Monika Baer was awarded the Hannah Höch Prize 2020 by the State of Berlin and, on this occasion, currently presents a new constellation of large-format paintings and small-format collages at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) As the start of a series of exhibition talks, Monika Baer and Tonio Kröner meet on site to discuss Baer’s artistic practice and her latest experimental approaches, begun last year in Los Angeles.

In her work, often produced as series, Baer makes use of various painterly traditions and techniques, from monochrome and representational approaches to physical disruption to the surface of the canvas. During her studies in the 1980s, art was undergoing a period of repoliticization, in which art criticism questioned the autonomy of painting and its potential for innovation. Amidst this set of conflicts, Baer made the conscious decision to work within the medium of painting — with an interest in continuing the scrutiny of its underlying presumptions — which has remained one of her central artistic questions to this day.

Monika Baer (*1964 in Freiburg im Breisgau, lives and works in Berlin since 1999) studied painting at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. She currently teaches at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. She was a Regents’ Lecturer at the University of California in Los Angeles in 2018–2019, and previously a professor at Bard College in New York. Solo exhibitions (selection): Kunstmuseum Bonn (2019); Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (2016); Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2016); Art Institute of Chicago (2013); Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2006); Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht (2005).

Tonio Kröner (*1984 in Datteln) lives in Berlin, where he works as an artist. His artwork was most recently exhibited at the Lumiar Cité in Lisbon (2019/2020). Until 2018 he worked as a curator at the Museum Brandhorst, Bavarian State Painting Collections, where he was involved in the production of the exhibitions Jutta Koether - Tour de Madame (2018) and Painting 2.0 - Expression in the Information Age (2016) a. o.