
Somewhere it’s still last night, Raum49, Munich, Germany (SOLO)
Another world is possible, Institut of Moderne Art, Zumikon, Nuremberg, Germany
2015
Kamp Kaya, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria (as Kitti & Joy)
Home, Gallery MZ, Augsburg, Germany (SOLO)
Munich Contemporary Art, Aki Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
Grants, Scholarships & Residencies
2022/2023
Program for the Realization of Equal Opportunities for Women in Research and Teaching, State of Bavaria, Germany
NYFA IAP, New York, USA
DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service, Travel Grant
2022
Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur, Work Stipend, Germany
2021
Neustart Kultur, Modul C, Germany
NARS Foundation Residency, New York, USA, 2021
La Pera Projects Residency at Neue House, New York, USA, 2021
2020
P.Art Fonds, Spiegelberger Foundation
Catalogue funding, LFA Foerderbank
Project Grant, Erwin und Gisela Steiner Foundation
Spring 2020 Master’s Theses Support Grant, Hunter College, NYC
Public Collections
Federal Collection of Contemporary Art (Bundeskunstsammlung) of Germany
Collection of the City of Regensburg, Germany
Municipal Gallery of the City of Cham, Germany
Municipal Gallery of the City of Regensburg, Leerer Beutel, Regensburg, Germany
Collection of Regensburg University, Germany
The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
Selected Bibliography
Identität nicht nachgewiesen, Neuerwerbungen der Sammlung des Bundes, Hirmer, 2022
Geometric Times, Linguistic Spaces, Hammann von Mier Verlag, Munich, Germany, 2020 (solo catalogue)
Assemblage Journal, NYC, 2020
Kunst für Kinder, Quivid – the Art in Public Space Program of the City of Munich, Germany, 2019
NICO – Wie kann die Luft so schwer sein an einem Tag an dem der Himmel so blau ist, Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Wien Austria, 2019
All photos by Dominik Bindl.
Works by Johanna Strobel
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sold
The duration of the present (sunset/sunrise)
2021 / Oil on wood, micro controller board, mini motor, acrylic mirror / 30 x 20 x 20 cm / 11.8 x 7.9 x 7.9 in
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Pas Un Poisson
2020 / Laser engraving on acrylic glass mirror, clockwork, electric motor, spray paint / 25 x 25 x 5 cm / 9.8 x 9.8 x 2.0 in
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Pas Un Poisson
2020 / Laser engraving on acrylic glass mirror, clockwork, electric motor, spray paint / 25 x 25 x 5 cm / 9.8 x 9.8 x 2.0 in
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Pas un Poisson
2020 / Laser engraving on acrylic glass mirror, clockwork, electric motor, spray paint / 25 x 25 x 5 cm / 9.8 x 9.8 x 2.0 in
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On Hold On
2019 / Ceramic / Dimensions variable
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On Hold On
2019 / Ceramic, imprinted tennis ball / Dimensions variable
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On Hold On
2019 / Ceramic, plexiglass / Dimensions variable
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On Hold On
2019 / Ceramic, acrylic mirror / Dimensions variable
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sold
Agenda h
2019 / Oil on canvas / 101.6 x 76.2 cm / 40.0 x 30.0 in
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Agenda f
2019 / Oil on canvas / 102 x 76 cm / 40.2 x 29.9 in
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Blind Side
2019 / Ceramic, aluminum blind / 0 cm / in
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Pas un Poisson
2020 / Laser engraving on acrylic glass mirror, clockwork, electric motor, spray paint / 25 x 25 x 5 cm / 9.8 x 9.8 x 2.0 in
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If only you could see what I have seen with your eyes
2019/2020 / Laser engraving on acrylic mirror / 23 x 15 cm / 9.1 x 5.9 in