Ulla von Brandenburg is a German artist born in 1974 in Karlsruhe and living in Paris since 2005. After training as a stage designer in Karlsruhe and a brief stint in the theater world, she studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. Her work is characterized by the use of a diversity of tools and media (installations, film, watercolors, murals, collage, performance…) that dialogue with each other and that she sets up in relation to different exhibition contexts. Perfectly mastering the codes of scenography, nourished by literature, art history and architecture, as well as psychoanalysis, spiritualism and magic, von Brandenburg draws as much from esoteric rituals and folk ceremonies as from the mechanisms and codes of theater to explore the construction of our social structures. Masks, costumes, sets and props from different folk traditions allow the artist to symbolically transgress norms and hierarchies, subtly mixing reality and appearance in theatrical presentations.
His internationally recognized work has appeared in numerous solo exhibitions, most recently at VISUAL, Carlow (2024), Palacio de Velàzquez/Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2023), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2020-2021), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018) or Perez Art Museum, Miami (2016). Her works can be found in prestigious collections such as Tate Modern in London, MAMCO in Geneva, Centre Pompidou in Paris, or Mudam in Luxembourg. Her work is represented by Art : Concept gallery in Paris, Pilar Corrias gallery in London, Produzentengalerie in Hamburg, and Meyer Riegger gallery in Karlsruhe and Berlin.
