Portrait of Raphaela Vogel. Photo: Paul Sochacki.
Raphaela Vogel (b. 1988, Nuremberg, DE)
Raphaela Vogel is an artist living and working in Berlin. She studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, as well as the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. She has been a visiting professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe and is currently a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.
Raphaela Vogel’s practice is installation-based, fusing sculpture, sound, and film, often appearing in iterations of the latter as herself. Vogel plays with varied media and materials to generate energy and tension, finding uncanny harmonies among seemingly disparate source imagery. Through her works, Vogel’s pushes the viewer into disruptive, fantastical territories.
Raphaela Vogel’s debut exhibition with Petzel, titled In the Expanded Penalty Box: Did You Happen to See the Most Beautiful Fox?, went on view in January 2024, and was complemented by an artist talk and live performance event at the Goethe-Institut New York. Vogel will have additional solo exhibitions in 2024 at institutions including Kunsthalle Gießen, Germany and Centre d’art contemporain – la synagogue de Delme, France.
The artist was included in the 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani, and has had recent solo exhibitions at institutions such as De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, Netherlands (2023); Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxembug-Platz, Berlin, DE (2023); Kleiner Wasserspeicher, Berlin, DE (2021); Neues Museum, Nürnberg, DE (2020); Kunsthaus Bregenz, DE (2019); Haus der Kunst, Munich, DE (2019); Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren, DE (2018); Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2018); Kunstpalais, Erlangen (2018); Westfälischer Kunstverein, Munster, DE (2016); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, DE (2015), among others.
Almost a decade on from her meteoric debut, Vogel’s work remains as perplexing as it is fascinating. Even a shallow dip into Vogel’s wildly varied oeuvre – room-size metal frames draped with painted animal skins; dizzying videos starring the artist (and sometimes her dog) shot with a 360-degree camera; monumental sculptures featuring huge portable toilets or giraffes tethered to spliced-open genitals – reveals that she can’t be slotted into the canon’s existing pigeonholes. ‘I’m interested in entertaining myself,’ she said during one of our encounters in Berlin this winter, without irony or arrogance. ‘Or creating a first draft of a world.’
Kimberly Bradley, Frieze
Installation view, Raphaela und der große Kunstverein, 2015, Bonner Kunstverein. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne.
1988 Born Nuremberg, Germany
2012 Graduated from Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg, Germany, master class of Professor Michael Hakimi
2014 Graduated from Städelschule, Frankfurt, Germany, master class of Professor Peter Fischli
2015 First solo institutional exhibition at Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany
2017 Included in group exhibition PRODUKTION. Made In Germany Drei at Kunstverein Hannover, Kestnergesellschaft, Sprengel and Museum Hannover, Hanover
2018 Ultranackt at Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland
Installation view, The Milk of Dreams, Venice Biennale, 2022
2019 A Woman’s Sportscar at Haus de Kunst, Munich, Germany
Bellend bin ich aufgewacht at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Germany
2020 Uterusland at Neues Museum, Nürnberg, Germany
2022 Included in the Milk of Dreams at the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, Italy
2023 KRAAAN at the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, Netherlands
2024 In the Expanded Penalty Box: Did You Happen to See the Most Beautiful Fox? at Petzel, New York
Installation view, KRAAAN, De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, 2023
Installation view, KRAAAN, De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, 2023
Installation view, KRAAAN, De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, 2023
Installation view, Elephant’s Memory (Memorial Structure), Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemurg-Platz, Berlin, 2023, Photo: Roman März, Berlin.
Installation view, Elephant’s Memory (Memorial Structure), Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemurg-Platz, Berlin, 2023, Photo: Roman März, Berlin.
Installation view, Elephant’s Memory (Memorial Structure), Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemurg-Platz, Berlin, 2023, Photo: Roman März, Berlin.
Installation view, The Milk of Dreams, Venice Biennale, 2022
Installation view, The Milk of Dreams, Venice Biennale, 2022
Installation view, The Milk of Dreams, Venice Biennale, 2022
Installation view, Welt aus den Fugen, Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland, 2022
Installation view, Welt aus den Fugen, Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland, 2022
Installation view, Welt aus den Fugen, Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland, 2022
Installation view, My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France, 2021
Installation view, My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France, 2021
Installation view, My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France, 2021
Installation view, Bellend bin ich aufgewacht, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, 2019
Installation view, Bellend bin ich aufgewacht, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, 2019
Installation view, Bellend bin ich aufgewacht, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, 2019
Installation view, A Woman’s Sportscar, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2019
Installation view, A Woman’s Sportscar, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2019
Installation view, A Woman’s Sportscar, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2019
Installation view, Ultranackt, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 2018
Installation view, Ultranackt, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 2018
Installation view, Ultranackt, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 2018
Installation view, Raphaela und der große Kunstverein, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, 2015. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne.
Installation view, Raphaela und der große Kunstverein, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, 2015. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne.
Installation view, Raphaela und der große Kunstverein, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, 2015. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne.
