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.) At the end of a series of exhibition talks, Monika Baer and Kerstin Stakemeier discuss Baer’s artistic practice and her latest experimental approaches, begun last year in Los Angeles.

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).

Kerstin Stakemeier (*1975 in Berlin) works as a professor for Art Education at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg. Her publications include Entgrenzter Formalismus. Verfahren einer antimodernen Ästhetik (2017), Reproducing Autonomy (with Marina Vishmidt, 2016), Power of Materials / Politics of Materiality and The Present of the Future (with Susanne Witzgall, 2014/2016). In 2017, she started a working collaboration with Manuela Ammer, Eva Birkenstock, Jenny Nachtigall, and Stephanie Weber called Klassensprachen / Class Languages, which thus far has resulted in two group exhibitions (2017 in Berlin / 2018 in Düsseldorf) and a magazine (2017). Stakemeier writes regularly a. o. for Artforum and Texte zur Kunst. At the end of 2019, two writings were published by the Academy of Fine Arts Nürnberg which were conceived in collaboration with students of the Academy: Universal Receptivity (with Bill Dietz) and Illiberal Arts (with Anselm Franke).