Raphaela Vogel

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

Career Highlights

Raphaela Vogel - Artists - Petzel Gallery

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

Complete CV

Selected Works

Selected Works Thumbnails

Raphaela Vogel

Aby 2009

2021

oil chalk, oil paint, charcoal, ballpoint pen on folding reflectors, chrome-plated metal rods, polyurethan elastomer, textile belts and safety pins

120.67 x 202.76 x 7.87 inches

306.5 x 515 x 20 cm

Photo: Roman März, Berlin

Raphaela Vogel

Live Evil

2020

Oil, oil pastel, charcoal, iron-on foil, leather glue on goat-, sheep- and deer leather

109.06 x 68.9 x 4.33 inches

277 x 175 x 11 cm

Photo: Roman März, Berlin

Raphaela Vogel

Tränenmeer

2019

Video-installation: flatscreen, steel tubes, glue, dog hair, polyurethane elastomer, shower chair, 2 speakers, amplifier, cables

19:21 minutes

Raphaela Vogel

Loch (Gregorianisches Loch)

2018

Polyurethane elastomer, garden gnomes

96.46 x 104.72 x 3.15 inches

245 x 266 x 8 cm

Raphaela Vogel

Abtreibungskarussel

2018

Metal chandelier, polyurethane elastomer, acrylic, fairy lights, rotary motor, metal chain

91.14 x 20.47 x 20.47 inches

231.5 x 52 x 52 cm

Photo: Roman März, Berlin

Raphaela Vogel

Fellow

2018

Oil, ink and silicone on deer and goat leather

116.14 x 85.43 inches

295 x 217 cm

Raphaela Vogel

Uterusland

2017

Polyurethane Elastomer, breast model, milking cluster, video projector, cable, video (7:11 Min.), Mac Mini, 2 speakers

Horse: 185 x 286,5 x 79 cm; Umbilical cord length: 257 cm x .5 cm; Breast model (closed): 188 x 138 x 151 cm; Overall installation: 215 x 670 x 210 cm; Video sculpture: 340 x 260 x 320 cm

Raphaela Vogel

In festen Händen

2016

2 bronze sculptures, 2 steel rings, 2 heavy-duty straps, 2-strand chain suspension, swivel hooks, 2 Grundig Audiorama spherical speakers, iPod, power and audio cable, amplifier, sound recording (2:56 min.)

162.6 x 165.35 x 47.24 inches

413 x 420 x 120 cm

Photo: Werner Lieberknecht, Dresden