Art Talks: Batia Suter

Swiss-born, Amsterdam-based artist Batia Suter studied at the art academies of Zürich and Arnhem (NL), and was also trained at the Werkplaats Typografie. Suter produces monumental prints of digitally manipulated images for specific locations, and works on photo-animations, image sequences and collages, often using found pictures. In 2007 she published Parallel Encyclopedia (Roma 100), followed by Parallel Encyclopedia #2 in 2016 (Roma 284), containing a large composition of images taken from books she has collected along the years. Surface Series (Roma 160), published in 2011, is an evocative montage of found images exploring the diverse resonances of geological landscape and visual surface. The underlying themes of Batia Suter’s practice are the ‘iconification’ and ‘immunogenicity’ of images, and the circumstances by which they become charged with new associative values. Her work intuitively situates old images in new contexts to provoke surprising reactions and significant possibilities. By this method, and with an attuned sensitivity to hidden harmonies and expressive accidents, Suter thus generates hypnagogic spaces where pictures can communicate by their own logic, in a force field of imaginative metamorphosis.

Recent exhibitions include the 2018 ‘Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize’, The Photographers’ Gallery, London (group); ‘Some Things Hidden’, Framer Framed, Amsterdam NL (group); 2017 ‘Flawa – Solo Annaquato’ in collaboration with Katinka Bock / Colli independent art gallery, Rome; ‘Arts & Music Festival Horst’, Castel van Horst, Sint Pieters-Rode; ‘Les Nouveaux EncyclopŽdistes’, Fotografia Europea 2017, Reggio Emilia (group); ‘Spaces without drama or surface is an illusion, but so is depth’, Graham Foundation, Madlener House, Chicago (group); ‘A L’Antique’ Musee des Antiquites (RMM) & FRAC Normandie, Rouen (group); 2016 ‘3500m2’ Rome (group); ‘Where the Other Rests’ Les Rencontres de la Photographie Arles (group); ‘Artists’ Documents: Art, Typography and Collaboration’ MMCA, Seoul (group); ‘For Every Purpose’ P-Exclamation New York (group); ‘Artists’ Documents: Art, Typography, and Collaboration’3F Digital Information Center, MMCA Seoul (group); ‘For Every Purpose’ P-Exclamation New York (group), ‘Quickscan’ Fotomuseum Rotterdam (group).

Parallel Encyclopedia #2 Extended