Ania Bien

Ania Bien (born 1946) is an American photographer. Born in Kraków, Poland, to Polish-Jewish parents, she moved to the United States in 1958, where she studied painting and cultural anthropology. Since 1973 she has lived in Amsterdam. ) in Amsterdam, 1977, and established her reputation in Dutch art circles. She fabricated 18 replicas of the hotel's menu stands, and used them to display the photographs; the purposely large panels could not be examined en masse, requiring observers to move from image to image.

Some of Bien's work is concerned with Franz Kafka; one of her photographs has her place her hand on a portrait of Kafka's, in response to a note he wrote in 1924 to Dora Diamant, "Place your hand on my forehead for a moment, so I can gain courage." Her 1989 installation Past Perfect asked "what would have happened had [Kafka] not died in 1924, but instead had come as a refugee to America in the late '30s."

Bien is interested in war, discrimination, and the plight of refugees.

Bien has also exhibited at Portfolio Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam.