Karin Sander works with situations, their social and historical contexts, involving interventions in existing structures and institutions. The medium the work is realised in is painting, sculpture, electronic media, science, architecture; in brief: each medium is available for working out its specific potential. The intersection of work, recipient and institution, of what is found and what is added, of presence and absence, is emphasised and exhibited. Her Mailed Paintings (begun in 2004), for example, standard-sized and primed canvases of various shapes, are sent to exhibitions without any kind of protection; while being on display constantly, they collect and display traces and marks of their journey. At n.b.k. – Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2011), one work consisted of piles of crumpled-up waste paper, post-it notes, tossed-out magazines etc. accumulating on the floor, the material originating from the offices of the institution, located directly above the exhibition space. Karin Sander had 30-centimeter wide holes drilled through the ceiling of the exhibition space, the floor of the n.b.k. offices above, in places where originally waste paper baskets were located and instructed the staff of n.b.k to use these holes in the floor just as they would normally use the bins.
Read MoreSander is also known for her highly polished Wall Pieces (ongoing since 1986) as well as for her 3-D bodyscans of the living person (ongoing since 1997). As Harald Welzer noted about the latter series: 'Since most of these people are also actors in the field of the arts, now as artworks in the context of exhibitions they gain a certain degree of self-awareness.'
Sander lives and works in Berlin and Zürich.
Text courtesy Esther Schipper.
